Why Choose An LED Lightbar For Your Next Spotlight, Floodlight, Driving Light On Your 4wd?
If you like to take your 4wd vehicle off the road you'll soon find that no matter how good your headlights, you never quite see everything out front. Standard vehicle lights are designed for on-road driving and they work just fine for that, but over rough ground you need something different. High-mounted lightbars are a lot less vulnerable to that, and also reduce shadows cast by bumpy ground. Low-angle lights can leave a lot unseen; a lightbar on your roof fills in a lot of mysteries in time for you to avoid them.
Until recently lightbars used halogen or HID (Xenon) lamps. These are effective, but they have disadvantages. The main one is that they're not very efficient - it needs a lot of power to run them. With halogen lamps the quality of the light they produce isn't ideal, either. It tends to have a yellow tone that makes it difficult to see clearly. HID lamps are better, producing a more bluish light, but they can be extremely expensive.
The good news is that LED lightbars are now widely available and affordable. These have a lot of advantages and they're now the type we recommend. Compared to older lightbars they have many plus points and no minuses that we can find. Here are a few of the reasons we prefer them:
Efficiency.
LEDs do a better job of turning electricity into light than anything else we've found. That means less drain on your vehicle battery, especially when you're using your lights with the engine off.
Illumination.
LED lamps are available in a wide range of colour temperatures, which affects the quality of light they give off. Unlike conventional lights they can produce white light that's almost identical to natural daylight. Because our eyes evolved to work best in daylight this makes them ideal when you need a clear view of the ground ahead. You'll also find that an LED light is a lot brighter than a conventional one the same size.
Durability.
LEDs are solid state electronic components, so they can easily resist shocks that would destroy a normal bulb. When you're crossing rough ground that sort of toughness is exactly what you want. The LEDs are also solidly mounted in the casing, so they project a clear, steady beam. You won't get any flickering caused by vibrations.
Lifespan.
LEDs have an extremely long lifespan compared with halogen bulbs. Treated properly, a good quality LED lightbar will serve you well for up to 50,000 hours. Because they use more individual lighting elements they also stay effective even if a few LEDs do fail prematurely or get damaged.
Older style lightbars can perform well, and they still have their fans. We can confidently say that LED ones are better in just about every way, though. They'll work better, last longer and save you time and money over their lifespan.
