LED Locations

snivilous

Senior Member
Hey dudes,

So this weekend I went up the mountain to rescue some guys, and my front LED bar (20" dual row, 4k lumens) just wasn't cutting it for what I wanted. It's a flood setup so the light goes everywhere and nowhere. My side LED bars (30" single row spot, 9k) have a TON of penetration, literally you can see the side of a hill probably a 1/4 mile away and yet they still have enough stray light that they provide about as good of a flood effect as the dedicated flood light.

So I got thinking I would upgrade my front LED bar to something brighter and that will penetrate better, so I started looking around at single row 40" bars because I ASSUMED that would fit on my front bumper and look nice. Well I prematurely made an offering on eBay saying to drop the price $50 ($200 shipped) and they accept it... Now I measured the truck, and I don't have an extra 10" on either side of my 20" bumper LED bar:

2C3095AC-FD17-47A2-BB99-D52EAD21481B-595-0000004C1EEF0E15_zps7ec88027.jpg~original


So I could move the new bar back towards the grill, so then it won't hang off the sides where the bumper bends back, or have it near the same location of the current one and it will stick out 3-4" past the folds in the bumper (like the hi-lift does) though I don't think that would look very nice... I measured the roof, and it looks like the roof rack is about 40" wide, so I could mount it in front of the roof rack like I see some people do and a lot of buggies/trophy trucks.

My question is, do you get glare off the hood from that? And for people that have run roof bars and bumper bars, is there a preference? I can see having it on the roof will provide a higher light, and will move it back so the stray light that floods out will help the peripherals more (not that I need that so much); though it will also get wacked by branches and stuff. My side spot lights are inline with my roof rack so they remain aerodynamic and don't get caught on very much, a front one obviously would be more in harms way unless I got a roof rack air deflector which I don't really want to do right now. Opinions? I'd like to keep the bar on the front, but since I can't have it sit flush with front of the bumper without hanging over I'm not sure how sexy it'll look...
 
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I'm a fan of roof mounted lightbars, but then again I work in public safety so I'm used to it. Haha. Speaking from that stand point with our LED bars on and flashing I haven't really noticed too much hood glare but our bars are also set back onto the roof more. I have seen some police agencies paint the hoods of their cars flat black to help combat glare when they use A-pillar mounted spotlights though. You could always mount it up and if the glare is bad then plasti-dip the hood black. I think that could look sweet with the white and if you don't like it then just peel it back off :D
 
I'm a fan of roof mounted lightbars, but then again I work in public safety so I'm used to it. Haha. Speaking from that stand point with our LED bars on and flashing I haven't really noticed too much hood glare but our bars are also set back onto the roof more. I have seen some police agencies paint the hoods of their cars flat black to help combat glare when they use A-pillar mounted spotlights though. You could always mount it up and if the glare is bad then plasti-dip the hood black. I think that could look sweet with the white and if you don't like it then just peel it back off :D

Yea, I hadn't thought about that since the roof rack starts a couple feet back from the windshield...
 
I know my roof rack mounted light bar blinds me if my windshield is dirty. It's not too bad if the windshield is clean. Granted, it's aimed too low, and it sits pretty close to the windshield. If it was aimed right, I don't know if it would be a problem. And since it looks like you'll somehow be mounting it up to the stock roof rack, that might be far enough back where you wouldn't even have to worry about it.

Did you go spot beam for the 40" bar? That's what mine is, and as you've already noticed with your other lights, it still provides enough light off to the sides that it really doesn't make sense to get anything but the spot beam, IMO.
 
I know my roof rack mounted light bar blinds me if my windshield is dirty. It's not too bad if the windshield is clean. Granted, it's aimed too low, and it sits pretty close to the windshield. If it was aimed right, I don't know if it would be a problem. And since it looks like you'll somehow be mounting it up to the stock roof rack, that might be far enough back where you wouldn't even have to worry about it.

Did you go spot beam for the 40" bar? That's what mine is, and as you've already noticed with your other lights, it still provides enough light off to the sides that it really doesn't make sense to get anything but the spot beam, IMO.

Do you have pictures of your light bar? I'm not really digging the idea of the 40" one sitting near the grill and not flush with the front of the bumper, though not sure how nice mounted on the roof would look...

And yea, I got the spot beam. Like you said, there's no reason to get the flood beam really.
 




It's a double row 36". Also, if you want your ebay light bar to stay black, I suggest painting it. Mine turned to gold pretty damn quick haha.
 

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