New England B.S. Thread

I had trouble with stairs for a couple days the time I went down Cathedral Trail. The whole way down people were telling me "Wow, people don't usually go down this trail." I figured out why very quickly.

 

Yeah, we went up and down Abol. Wouldn't probably have been that bad, but I was lugging 30lbs of surveying gear both ways

 

OMG, I didn't realize it was each!

 

Only reason I noticed was I saw, hey, $500 for good lighting, the truck could use some new fancy lights. Wholly shit, that's each, moving right along...

 

I've been having that experience looking for a quality lightbar to fill up the lower valance on my Ram. "Oh, that one's the right size and is of high quality...maybe I should buy one of----NOPE!"

 

What size do you need?

 

If I remember correctly a 40"
I've got no tow hooks on the front because of the plow frame, so I want one that'll fill up the entire gap. Which means that the good quality models are $$$

Something like this:




I don't want to spend $1000+ on a light bar, but I'm also hesitant to buy a $150 kit because of obvious quality concerns (durability, light scatter, etc)

 

I always look at it this way.. you could 4 or 5 $150 light bars before spending a grand on one. I’m sure they’ll last quite a while even if it’s a cheaper one. I’ve heard good reviews of cheap ones on Amazon

 

True, but I'm still hesitant. Light scatter is a big concern; a lot of the cheaper LED's just blow a bunch of their light power into the trees or onto the road 3 feet in front of you because they aren't focused as well. They say 700+ watts but the actual focused output is closer to 2-300

 

Caliraised seems to be pretty good bang for the buck.

Ive got their fog light pods, had em for a couple years... although the paint is starting to chip off the bodies... Im sure this would probably happen with most any brand though given their location so low down and exposed to all the winter grit we get here.

Ive been trying to find an amber LED bar with a clear lense (actual amber leds)... and yea all the nice ones are $4-600... but Caliraised has one for $250. Its a 32" bar and I really wanted a ~20" to fit it behind my grill, but I think I can squeeze the 32 back there...

 

I have an amber/clear/amber 32” brand new in the box just sitting in my garage that I’m not going to use if you wanna give that a whirl to mess around with just come pick it up.

 

If light scatter is a concern, then you really need to be careful with the pattern you choose. A lot of the bars in that width will be combo bars, which is a stupid concept in my opinion. They light everything for the first 1,000 ft or so but your eyes stay focused on what’s right in front of you because of the amount of light close to the front of the truck. Rigid made an RBS series light bar that I actually really want. It’s a curved bar made up of all hyperspot pattern LEDs. They are pricey, so I ended up with a pair of hyperspot pods that fit the bill.

 

I have their amber pods for a few years now.
Sure there's scatter, but on the backroads to work they sure brighten things up. I get good contrast with the ambers too.

 

Nice score.

And yes. I pretty much stay to myself with my headphones on and usually my music blasting. One or two coworkers I'm friends with outside of work and that's it.

 

That's SNES Classic..no 64 classic yet

 

Did you have it in the lower or upper grille? I can't decide which spot would be better

 

This amber/clear combo bar was never installed. I had a caliraised bar in the bumper on my last truck before I hit a deer then replaced that one with SDHQ dual behind the grill brackets with a pro grill. Seemed like the bumper location had better output but I liked the hidden aspect of the behind the grill.

 

Hmmm interested.... Ill shoot you a PM

Ive been thinking the same thing, but I think I really want to put it in the upper grill so its a bit more protected then the lower grill. Seems like ~20"ish is the best bet for the upper grill - BAMF makes an expensive but nice mount. Ill make my own though using either angle aluminum or square aluminum tubing like this -- https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/more-rigid-industries-led-e-series.254084/ -- Did some measuring before and it looks like at the very bottom of the '15 upper grill there is about a ~28" opening which would leave a little overlap with a 30" bar. I need to go make a cardboard template to see what it will really look like...

 

Morning everyone. Happy Friday eve.