LED Off-Road Lights?

[BlackWorksInc]

So if any of you have been keeping up with technology these days, LED lighting has evolved to be powerful enough to replace vehicle headlights. Audi, Mercedes, and BMW already use them in their vehicles.

Now that the technology has advanced enough, I've been looking at some LED Off-Road lights out of curiosity more than anything. I have to wonder if anyone on the forum has had experience with them?

I'd love to hear your guy's thoughts on this and any experience you've had with them.

 

[LovesBass]

The rigid industries full size rectangular LED box light is like over $1,000. Looks really cool and I love the look of LEDs, but I'm not willing to drop 1G on a light...

 

[kylebacc]

They are expensive as heck, but I'd buy them if I had the money. In particular, Vision X:

Home - Vision X USA

 

[Clemsonfan15]

They are really cool, but as the people above me have mentioned, very very expensive.

I'd wait a year or two and the prices will probably go down substantially.

 

[Zulu95]

I have been using high power LED flashlights for years and wondered when they would get around to using them in vehicle lighting. At the moment it is a case of "leading edge, bleeding edge" and, just like HID, the prices will decrease with market penetration. Just watch out for the cheap and nasty imports from the far east. I bought some LED bulbs for some of my flashlights and found that the lights would overheat, cut out and only reset after they had cooled. While it was nice that they had overheating protection built in having your headlights cut out on the Interstate is not that cool!

 

[kylebacc]

Yeah the overheating thing is what took so long to get to cars. Thats the one problem the car makers were having issues with for years. I think the Lexus LS430h was the first with LED headlights.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

The first manufacturer to use LED only headlights was Audi, they came on the A8 I believe.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Small update, found this website while flipping through some older threads about other stuff. Haven't looked too far into this brand but they see relatively affordable compared to the 1k+ prices I saw earlier.

Slee - LED Lights

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Another update, was surfing the web last night and saw these, reminded me of the thread:

First picture came from: FJ Cruiser LED Light Mount | Editorials Blog & Discussion at 4 Wheel Drive Magazine
Second from: DawgRunner's Build - Toyota 120 Platforms Forum

 

[krupnation]

Those are intriguing to me. I'd love to see what they look like in the dark...

 

[darkie3495]

Pics taken from Toyota120 - Big Bear 2011 Report.

Courtesy of DawgRunner:

You can see the light spread surrounding Expat's truck

 

[OdinWiski]

Good observations on avoid being the early adopters!

It's in general a good practice to watch out for cheaply imported products, but a generalization is just that - a generalization. Everyone should really do a lot of research and really learn about the product they are interested in, regardless of whether it's made in the good ol USA or imported from Germany or China.

I had been using Fenix LED flashlights exclusively until 4Sevens came on the scene. And their performance, quality, and durability, espcially when taking the price levels into consideration, which means "value", blew most everyone else out of the water. And they are made in China

Now I mostly buy 4Sevens. No way I'm spending $300-400 on a Surefire when I can get a better performing 4Sevens for $60-70! But I still use Fenix products and think they offer great performance and value.

Same thing can be said for a lot of blades that are made overseas and offer exceptional values when you consider performance, quality, durability, and price pionts. Former RAT's Model 1 comes to mind