Light bar and ditch lights

I have also had really good luck with auxbeam cubes.
The paint fades but I have seen tacomaworld threads on caliraised and rigid lights having paint issues.. i paid $20 for pair a year ago
For my needs they work great.

 

While we are talking about cali raised light bars, I am about to buy one but can't decide between the spot or combo beam. Any advice or what you all prefer or went with and why?

 

Absolutely nothing wrong with what’s been suggested above. That said, you need to ask if this is more for looks, or performance. And how often will these be used? Spend more money (Rigid, Baja Designs for example) if they’ll get used a lot and you REALLY NEED the performance of a light bar and you’ll be depending on it a lot. If you only occasionally need some extra light and/or want the looks, go cheaper.

 

Immersion testing is interesting if you expect to submerge your lights in water, but I would be having a very bad day if that ever happened to my truck. What I am most worried about up here in Canada is rust on the enclosure due to being hit with salt spray on the highway at 120 km/h for four months of the year. I have seen lots of rusted lights in parking lots, on trucks that couldn't be more than 3 years old.

I emailed one of the high-end vendors about whether they do salt spray testing pursuant to ASTM B117 or G85 test procedures. They did not seem to know what those were, which is maybe not surprising since it doesn't even snow where they live.

I am not willing to roll the dice on a $1000 light bar that might develop rust issues because it was designed for the desert.

 

I've actually researched this a bunch, because I had the same question. I came to the conclusion that it really depends on your need. Do you want a lot of illumination all around you up close (flood) or a much smaller range in front of you and farther away (spot). Sometimes the answer is to have two sets, depending on your need. Regardless, having good, actual spot beams is much more expensive, which will definitely be a factor for a lot of people.

Flood beams:
Almost all LED cubes or light bars -- Amazon, Aliexpress, CaliRaised, and even high end like the Rigids are all great for close-range wide illumination offroads. Even if they claim they are spot beams, they are flood beams. You will blind drivers on the road and really can only use them offroads. If you look at the cube lights it makes sense -- the way the lenses are set up, they are very shallow and small, allowing lots of light in many directions.

Spot beams:
If you need a spot, LED solutions are usually more expensive. There's some cheap "4d" lenses that are more of a spot and way more reasonably priced than single emitter LEDs:

WEISIJI LED Work Pods,4D Lens LED Work Light 20W Headlight Spot Beam LED Work Light Bar for Motorcycle Truck Boat Offroad ATV UTV (2PCS / Pack)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NAJ2TJD However, if you really want a good spot beam, you need something like a VisionX light cannon with a powerful single emitter in a large lens. These will always be more expensive because the larger LEDs are way more costly than the tiny LEDs in the cube lights. An example of a knock-off light cannon is this one:

Audak 2Pcs 25W Spot Beam Round LED Work Light Driving Lights Spotlights for Off Road 4x4 Pickup Truck

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XD358NW/ Looking at the design, it makes sense why the light cannon broadcasts lights farther -- the lens is many times deeper and the single emitter is recessed. The LED in that draws 25w by itself, 5 times the draw of each of the LEDs in the side shooter cube I linked earlier.


In my case, I want a bit more light around the truck, but would rather have a huge projection far ahead of where I'm going. I've ordered literally every light I linked in this thread last week -- the side shooter cube / Rigid knockoff, the 4d spot, and the light cannon vision-x knockoff. I'm going to test all 3 side by side, and return the ones that don't function well enough.

 

Side shooters are on.

 

I chose Cali Raised combo because I don't need long range illumination.

35W HID low


Fogs, Lows, stock High


Fogs, Lows, Cali bar. Bar needs aimed higher, but you get an idea of the output

 

Caliraised light. Awesome products.

 

Here is a really good deal from #Ragofabrication if you need a great light. Wish I would have seen this before I bought my 40”.

 

I would email Auxbeam as well. I've had their products on my truck for 2 years. I'm sure Canada uses more salt than Rhode Island on their roads, but mine have also been exposed to ocean water and sand/salt as well as the road salt and have no signs of rust.

