Learn Me: LED Lighting

I've added LED driving lights to my RallyMoto DRZ- they work nicely, throw a lot of light, have about the beam pattern I want, etc.

BUT- they are VERY WHITE. I found that this was causing me to hesitate as the super high contrast shadows made it hard to see when bombing through the woods. Is this something I need to just get used to? Should I tint the lights? How? Is there science to this or is it mostly personal preference?

My thought was to use a yellow film to tint them, and remove if I find it cuts the light output too much.

Can you swap out the bulbs for amber or yellow, or a more traditional warm white? If not, tint film is the way to go.

If they are anything like my LED driving lights you cannot change the bulbs.

I'd get used to it. A lot of LEDs are pretty close to daylight in terms of color, and I find them easier on the eyes for a long period. Do you know the color temperature of the lights you're using?

Your problem with the sharp shadows probably isn't the color of the light, it's the quantity.

Claimed 6000K color temperature, cannot change the bulbs. When you say quantity Keith, what exactly do you mean? Too much/too little lumens/sources?

I think you're simply dealing with a lot more lumens. It's going to make for high contrast shadows - but the stuff you can see, you can see better. As long as your light is coming from the same place, there's nothing you can do to soften the shadows or make them smaller. Light placement on the vehicle can help, higher lights will mean fewer shadows on the ground.

6000K is pretty close to daylight. Your eyes like that.

Sounds good, I'll just get some more practice, since this thread is based on one run. With the standard lighting, a visible shadow typically meant I was about to centerpunch whatever was casting it- I need to recalibrate. I can see very well, it's just my involuntary reactions to some of the stuff I couldn't see previously.

5400K is the colour of daylight at noon. 6000K is just every so slightly blueish. I am getting ready to retrofit LEDs on my Disco

The Rigid LED driving lights I mounted on my truck are so bright they cause a distracting amount of glare from road signs. I don't know the color temp on them, but they are crazy bright. And tiny.

the bright I get … but what sort of range do you get with these .. the OEM lights on my '97 F150 aren't much better than the gas powered lights of the early Model T's ...

and, how aim-able are they ?

The range is good (see plot below), and the central "spot" of the beam is aimable, although I don't think you want to run these with any sort of oncoming traffic, as they do not have a sharp cutoff and are completely blinding from the front.

Mine are both spot beams- they spill enough light in all directions that I think the flood beams are probably only good as reverse or work lights.

Tom_Spangler wrote: The Rigid LED driving lights I mounted on my truck are so bright they cause a distracting amount of glare from road signs. I don't know the color temp on them, but they are crazy bright. And tiny.

I just went and looked at these and most have a beam distance of more than 220 meters. I don't know what that equates to in usable visibility but dam that seems good!!!!

In the woods, I'd expect a flood to be a better choice than a spot.

A lot of people in the Wrangler community run Rigid Dually D2s in the stock fog light location. They put out a ton of light but then they can't use them for fogs anymore because even with the spot beam, they throw out waaaay to many lumens to use on the street.

You will get used to the LED temperature. When I replaced my headlights with LEDs, it took a little while to get used to the color and beam shape.

I love LED lights. I've gone full retard on my Wrangler haha

Lets see... KC HiLites LED headlights, Anzo LED turn signals, amber 3w LED fog lights (using as DRLs), Ebay cheapo 17" spot/flood light bar on grill hoop, Black Box Logistics RX5 LED spot lights on windshield (8100lm each!). I like being able to see LOL

Keith Tanner wrote: In the woods, I'd expect a flood to be a better choice than a spot.

When I say woods, I mean large gravel roads, not trails. For trail work I would agree.