you probably want to have different optics to get a nice gradual fill of light near field and longer throw. either one bar of all spot and the other all driving or mix and match. if you buy both as spots and then try to just angle them you'll end up with 2 hot spots that will be distracting and mess with your night vision.

I was either going to do spot beams in the upper grill and combo in the lower, or combo in both locations. Thoughts?

cant go wrong with either choices. I think a combo light has better resale value if u decide to get rid of it one day.

Alot of the bling brands' combo or driving lights is heavily skewed towards spot light performance, so you'll be okay since you seem to be planning on getting some bling bling lights.

so the lights im running is a combo on both upper and lower, but it's really 80 percent spot, 20 percent spread.... You can definitely see the spot light cut off in the upper grill, and not alot of light scatter due to the grill and bumper cutting off the light... Whereas, the lower grill area, you get better light dispersion (30 inch in low profile/hybrid bumper). However, there is enough light scatter that there is literally a wall of light in front of me and far off in the distance. Both light bars are aimed close to the same focal point.

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OK I'll ask. What's a bling brand? Is that the expensive stuff (BD, DD) or the more moderately-priced Amazon stuff?

I have a BD S8 20" driving combo currently. It is 12 spot and 4 wide lenses, so 25% wide.

Good point about resale.

I am actually torn between two brands: Baja Designs and Diode Dynamics.

I know this makes it sound more like a fog-light shootout, but this is for an 18-20” upper grill light and a 30” lower grill light.

Diode Dynamics 18” light bar: upper grill

Stage Series 18 inch White Light Bar

Diode Dynamics 30” light bar: lower grill

Stage Series 30 inch White Light Bar

Stealth Lightbar Kit for 2014-2019 Toyota 4Runner

Baja Designs ONX6+ 20” light bar: upper grill

Baja Designs - OnX6, LED Light Bars

Baja Designs ONX6+ 30” light bar: lower grill

Baja Designs - OnX6, LED Light Bars

https://www.bajadesigns.com/products...Mount-Kits.asp

On paper, the Baja Designs claim WAY more light output with super high (lumens) numbers. However I haven’t heard a single bad thing about the Diode Dynamics light output - even though their published numbers are significantly lower than most of their competitors. The ONLY thing I don’t like about the DD lights is that that don’t seem to have a truth combo lense, but you have to put a flood lense on the entire 6” portion of the light…. If not, it’s all just one big spot beam.

As for the Baja Designs, if I go that route, I’m looking at the ONX6+ lights. The are physically larger, but only slightly more expensive than the S8 bars - yet that have literally twice the output!!

What are your thoughts/recommendations?

bling brands = expensive stuff (BD and Rigid), and then there is everybody else.

With two light bars in front, you are going to have crazy amounts of light with either brand. I wouldn't worry about output :-)

I think the most important factor is light color if you are going with white. DD for some reason uses 6k white which a lot of people report gives them eye fatigue over long periods of driving. I have a friend that installed, used, and then removed one of their light bars for that reason, and the owner of HotShot Off-road told me that he converts a lot of DD yellow lights to white just to get warmer color temperature for his customers. (I guess the LEDs in DD yellow lights is 4k white underneath the lens.)

BD uses 5k white, which is warmer so easier to look at over time. That made the choice simple for me. Their combo lens also does a nice job at balancing wide and spot.

The 20" BD already throws a ridiculous amount of light. By the time I add a 30" as well, it will be more than sufficient.

So you are going to do a 20” and 30” is well? Are you doing the S8 or the ONX6+ versions?

I already have a 20" S8 driving/combo in the upper grille.





It fits perfectly/kinda stealth, it's an easy no-drill install with a $20 SDHQ mount, and it's plenty bright for most of what I do on forest roads and trails.

I'm going to add a 30" BD S8 driving/combo in the lower grille at the same plane as the fogs using the Rago mount. Again no-drill easy reversable install, and I can't imagine needing more light. To be honest, while it will be nice to have more light driving in the mountains at night (wildlife etc.) I'm doing it as much to have some fun as anything. #WhyWeMod.