The immersion test was just an example of what this guy has done to Auxbeam products. Here's a few more...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFABvrPGofs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzEWCsGQpm0

I figured if their products and withstand that abuse, they'll be fine on my truck.

I'm sure the other brands would fare just as well, but I haven't seen them "tested".

 

I've got a question all of you guys wiring the Caliraised Ditch/Bar combos:

I'm going to be wiring up the two switches and I want to use the fuse tap method to make the switch LED turn on and off with the truck. I was going to use the dash lights fuse to tap into. Can I run both of the fuse-tap leads coming from the 2 switches to the same fuse tap adaptor? Or should I run two individual fuse taps to two different fuses?

This may be a totally dumb question, but I don't know a whole lot about vehicle electrics. I'm just assuming that the small switch LEDs don't pull much power at all, so that makes me think it wouldn't be too big of power load to run the 2 switch fuse tap wires to one fuse tap. Thanks!!!

 

What did you end up doing with the fuse tap? I'm going with the same set-up and I'm not sure what to do. Also, I heard you have to run with the fuse panel off if you add a fuse.

 

Check out this thread! https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-and-ditch-lights.501302/page-3#post-16952466I commented on it and explained.

 

It's been a while, but I'm posting back with the results.

First up is the VisionX knock-off:

Audak 2Pcs 25W Spot Beam Round LED Work Light Driving Lights Spotlights for Off Road 4x4 Pickup Truck

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XD358NW - I ended up keeping this and mounting it on a tube mount to me SOS offroad concepts streamline bumper:


I was surprised, it pulled a lot of current. 2.81A at 11.9v:


The beam is laser-focused and has great throw. I wasn't able to capture it well and didn't get a picture, but it lit up a small portion of the treeline way past my neighbor's house very well, at ~100 yards. This one won't flood an area with light from a distance, but it will give you a perfectly illuminated spot where you're going.


The 4D lens was actually more disappointing than I expected:

WEISIJI LED Work Pods,4D Lens LED Work Light 20W Headlight Spot Beam LED Work Light Bar for Motorcycle Truck Boat Offroad ATV UTV (2PCS / Pack)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NAJ2TJD - I returned it because my flashlight has a better beam.


It drew 1.1A at 12V:


You can see the center of the beam is illuminated, but there's a lot of spread (look at the trailer to the left lit up) and isn't nearly as bright, which the camera does not capture well. The light faded off just past the bushes that are lit up, meaning this light is worthless as a spot beam. There's just too much dispersion for it to be good at a distance.


Last is the side shooter. Amazon's page for it is this:

$46 Side Shooter LED Lights Auto Power Plus 2Pcs 4" 90W Cube Side Shot Pods Off Road Light Pods Dual Row Work Light Bar IP 68 Waterproof Driving Fog Lights

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07411H21B -- but that doesn't match the exact one I have. I always buy my chinese knockoff LEDs from the Kawell seller; the quality is always exceptional, unlike a lot of the other random sellers. This beam was a flood, so I was expecting broad illumination and got it. I ended up keeping these and mounted them on ditch mount brackets:


It drew 1.49A at 12V:


Again, pictures are hard for comparison, but it had about the same illumination as the 4D lens but as a flood beam, while drawing ~0.4A more current. The "side shooters" are a bit gimmicky, but they definitely do give slight illumination directly to the edge. You can see a clear line cutting off on the right, whereas there's a fade to the left. The one tested here would be the side shooter for the left side of the truck, so it has a hard cutoff on the right edge and a nice fade off to the left. Not captured was the area to my left, which had illumination from the 3 LEDs on the left.

Here's the setup on my taco:

 

Very happy with my Auxbeam 32" 5d light bar. I also have their 20w pods waiting to be installed, maybe in a few weeks. The caliraisedled bracket works great, but if you do use the auxbeam light bar you will have to widen the mounting bracket for the light bar since the hardware is a little bit bigger. I spent about 160 total for the light bar, bracket and CH4x4 switch.

The light output is fantastic for a 80 dollar light bar. I have it reviewed in this thread.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/auxbeam-32-180w-5d-led-light-bar-review-bumper-mounted.534542/