Diode Dynamics light bar

Yellow is great for inclement weather and over all just looks cooler

 

I was thinking that. My brothers has a Jeep with 2 light bars and pod lights, all white. I should be different with the yellow

 

That's the spirit!

 

You may want to consider spending half that price and getting a perfectly-good other-brand light bar.

I have this one: https://www.roughcountry.com/product/30-inch-led-light-bar-70730bl

And it's incredibly bright. I can send pics if that helps you, but it's best noticed in real-life.

If you consider the same size diode dynamics bar is about $250 more (with wiring harness/switch), I'm not sure you'll have $250-worth-of-difference. And even if the DD bar lasts 5 years longer than the RC, I'd rather take that chance by spending less money. RC = Aquafina, DD = Evian. Just as water has SOME differences, it's all water - Light is light, bright is bright - and yes, the DD may have some advantages on the edges, there's not likely a difference enough to be measurable or make your life better, safer, etc. Both have a 3 year warranty on the sites where I found information.



When it comes to color, I believe in the adage: "If you want to see, stick with white light - if you want to be seen, amber is great." I've experienced that to be true (anecdotally) and if I didn't like the look of amber fogs, I'd change them out for white light.

 

Thanks for the reply. I saw a couple of cheaper bars on Tacoma Lifestyle. I’ll look into those options as well.

 

According to the DD website the Stage Series light bars have an 8 year warranty. Plus they are assembled in the USA

 

Was just looking on the link given by the merchant. Still, $150 for a good 30" bar, with the POSSIBILITY that it may not last 8 years, and having to buy a second one in 3-5? years - it's still cheaper.

 

I don't think you can change the lenses out on the RC lights

I'm still sticking with DD lights. Rather support an American company assembling stuff here. My one pod light survived a direct hit this February. Took it off the Taco, bought new brackets and put it on my F150 and works as good as the day I bought it 3 years ago and another 4 or 5 years of warranty.

 

Look at my pics here, on page 14 of the sae j581 high beam thread in the lighting subforum if you want an idea of hkw well the DD lightbar is. Mine's a 12" bar, the 30" will be noticeably brighter and have further reach. You could also buy 2 fog SS6 wide beam optics so you'd end up with a wider beam pattern for nearer the vehicle, with the 3 central driving optics still reaching out ahead of you.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-sae-j581-aux-high-beam-thread.696597/page-14

There's lots of other pics of different lamps as well.

 

I ran the DD 30" hidden light bar in an amber combo and it was quite disappointing. After I made my own brackets pushed it outside the bumper and replaced the outside flood lenses with sae fog and it made a drastic improvement to the bars performance.
But keep in mind the colour tone from DD bar to fog lights is quite different aswell.

That is the combo output next to ss3 pro fogs

That's how the bar was mounted to get that performance. If it is mounted in the hidden position go with all driving lenses or your losing alot of output. Even with shoving it behind the bumper grille it's alot of wasted output.

 

Exactly this. Personally I found the straight driving pattern made road signs almost blinding. I tried swapping the ends to flood lenses and food that made the light too diffuse on the sides.
Changed the end lenses to the wide pattern and am very happy with the overall pattern now.

 

Thanks! I’ll look into the different lenses as well. I’m not really in a hurry to drop 700 on a light bar.

 

Does anyone with the amber light bar find it annoying for clear nights? Or is it just as good as the white? I’m thinking about the driving pattern for the light bar based on the reviews. Maybe amber won’t make the street signs so bright?

 

Its an amber filter, but the resulting light is yellow. I'm, personally, a big fan of yellow lights at night, so im biased, but the selective yellow color from the SS3 and now SS5 pods I have is very easy on the eyes. You get used to it very quickly in the dsrk, it really doesnt look yellow till you see something blue light a sign or another vehicle.

 

That’s good to hear. Yellow looks much cooler as well . Would a driving pattern be better considering my lows and highs are already on when the light bar is on?

 

Honestly for your application ditch lights or a pillar lights in white are a far better choice.
I set up my lighting as entirely situational, uptop is a 42" dd white all driving stage series bar (pretty much never gets used)
On the A pillars are rigid d series pro pods in white spot pattern, these get used the most I set them up to widen the spread of my high beams to see the ditched at distance. Only after running those do you truly see how many deer are actually there.
Those are my clear weather driving lights.
Below I have ss3 pro sae fog in yellow and the 30" amber stage series bars. These get used in heavy snow fog or rain conditions when having light low to see the road in poor visibility is important and the yellow/amber really cuts glare.

 

I thought about ditch lights but like the cleaner look of the truck for now while it’s still new. My fogs do a great jobs of lighting up the ditches far enough for me to stop in time for a deer (angled correctly).

 

Installed yesterday (combo version) and took it out in the dark and very rainy forest to test out.

Very impressed, with one caveat (read below):

High beams:


High beams with light bar:


These are stills captured from a short video where I was doing some comparisons. I'm sitting on a bridge out on a dark FSR in the pouring rain.

The camera doesn't quite do justice to what I'm seeing. The additional light from the bar causes the camera to adjust it's aperture and appear darker than it is. I can easily distinguish the tips of all visible trees, plus well into the turn up the hill in front of me.

So, yes. Satisfyingly super freaking bright. Definitely going to get you in trouble if used on road. And don't be like the jackass I encountered out there the other day who didn't turn off his (or her? more likely his...) also super bright budget backwoods bunny burners upon encountering me around a curve... Dick. Have some courtesy.

My biggest complaint is that when the hot spot is near-field, small vibrations in the mounting brackets are noticed almost as a strobing effect. It's not great, and I was a bit disappointed when I unboxed everything and took out the rather flimsy looking brackets.

At this price point, Diode Dynamics should improve the stiffness of the brackets significantly and replace the ones people have already purchased at cost or lower.

 

Okay, a little more complaining...

While doing the initial testing, I still had it hooked up in a comically temporary way. I went to making it less temporary while I wait for a couple of components to make the sort of clean install I'm after.

Yet again, here's a kit that tries to be too universal. The wires on this thing could probably reach to the rear bumper of the truck and back they're so damn long. How about you sell a kit for a specific vehicle, and have the wiring nicely planned out for length and placement?

Also, the connector for the relay is a loose fit. With the relay bolted to the firewall (as one must guess due to the lack of instructions) the weight of the wiring harness is just about enough to pull it out. Add in some bouncing around, and... no thanks!

The way the relay has been wired, it's impossible to use it with a ground-switched circuit. This is what I intend.

The only part of the harness I'll be using is the long power wires with molded 2-pin DT connector. I'll be cutting this to the length required, and doing the rest custom.

 

I pulled the trigger earlier today and went with the amber driving beam. Then I have an excuse to get some ditch lights in the future while having the best forward range. I won’t be running the light bar when any traffic is around. Unless someone leaves their high beams on coming towards me…then all bets are off Super excited to try out the new light bar!