A tip from a poor photographer: If you don’t like your lights temperature and they have those transparent protective covers, just buy some colored flash’s and cinema spotlight’s gel at a photography shop (there is a lot of colours to make it warmer or cooler, so if they have a chart with smal samples it’s gonna be easy to find the correct one), cut it at the same size and shape and put it in between the cover and the light. They are ready to deal with a lot of heat and they arn’t flamable. You can also have diferent ones for diferent conditions if u want. Nice instructive videos allways. Thank You. P.D: Sorry for my rusty english.
In Manila, Philippines, We have strict Rules pertaining to putting on Strong Foglights like this. The authoriites will confiscate them if you leave them open.(when used on the streets and hiways). So when we are not going Off-Road an opaque cover is always worn on them.
Finally some one talking lights, thank you. I agree with everything you say in this video. I have a 2022 Suzuki Jimny. I have replaced all exterior bulbs with high quality LED's. The Daylight Running Lights, DRL's / fog lights / was replaced with Fahrens from Amazon as they were the #1 seller at the time. The H4's halogens was replaced with H4 LED's from X7-Seven - which was a massive improvement. All exterior halogens were replaced with LED's from Headlight Revolution, I bought the GTR II's. No, I am not in favor of ugly light bars. Car designers spend millions on car design and then a stupid owner adds an ugly light bar to it... They are not only ugly, many designers of them don't understand simple physics. - Look at the air liners or the fighter jets. Both have one or two light sources in combination with a good / large / reflector that guides the light in front of the aircraft. The idea of many LED light sources NOT centered at the bottom of a tiny reflector is the idea of a moron. One centered LED chip with a large reflector is the idea of a smart person. This why I added extra lights from Sufemotec. Because I understand that one light source centered at the bottom a good reflector makes one good light. Not the other way around. The price of my lights was shy of $40 a pair. Sadly they are only 4" / 10 cm. They could have been 50 to 100% larger. - Edit: I just found that Hella has a new light called Hella ValueFit 7” for around U$100 each. The wide beam is 20W and the pencil beam is 30W. I’d say one pencil beam on each side of one flood beam would be a great combination on the front bumper. If I didn’t have my six lights on my bumper that would probably be my choice. - I have 6 pencil beams, and 4 flood beams, facing forward. All are 30W each. The range is 1,000 meters. At 1000 meters I have 1 Lux which is enough to read a news paper Link to a 30 seconds video of the lights of my car: th-cam.com/video/wObiXsGxn7c/w-d-xo.html
I forgot you had this rig. I haven't seen it for a while. I use a 20' light bar and find it adequate as I do up to 90 km/h at night. It works well because every time someone overtakes me and turns their lights up, they aren't any better except for a truck that passed me once.
@@MadMatt4WD It's good to get unbiased advice on commercial products too and all your videos are unbiased and not an infomercial which is great. Keep up the good work Matt.
Good video Matt. I've been running XTM lights pretty much since I got my car and while they aren't great they do me ok as I tend not to drive at night anyway. I would like to upgrade to a decent set of Spotties rather than all light bars but given how often I use them, I really can't justify the costs. Having that light when you are travelling though is great and being able to clearly see things makes a huge difference.
I wanted to do this video so people can buy lights with decent information and considerations they may not have thought of. But I certainly understand we all have different needs and $.
@@MadMatt4WD It's good information to have, that's for sure. If I do end up going a set of Spotties I will be looking at a number of different things not just price.
@@Malc664 I used to have 2 KC amber spot light, a RIGID flood light on the roof and a old used fitefighter truck spot light tha turns with a controler for recovery (im a Firefighter so I got my hands on one bjt they usualyy cost an arm and a leg !!)
Hi Matt, Great video! My budget doesn’t extend to affording expensive lights so I run kings 9” lights, they’re cheap but work well for me. The only real problem is with the light reflecting back off large signs that can be blinding at times. I’m not sure what can be done to reduce this other than dropping to low beam. I have a light bar fitted to the front of my rooftop tent but I haven’t wired it up as yet because I’m not sure on the legalities of lights mounted so high. If you could shed some light (haha) on how to correctly wire up my light bar, that would be greatly appreciated.
The lower colour temp lights will help with flashback but it’s always a problem. The light bar you just need a wiring harness which is easy to come by. Lots of videos showing how to do it.
@@MadMatt4WD next time you're passing through Kalgoorlie I can show you. I run a Baja Designs stealth bar under the roofrack, a pair of Fyrlyt 9000's on the bullbar and have bi-xenon headlights on a Discovery 4. Best lighting I have ever had on any vehicle.
