Just lobbing up a softball here... Rigid lights, worth the price?

I got my whole setup from a company called Black Oak LED. They're a veteran-owned business in the Florida area but will ship anywhere. They make quality product for a great price. I put my setup next to a buddy's Rigid (we have same light builds - 50" over cab and 30" on bumper) and we really couldn't tell the difference. I'd recommend giving them a call. They also do sales all the time and give a solid military discount all year too. Couple pix below.

 

Well I can speak from experience. We run these on our Jeepspeed racer in Best In The Desert racing association. We had a 40" amber light come of our bumper during a race, we later went back and rode the race course to find it had been run over numerous times. We took it home, wired it up and it still worked. Every LED worked.

 

So is this why the are so expensive. The company keeps destroying them? I think if anything like this happened to the lights, I would be more concerned with how my truck was looking.

 

Can I get a black lens on those bars?

 

So why not just buy some other damn lights instead of making a thread to whine about costs?

Personally mid-range LED bars is where I like to sit. I don't waste money on the Amazon special, but I don't like to drop $1k on LED bars either as I'm not racing in Baja. And most of the time even with the cheap ass ones if you reseal them due to a leak they will probably do fine. But I don't like spending hard earned money on crap, or going overkill when it isn't neccessary either.

On a side note all of Rigid's smaller lights, like their duallys and other cubes and flush mounted options are pretty decent prices.

 

Those do look pretty damn fine, a little on the high side of the budget, but if they had a black tinted lens I'd be in for sure

 

@JdevTac has a point here. It really depends on what you're using them for too. If you get a few cubes and just wire them together, you'd probably be able to put out a decent amount of light at a lesser cost.

 

I got mine when they had a 20% off site-wide. That just ended like a week ago, but it comes back frequently. The guys also sponsor me (who know's why. I'm a crazy bastard ) but I think I can get at least a 5% markoff in general.

 

So you can get these. But are you looking for something transparent, yet still black? The product I linked is more of a shield for added protection and to blackout the bar for looks, but not to be used with it on. The amber one is transparent however.

 

Yeah so read the thread, the point wasn't to complain, but try to find out why the higher cost of rigid? if the product doesn't perform, and no one can justify the price tag well then shit fuck!?

I've already got great info from @Taylor@KC HiLiTES and @Ossaris about alternatives I wasn't aware of before this thread.

 

I have been following for the alternatives and reviews.

 

Looking for something that is more transparent. also not a clip on like what my dad wears with his prescription glasses

 

To be honest, you might have some difficulty here. I know transparent black bars exist, but aren't too common cause it's impractical from a design standpoint.

 

How the hell Is that mounted to the cab like that?

 

@dentpusha, I grabbed a set of GG-Lighting mounting brackets and mounted just above the cab.

 

@ATR55 I see what you mean after looking at the Rigid Midnight edition. Haha no comment on the clip-on comment.

Anyway, we don't offer anything like that. I am guessing here, but black that may diminish their performance. I'm looking at their cheapest option for Midnight (the SR-Series) and the differences in their Lux @ 10m specs are pretty significant between their black (in spot, not available in combo beam it appears) and regular combo beam (not available in spot it appears).

 

Exactly that - the darker shade diminishes performance

 

All I am saying is I've seen these threads before and usually it came down to someone whining on a product just because of opinion on cost and nothing else. It has been discussed many times before on countless forums with a lot of good info on why Rigid charges so much, and opinions swing strongly in both directions. I've seen it explained like an analogy to Redbull - they pioneered the market first and everyone else tagged along on their coat tails to provide similar at cheaper cost without the "#1 name". I've seen some shit reviews on Rigid bars leaking and such and then I've seen A++ reviews. Either way, I'm curious why you want a smoked LED bar? You mineswell get something budget friendly because all a smoked lense is going to do is diminish light output so why would it matter what performance was? Unless I am reading that wrong and you are looked for a clear lens bar and will be putting a smoked lens cover/protector on it?

KC hilights prices are almost half that of Rigids, yet still on the mid-high end. My 42" curved bar is from Relentess Fabrication, which now it is few years old, so LED bar tech has changed since then, functions well for my purposes. Main advice I'd give on beam pattern is screw flood for a roof LED bar...not too practical overall. On a dark night it will light up the area in front of you but will basically black out everything around your periphery so to speak, making it hard to see with it on in front. If I had to do it again I would have gone with a straight spot beam, or a combo spot in middle and flood at periphery for a curved bar.

 

Wow, I checked out the Rigid Midnight beam distance. The midnight is in spot, which should throw light further in theory.....but the non-black edition has nearly triple the throw in a combo beam. 937m vs 397m.

Either way, our C-Series 30" has a beam distance of 1129m at about half the cost, plus higher raw lumens and lux @10m











Sorry I'll quit with the specs talk now.

 

The blacked out lens definitely defeats the purpose of the light, I just like that it hides the 30" bar that much more. Really liked the idea of "stealth" light bar that is mounted underneath the grill (did Toyota design this spot for a light bar? its perfect!), and the black lens, but maybe I'll ditch the black lens in favor of overall lumens.