Light bar advice

I'm thinking about putting a light bar on my Tacoma. I will either mount it in the gap of my bull bar or on the roof, but that isn't my problem. I'm looking for a quality brand of bar that won't destroy my wallet. Anyone think they know the best bang for your buck light bar company/ brand. I'd really appreciate any advice you can give.

 

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Welcome. And just sayin, you will have better luck posting in the lighting section But, do some searching first. LOTS of threads regarding this very question. And there's lots of debate amongst all different bars and brands and quality. But I'm gonna go ahead and throw this out there, for any new guys that stumble in here. Someone should really make a write-up, hell this might be considered one after I'm done, ha... But this will mostly be my own personal experiences. I'm sure others will have more feedback and more suggestions better than mine but I'll share anyways, even though I'll probly get carried away with this..
Personally, I don't recommend any name brand bars. For one reason only, you're paying for the name. Sure you will get a lot more light and quality in some cases but not by a significant amount that I would pay 6x more for it. And it WILL break your bank for sure. From what I've read, and from personal experience, "you get what you pay for" is not typically associated with light bars. IMO, Vision x is probably the top of the tier. Even though others will disagree. It's kinda unknown as far as reviews regarding build quality because of their ridiculous price and no one wants to spend that much. But from what little I've seen/heard, they are the ones to go with if you want the best. On the other hand, as far as name brand, you have rigid industries, Baja designs and a few others that I won't even mention because again I don't recommend them, and because they are all pretty expensive if you are looking to save a few hundred bucks. And, I have heard of issues with most, although not enough to highly disregard them, because they do make pretty awesome products. But as far as rigid goes, I've recently been hearing more and more leakage/condensation issues pop up. I've heard of some issues with others like ones people purchased off Amazon. Can't remember what brand they were. Also seems like a couple had issues with okledlightbars. Anyways, that's just what I've heard. But yeah, I would rather buy some cheaper off brands and have 6x more lights than the guy who could only afford the one name brand bar. Then there's the argument that one name brand bar would be the same as all the cheaper ones combined, but this is definitely not true. Maybe with vision x or perhaps Baja designs or maybe even rigid, they'll have a bar that outperforms a couple cheap bars combined...

So what do I recommend? China knock-offs. Go to eBay, look at all the different types of bars, compare them to higher name brand bars and find some that look nice. Go with a seller that has a very high positive feedback score. And ones that sell a LOT of different lights. Check out their store and see what all they have to offer. If they only sell a couple lights, go somewhere else. I chose a seller that sold pretty much nothing but lights, and all the same build type and all the same leds, which were Cree. Those are the ones you want to look for. Not Epistar. Epistar is probly the lowest tier of them all. Then Cree, then luminous. Those are the only ones I know of off the top of my head that are mostly commonly used. Vision X uses luminous in theirs. But Cree is a pretty awesome led. I don't even know what rigid uses. Haven't researched them or much others at all. Saying that makes me sound like I'm talking out of my ass, but I'm sure others would agree that there's a lot of truth to all this. And the haters will hate anyways..

I personally have purchased all my bars on eBay which shipped from China. The seller was 'Sunyee International'. They have some pretty nice lights. I believe they make and produce them. Not just a reseller. All of mine are the 10 watt Cree led bars. Knock-off replicas of the vision x evo prime. And I am very satisfied with them. the ONLY con I can mention, is the finish. Pretty crappy paint that scratches easily. But it's just paint. I can repaint them or even disassemble them and get them powder coated somewhere pretty cheap. It came shipped with a few little scratches, but it was shipped from China to az, in a fairly crappy box with no bubble wrap just some foam retainers, so no surprise there. But I'm completely satisfied and I have a shit ton of light, with 4 bars(42"/20"/x2-8" bars) for half the cost of a single name brand bar. With no leakage issues or even hazed lenses like I thought they would get quickly.

So anyways, do your homework, research the products, take in as much information as you can before making a decision. And take my suggestions however you want. Because you really don't want to deal with a headache after you've already spent time and money on purchases and installs. I'm just glad I lucked out with China products. Because I was taking a risk myself. I knew I didn't want to (/couldn't) spend a ton on lights, and didn't really know how good/bad the quality would be. But I'm loving my setup. With all my lights including projectors, I'm putting out about ~44k lumens right now. And I'll be adding more Probly another roof bar to double stack, and a couple 4.5" round led light cannons. Then it'll be complete and pushing about 70k lumens!!

And I'm not saying you NEED to get that many lights to be comparable, or to have enough light. I already have more than enough. And I'll probly have too much when I get more... I usually tell guys that ask about what kind of optics they need, to go with an led light bar for a ton of flood light. Then some nice led cannons, or even hid cannons, for the spot/throw/distance lighting. You could have an amazing setup with a mid size led bar, and some cannons. Maybe a couple little flood ditch lights. For around $500 give or take depending what brands/lengths you get. This pricing is based on eBay bars, mid level led light cannons (remanufactured Chinese ones from a local reseller here), and eBay led pods/ditch lights.

Oh, and the prices on my bars:
42"-$350
20"-190
(2) 8"- $142

Plus a 2nd 42" and the cannons I wanna get......
$1242 total.

So for about the price of one name brand bar, I'll have 7 lights and tons more light output, and an even spread of light postioning them in such a way that I have about, say maybe 140-160 degrees of usable light in front of the truck If not more than that.