Quote:
Originally Posted by JaxsonConnor
I have had some ditch lights on my 2003 4Runner (4th gen), so maybe I can help you out here. All of the following is my own personal thoughts and experiences after using ditch lights for about a year, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
If I were to do ditch lights again, I probably wouldn't do them at all. Ditch light brackets are meant to hold the LED pods/cubes, and I think they look a bit silly with larger lights on them. Because of that, I found that I wasn't getting the light I was looking for when I put them on there. I always wished the output was more.
I have gone through a couple of lights on my own rig, including spots, hyperspots, and floods. If I were deadset on doing ditch lights, I would 100% do floods and angle them to the sides.
I tried off-brand hyperspots as well as Rigid Hyperspots, and again, it just wasn't really the output I was looking for. It threw great light down range, but in very small, focused circles. That's when I figured I'd try spots. I liked the "beam pattern" better, but again, you're kind of limited just by the 4 LED nature of a pod. Then I did floods angled outwards and that was by far my favorite. I found straight forward the floods reflected off my hood a decent amount, so I
angled them sideways, and they gave me great peripheral lighting without putting lights on a roof rack or anything. Nice for finding a decent place to camp at night.
https://www.tcswebmail.info/ https://www.dadeschools.one/ https://www.upsers.fyi/
Now on to your questions. If you are deadset on pods, I would do some floods angled to the side. Don't think they make many variations of wattage, so not sure it matters too much. Zero wind noise on mine. Wouldn't change anything on my install (although I just made sure to take my time on the install). For floods on ditch brackets, I don't think it is worth investing in high-end brands. Don't go pure shit, but something middle of the road should be more than enough for you. And finally, I think the standard 2x2 pod is the best looking, although you could always go with a bigger pod or circular light if you want. |
Outstanding input, I appreciate it.
I'll take this into consideration for my current ride. I'm pretty keen on managing glare, so I think this is going to be an exercise in finding a careful balance between light throw, light spill, and output power.
I hadn't thought about the limitations of smaller pods, so thank you for that insight.
Quick follow-up, though: I'm thinking through how I might mount a light on a ditch light bracket (although your post is making me take pause on that path), and it was always my intent to turn them maybe 35 to 45 degrees outboard. That is, after all, their purpose: to provide me peripheral lighting. So my questions is: when you angled your floods sideways, are we talking the same as what I have in mind? As in turned outward far enough to get most of the glare off of the hood? Or were you closer to 90 degrees than what I'm thinking?
You've certainly got me thinking twice about smaller pods on ditch light brackets, though. Maybe I'll find a place on my tube bumper that works better.
