Putting on light bar, need help choosing lights

I'm in the market for a light bar and driving lights or fog lights. I need your guys input one which brand to get. I was looking at the hella black Magic because I had a good price tag but seen bad reviews on the brightness or do you think those reviews are wrong. Which lights should I look at and which lights should I stay away from? I'm really not interested in the led kits because I do not want to spend 1000's of dollars on lights. I live in the Tacoma Washington area where it does rain a lot and is foggy majority of the winter. Looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

 

I have a 30" from AVEC. Nice quality and loving every bit of it!

$211 shipped with harness.

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/buy-sell-trade/336748-avec-led-light-bars.html

 

Avec lighting

Link in my sig \/\/\/

 

Please don't use zip ties, they come with brackets for a reason.

 

Thanks fellers!

HMU if you need a bar

 

I say get the Hellas and convert them to 35w 3000k HID. I did it to some Hella 500ff's and they work great in fog/rain. They are fairly cheap and have plastic housings so it is easy to drill hole for HID bulb/grommet. Then ran them off oem foglight switch. My driving lights in the bumper are also HID, run off an oem switch and are 35w 5000k.





Light bar = Smittybuilt which is same as Nfab



But I said this in light of the OPs original post where he stated wasn't really wanting LED. Thinking of a 20 or 22" LED light bar to go between the Hellas on mine just for overkill and because I already have a switch that says LED bar on it, lol...........

 

What do you mean by led kits? Led light bars?

If you want a light bar that is good for driving in the fog/rain in Washington then get an amber one. White ones are just going to make rain and fog your enemy. As far as mounting it, just use common sense. Use the mounting brackets.

 

what's the problem? can't you afford duct tape and rubber bands????

 

what size light bar are you considering? how much are you willing to modify the truck to fit the light(s)?

 

I am planning on getting the nfab light bar that fits four lights. I like the look of the Hellas but want to know if I will be better off spending the extra money getting piaa. I've read that piaa are brighter than the hella just double or triple the price. Or I up in the air about kc to. Also is there must different than a driving light and the fog light. If so would it be a good idea to put two driving lights in the middle and two fogs on the outside?

 

Something like this setup.

 

Hellas are about $40 a pr

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hella-00575...Parts_Accessories&hash=item4871bca2ee&vxp=mtr

and a HID kit for them $40 from DDM

 

I ran 4 PIAA 520 driving lights on an NFab light bar and it was an awesome setup. I originally had 2 driving lights in the middle and 2 fogs on the outside and I can tell you the fog lights were useless. I eventually changed to 4 driving lights and the end result was great.

When it comes to lighting, get the best you can afford. Buy once, cry once. I was able to get one pair of PIAA 520 lights for $110 shipped on Amazon so deals are out there. I wouldn't say PIAA is the top of the line when it comes to lighting either. I really liked those lights but their customer service leaves a lot to be desired and there are better lights out there.

Right now, I'm running a 30" LED light bar from Avec as well as a pair of his pods and the light output is very impressive. I felt like the halogens in the PIAA lights were a more concentrated beam but the 30" light bar makes my headlights obsolete. It lights up absolutely everything in front of you. I've used it in fog and snow and it's worked very well in both situations. Check him out if you want LED, it's more affordable than you originally might have thought.
Here was my old setup:

 

That seems like a good setup at a fair price. For some reason I can't bring myself to like the look of led lights. I guess I'm old school and prefer the round lights. Did any of you not like the look at first but then they grew on you?

 

Pugga, do you have any pics of the pods and how big are they?

 

Hey Bro, that link is for 1 light not a pair.

 

Ok now I'm kind of interested in the avec light lights. Could you guys post some pics of your trucks with the lights. Would like to see some with the pods on a nfab style light bar and interested in the light bar behind the lower front grille. With the pics please let me know what lights you went with. Thanks!

 

OP - I was in the same boat last fall. I like the classic look of the round lights and didn't need the light output of LED's. I wanted a light to run on either Hi or Low beam (I know this may be illegal). I picked up a 3 Tab Defiant Light bar and some Hella Black Magic 500's. I'll leave the center tab blank. I'm thinking that the spacing will be perfect between headlights & the center grill emblem and the size of the 500's is proportionate to the overall front end size. A local truck accessory store had some wired up and I thought they were bright as hell.

I'm waiting for warmer weather to install the bar & lights. I plan on setting them above low beam and under high bean so I can run them on forest/logging roads during hunting season. I like to run high beams to watch for moose & deer in the road, but then I can't see the ruts & potholes directly in front of me. I'm hoping this setup will help with that.

 

So do you think the hella 500 are going to be bright enough?

 

For my needs, yes I'm confident they'll be bright enough. They seemed about as bright as my stock headlights.