Similar to high beam lights, if you are driving on highway with lots of oncoming traffics, you won't be able to use the high beam lights much too. Unless your car come with those modern adaptive matrix high beam lights that can self-adjust.
It would be great if road sign reflector technology changed. Allow the sign to be lit, but not bounce it straight back at you. My lights are great in the outback, but on a highway with road signs everywhere, the reflection is just too bright and counteracts any benefit you would otherwise get in terms of reduced eye strain.
Retroreflective material isnt going to change, due to the nature of reflectors sadly. if it did you wouldnt have a refelctive sign... but 100% agree colour temp helps and Not having excess light spill out in trees etc. As if its bright enough to light up the surrounds by reflecting off the trees its refelecting back at you too.
My spotties might be wired differently from yours. My spotties are wired as we do it in Europe. My spotties can only be turned on in combination with the factory high beam. I.e., they turn on when I push the high beam lever forward. That said, at the front of my car I have 3 “groups” of lights. From bottom to top they are: #1, at the license plate I have a flat light bar fog light that is aimed to light up the gap under the fog but above the tarmac. #2 are two flood beams & two pencil beams on the bumper, all are 30 watts and 10 cm in diameter. #3 are the six on the roof rack. Two flood beams and four pencil beams, same brand and size as the ones on the bumpers. If ever, I would like to replace the two flood beams on the roof to pencil beams. #4 is the ditch light on the left side of the roof rack. #5 is the ditch light on the right side of the roof rack. All 5 have individual relays under the bonnet. All relays use an individual ground wire. These ground wires have been pulled inside the cabin. Inside the cabin they were given an individual push switch. As I had 5 blind spots on the left side of my steering wheel I used those and bought the switches from AliExpress. It’s a standard Toyota switch, I’m told. This setup means that I can choose which extra lights to be turned on in combination with the factory high beam. Because sometimes more isn’t better. And with this setup and wiring I can flash all my extra lights instead of honking, which I prefer. Wiring was one size larger than recommended by charts. All possible connections were soldered, a few were crimped with dielectric grease. All wires and soldered points were zip tied to avoid vibration damage. Voltage loss from alternator to the last light in the loom is 0.2 volts which I consider a job well done. With this setup I have a theoretical Lumens value of 46’000. For fun I googled the value of the sun and was told it’s between 30’000-100’000 depending on the weather. Yes, I have a heck of light in front of my vehicle and I love it.
@@MadMatt4WD I have daylight in front of my car. It’s a heck of a lot and I like it. That said, I was very lucky finding the lights. With the price of only U$40 a pair it’s one very good deal so far. Time will tell if they last as long as the manufacturer says, ie 50’000 hours. Time will also tell if the polycarbonate lenses will remain clear or turn yellowish over time. I keep my fingers crossed…
Matt, was wondering if you've done a piece on fog lamps... I'm in coastal New Jersey so fog can be an issue. I used to run SEV Marchal amber fogs (40 years back ☺), haven't set up any lately...
Thanks for the info Matt. I remember my first light bar. A cheapie off Ebay. My god it was good for the price. Unfortunately, it was damaged in an accident. Had 2 name brands since (1 of which is a current ARB single row light bar) and they're not worth the plastic their made from. Absolute cr@p. The road signs just light up so bright back at me, I'm blinded.
Yes you’re correct but it’s also applied to lighting as a measurement of the heat. In lighting, Kelvin is the unit used to measure the color temperature of a light bulb. The Kelvin scale is based on the idea of heating a black body radiator, which absorbs and emits energy. As the temperature of the radiator increases, the light it emits shifts from red to orange, yellow, and eventually white.
Your really only need a lightbar, something like the 4x4 superstores thin lethal one is a great all reound cheap performer, yeah you can bitch and moan about its cri etc etc etc. But for $99 you can literally buy 5 of them for the price of one brand name bs spottys that do almost odentical a job. and regarding 2kms away....anything that far away of a night is stupid. Your not driving a fking 70tonne truck. If your reaction time needs 1km+ to react, please hand in your licence. And any peripheral light within 1 to 3 m in front of the vehicle is useless unless your crawling. Ie at 60kmh even with f1 driver response times your not gunna react in time. CRI plays little to no diference of a night because of the way our eyes work of a night time. Colour temp is important. CRI means fuck all unless you want to take colour acurate photos. Yeah ok it your sitting there looking at blades of grass, good cri, but your most likely moving at a speed where looking at the colours of the fucking trees is pointless anyway. End of the day, All the leds are made in china, apart from a few rare older ones and it comes down to a fishing lure market, ie painted up shiny to entice the fisherman more than the fish.
Good advice from someone who actually knows what people want to actually know before spending good money on lights 👍
Thanks mate.
