Narva LED Light Bar Review
We’ve been checking out quite a few LED lightbars recently, including some quite innovative ones. There’s always a place for something that’s simple and high quality, though, and the range of lightbars sold by Narva fit solidly in that bracket.
Narva are unusual in not describing their bars by length. The information is available on their website, but the units are classed by their light output. That actually has some advantages of course – if you know what you’re talking about when it comes to lights you can start off with the output you need then see what size you’re talking about. If you’re restricted in the length you can use you’ll also be glad to hear that Narva do both single and double stacked bars.
All sizes are based round 10W high-power LEDs, and the 15000 lumen model – it’s about 40 inches long – has 20 of them in a single row. It’s housed in a neat extruded aluminium case, with a track along the bottom for the mounts. The front lens is high strength polycarbonate and looks pretty much unbreakable. The low profile of the single row bar also minimises the lens area, and should reduce the chance of anything hitting it. The unit is sealed to IP68 standard, so it’s completely dustproof and can stand being completely submerged in water. There are some nice detail touches like the use of Deutsch waterproof connectors, too.
The Narva bar is the second one we’ve seen recently with a track for the mounts. This is quite handy if your vehicle already has mounting holes; you can adjust the position of the mounts to match. The mounts, which are solid cast aluminium items, also allow you to adjust the angle easily once the bar is mounted. It’s a good system and we like it.
Electrically, Narva’s lights can run on anything between 9 and 32 volts, so there shouldn’t be any issues with power supplies. We couldn’t find any references to the colour temperature of the lights but, like most LED bars, it’s a good white light that comes pretty close to natural daylight; you shouldn’t have any trouble seeing by it. Most models are available with a 12° spread that Narva call a flood but we’d say is more like a wide spot. The 6000 lumen (15 inch) and 9000 lumen (11 inch double stack) ones are also available as a wider beam, which really is a flood. Just out of interest Narva also sell several models in a “Marine” version, which are pretty much the same but with a salt-resistant white finish. If you’re fed up with black these could be a good choice.
The Narva LED lightbars don’t break any radically new ground – except maybe the mounting system – but they’re good quality, solid and effective. If you’re after a no-nonsense bar that won’t let you down they’re definitely worth considering.
