PIAA Chrome 520 Ion Crystal Driving Lights

While rush-building my taco in the fading orange and purple light of the New Mexico desert evenings, every day after work over a three-week period, I realized one evening while laying on my driveway beneath the truck, mid-turn of the wrench, "I haven't bought extra front driving lights?!". Not that the truck really needs it after adding the projector lens headlight housings, and adding LED amber fog lights, but hey, why not add more lights?

I knew from the start, before I even bought the taco, it was NOT going to have massive LED bars across the front and roofline. Following the herd has never been my style.

When I received these lights, the boxes were as spartan as can be. Plain white boxes with nothing inside but lights. No wiring harness, no brackets, no manual. No problem. I had the perfect set of brackets sitting in a box already, and I built my own fused, relayed wiring harness.



I knew I was going to mount the lights upside down under the bar on my new Demello baja hoop bumper, so I popped the grilles off the lights and re-mounted them upside down, so they would be right side up. I also turned the vent tubes 180 degrees so they would still point downward. The grilles are plastic, though they seem durable enough.

The first thing I did was cut off the factory connectors. They are not weatherproof, so in the trash they went. Everything I built on this truck was completed with weatherpak electrical connectors, and these lights were no different. See the below image (weatherpak) vs the above (factory).



If you're going to build your own wiring harness, make sure you take the extra time to do it right, or just buy one. They can be had for less than dinner for one. There's no reason to go the cheapo route. I've seen too many home-built wiring systems where the load (light, etc) is simply hardwired directly to the battery. And I see many charred spots on the sides of roads where a vehicle burned to the ground. Build it with a switched relay and fuse.



While on my overland trip, I generally was setting up camp before dark. I did have a few chances to test them out in the waning hours of the evening though, and here are my notes.

Maybe I'm too used to LEDs and their ability to produce radiant whites now that they've become ubiquitous, but the warm tone of these lights took me by surprise. They are decidedly yellow. Not quite as amber as my amber LED fog lights, but yellow nonetheless. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It does make these better for fog/snow/dust/rain, as the longer wavelengths of light do not reflect off particulate as readily as the shorter wavelengths. My low beams and high beams are right around 5k kelvin color temperature, which is a very neutral white, similar to sunlight at noon. My fogs are amber, maybe about 2.7k kelvin, and these PIAA 520 driving lights are somewhere between; around 3.7k kelvin to my eyes. There likely are replacement bulbs in a variety of color temperatures if you feel the need to change it.

The following pictures were taken with the truck pointed at a tree in a clearing, with some open space behind it and more trees beyond that to demonstrate projection. I wasn't worried about shooting at a flat wall to capture the flood pattern. These lights are all well-developed by established companies, so the flood pattern is not a concern. Keep in mind that my headlight housings are aftermarket, with projectors that produce, in my opinion, better light throw than the factory lights, both in low and high beam mode. Also, these pictures were taken with my android phone, because my camera was set up and ready for milkyway photography. The PIAA lights are aimed about level with the low beams, but wider, so they are pointed a bit more to the sides; just enough to fill in some extra light on the sides of a trail with either the low or high beams on. The way I have them mounted, I could easily get out and turn them to point even further to the side if I needed them for twisty, technical sections of trail at night.

Low beam only


High beam only


High beam and two PIAA 520 driving lights


PIAAs only


The second thing I noticed is that these lights are more spot than flood. Not a pure spotlight, as they do flood a decent amount of light, but certainly more spot than my high or low beams.

The plastic grilles took no damage during my 4000+ mile overland trip, so I'm not worried about them being plastic. It's probably standard material on most offroad lights these days, I'm just used to using metal grills on the motorcycles I've built. These lights never showed a hint of fog or moisture buildup. They did see rain, deep water/mud (though they were not submerged), splashed water/mud, and one serious power-washing about halfway through the trip.

Pulling a large tree out of the path with my Rhino Strap.


I was informed, incorrectly, that these only come in chrome. A quick search online revealed these lights ARE available with a black housing, which I would have preferred. Regardless of whether they are chrome or black, these are handsome lights which will look good on any off-road vehicle.

Conclusion: These lights work well, throw a decent amount of light, and they project far. The color temperature is great for circumstances that might involve fog/snow/dust/rain, and can supplement your current lights nicely; particularly if all you have on your vehicle is bright white LEDs or HIDs, which tend to be worse for visibility in any type of heavy particulate floating around the air.

I would like to compare these lights against comparable LED lights from PIAA to perform an LED vs incandescent shootout. We already know LEDs have an advantage by producing less heat and pulling less amperage. I want to know what you get from the same brand for close to the same price, between LEDs and incandescent. Maybe that will come later.

I received a set of these PIAA lights from @automatcentral at automatcentral.com in exchange for an unbiased review. You can contact them via this forum for sweet discounts on lights and other products.

Sasquatch.

 

Are your bulbs 85 or 55w? I've got a set of the 520 ATP's on my truck (though behind the grill which does cut some light down) and mine don't seem nearly as bright, even after putting in the best 55w bulbs I could get my hands on when the original PIAA bulbs died. Not sure if the internal wiring on my originally 55w setup will take the wattage boost to 85 or 100w, though that's something I can certainly change out with a few tools and material. I've also been eyeing the KC Gravity LEDs that are round for the same 'classic looks' reason.

 

I wasn't sure, so I looked these up on the PIAA website, and they have 85w bulbs. If you're going to change to a higher wattage bulb, make sure your housings are rated for it (if you can't find the max wattage info on your housings, contact PIAA and ask), and that your wire harness can handle it. If you're unsure of your wiring, mctuning has an HD version of their wiring harness for higher wattage lights that I can recommend. I stress tested this harness over a year ago, and it's well built for a good price. I don't like that their connectors are not weatherproof, but you can cut them off and install weather Pak connectors. It can be found on Amazon for $15. Another option, is to buy (quality!) LED bulbs as a replacement. Since LEDs draw far less amperage (and as an aside, will therefore be rated at much lower wattage for the same or higher brightness), you won't need to upgrade your wiring.