There was a stage not so long ago where every well modified four wheel drive that drove passed was running a set of HID spotlights. When these came out, they were amazingly bright. Today though, the same thing is happening with LED’s. You can get LED light bars that will put more light out than you can poke a stick at. Whilst they might not have the full range of HID lights, they provide a spread that is nothing short of stunning. If you combine the two together, it’s like driving in daylight 24 hours a day.
LED light bars range from a few inches wide to about 50 inches wide. Obviously the price reflects this, and at the moment they are still relatively costly. I would say the price will drop dramatically over the next few years as technology improves and production costs drop. Look at the LED torches you can buy today – for under $30 you can get a torch that blows almost any torch that is 10 years old away.
It doesn’t just stop at LED Light bars though; you can get little LED work lights to mount on the rear of your vehicle. These use hardly any power, are incredibly bright and will cope with vibrations and weather all day long. You don’t need more than 1 or 2 of these to do a magnificent job. If you want something a little different, its time you looked at LED Strip lighting.
This is particularly popular for interior lighting, as well as lighting inside of a canopy or for the rear of your vehicle. In essence, you can buy a ‘tape’ that is made up of LED’s all connected together. These can be cut every 6 cm or so, to allow you to make up your own strips. To connect them up you just need to solder wire to the terminals and then run them via a fuse and switch to your battery.
For 5 metres of high powered LED Strip lighting, you can expect to pay under $30 on eBay. It doesn’t take too much skill to fit the lighting, and it puts out an awesome amount of light. The tape comes with a sticky side too, so all you need to do is clean the surface, peel the protector off and stick it onto what ever you please.
A lot of people use these for outside entertainment, but you need a way to run them as most are 12V. LED technology has come an incredible way in the last few years, and you can now deck a four wheel drive out without spending much money at all.