I like the more compact design / symmetry with the top bar too, since I already have one.

If you are set on the ONX6+ maybe just start with the 30" bar and see how it works ... from the reviews I have read, 100% have been along the lines of "I can't imagine needing a brighter light."

The Baja lights are going to be brighter/throw further, most likely. For the 18 inch bar, it's only pulling 80 watts (less than 5 watts per chip, 18 chips). The OnX6 has nearly triple that power consumption in the 20 inch bar, at 18 watts each for 12 chips. Even though the DD bar will have a tighter focus (less wasted/spilled light) due to the TIR optics, the Baja bar will shine further just with brute power and fairly large reflector bowls. And some prefer the extra spill for periphery lighting.

There are only 3 optics for the DD bars: driving, flood, and fog/wide. They do not offer spot patterns, as the driving pattern is cast directly into the TIR optic. A driving pattern is similar to a spot pattern, except it has a slight horizontal spread to light up the full width of the road ahead. A clear lens is placed over a driving optic to leave the pattern unmodified, while the fog/wide optic modifies this horizontal spread further. The flood lens modifies and spreads the pattern vertically and horizontally. You can make your own combo by changing any of the 6 inch segments.



All of the chips used in the Diode light bars are the same 5700K flat white color, regardless if you choose white or amber/yellow. Because of this, the amber lenses have a lot of heavy color filtration in order to reduce any green/blue hues. This makes the amber lights much less efficient, losing about 40% of output from the clear lenses.

The pods are newer, and have a lot of improvements. Instead of two piece optics (TIR and lens modifiers), all of the optics are single castings. Choices are increased to spot, driving, fog, flood, and combo (half driving, half flood) and power levels are sport, pro, and max (SS3 only). The yellow lights have 4000K warm white chips, meaning that their lenses need a lot less color filtration and they only lose about 8% of the output compared to the clear lenses.

Baja has strong pod light offerings as well, but the Diode pods excel when extreme focus is needed (spot, driving, fog) due to the superior optics. As a reminder, the $90 sport spot SS3 (a 3 inch pod) shines further than the $1K Baja XL Laser (a 5 inch laser pod). And fog lights aren't even a contest: each level of the SS3 fog is an incredible upgrade, while the BD SAE squadrons are dimmer than factory halogen lamps.

I chose the DD 30" bar for my roof bar (seen here flanked by Baja S2 pros as ditch/dust lights) mostly because it was the one of the few that would fit in this 3 inch slot.



The biggest benefit over reflector-based bars though, was that it doesn't glare the shit out of my hood and blind me because of that tight pattern control. This control is a lot less important when mounted in your grill though obviously.

As for the color, I would consider the 5700K white to be fairly neutral, maybe a touch colder than the 5000K that Baja uses. The chips in the white DD pro driving lights are 6500K though, and you can definitely see the blue here compared to my roof bar.



That's why I switched to the 4000K driving lights (yellow lamps with clear lenses). Much better.



For grill bars: If you want raw power and don't mind spending the money, go with Baja. If you want tighter focus or street legal patterns, go with Diode. If you want to completely blow Baja out of the water with both power and focus, get an SS5 bar.

I think I'm going to try to mount a DD 18'' (really 20'') bar inside the upper grill area of my 2021 once the Memorial Day sale hits.

I was going to experiment along those lines when I add the 30" BD 'driving combo' ...

The factory setup for the 30" is three banks of LEDs, and each bank has 8 LEDs - 2 wide LEDs and 6 spot. I'm going to get a replacement lens and make the middle section all wide lenses to get more near-field light.

Hey @mrblah how did you aim the two light bars?

I called Baja Designs and they said to aim the lights parallel to the ground ... 25 feet from wall, measure distance from ground to light bar, put tape at the same distance on the wall, point the lights at the two pieces of tape.

Good thread here! I have a 22' TRD ORP and I was wondering what lights to run in the upper grille area. This has def given me some options.

thats probably better than what i did. my top light bar is lined up with the high beams and then my lower light bar was aimed right below it. It looks like one big focal point off in the distance. Where I live, I just went to a large empty field to aim mine to where it works for me.