Here in Colorado we have snow. Lol
I use a yellow flood light its awesome in storms. I also have ditch lights and LED headlights and fog lights.
Yeah I dont have to deal with snow.
A tip from a poor photographer: If you don’t like your lights temperature and they have those transparent protective covers, just buy some colored flash’s and cinema spotlight’s gel at a photography shop (there is a lot of colours to make it warmer or cooler, so if they have a chart with smal samples it’s gonna be easy to find the correct one), cut it at the same size and shape and put it in between the cover and the light. They are ready to deal with a lot of heat and they arn’t flamable. You can also have diferent ones for diferent conditions if u want.
Nice instructive videos allways. Thank You.
P.D: Sorry for my rusty english.
That’s a good tip. Thanks
In Manila, Philippines, We have strict Rules pertaining to putting on Strong Foglights like this. The authoriites will confiscate them if you leave them open.(when used on the streets and hiways). So when we are not going Off-Road an opaque cover is always worn on them.
Oh really. Thats a shame.
@@MadMatt4WD -yup. thanks and regards
Finally some one talking lights, thank you. I agree with everything you say in this video.
I have a 2022 Suzuki Jimny.
I have replaced all exterior bulbs with high quality LED's.
The Daylight Running Lights, DRL's / fog lights / was replaced with Fahrens from Amazon as they were the #1 seller at the time.
The H4's halogens was replaced with H4 LED's from X7-Seven - which was a massive improvement.
All exterior halogens were replaced with LED's from Headlight Revolution, I bought the GTR II's.
No, I am not in favor of ugly light bars.
Car designers spend millions on car design and then a stupid owner adds an ugly light bar to it...
They are not only ugly, many designers of them don't understand simple physics.
- Look at the air liners or the fighter jets.
Both have one or two light sources in combination with a good / large / reflector that guides the light in front of the aircraft.
The idea of many LED light sources NOT centered at the bottom of a tiny reflector is the idea of a moron.
One centered LED chip with a large reflector is the idea of a smart person.
This why I added extra lights from Sufemotec.
Because I understand that one light source centered at the bottom a good reflector makes one good light. Not the other way around.
The price of my lights was shy of $40 a pair.
Sadly they are only 4" / 10 cm. They could have been 50 to 100% larger.
-
Edit:
I just found that Hella has a new light called Hella ValueFit 7” for around U$100 each. The wide beam is 20W and the pencil beam is 30W.
I’d say one pencil beam on each side of one flood beam would be a great combination on the front bumper.
If I didn’t have my six lights on my bumper that would probably be my choice.
-
I have 6 pencil beams, and 4 flood beams, facing forward. All are 30W each.
The range is 1,000 meters. At 1000 meters I have 1 Lux which is enough to read a news paper
Link to a 30 seconds video of the lights of my car:
th-cam.com/video/wObiXsGxn7c/w-d-xo.html
Great advice. Brighter is noit always better. 😀
Definitely!
I forgot you had this rig. I haven't seen it for a while. I use a 20' light bar and find it adequate as I do up to 90 km/h at night. It works well because every time someone overtakes me and turns their lights up, they aren't any better except for a truck that passed me once.
Always great advice from Matt. This one is also great advice and Matt I liked that it wasn't an advert, just great advice.
Thanks mate. Our goal is to educate even when it’s commercial content.
@@MadMatt4WD It's good to get unbiased advice on commercial products too and all your videos are unbiased and not an infomercial which is great. Keep up the good work Matt.
Thanks @MadMatt4wd - loving your work! 😎
Thanks for playing your part.
Is Real Good Said the K. Dif.for long run
Good video Matt. I've been running XTM lights pretty much since I got my car and while they aren't great they do me ok as I tend not to drive at night anyway. I would like to upgrade to a decent set of Spotties rather than all light bars but given how often I use them, I really can't justify the costs. Having that light when you are travelling though is great and being able to clearly see things makes a huge difference.
I wanted to do this video so people can buy lights with decent information and considerations they may not have thought of. But I certainly understand we all have different needs and $.
@@MadMatt4WD It's good information to have, that's for sure. If I do end up going a set of Spotties I will be looking at a number of different things not just price.
A good set of lights makes a world of difference. Specially a warmer light i the snow here in Canada!
What kind of lights and kelvin do you use? TSTN uses the amber driving lights and looks great on the drone shots.
@@Malc664 I used to have 2 KC amber spot light, a RIGID flood light on the roof and a old used fitefighter truck spot light tha turns with a controler for recovery (im a Firefighter so I got my hands on one bjt they usualyy cost an arm and a leg !!)
@@marc-andrebenoit5776 Good stuff. Must be handy with the turning light.
Mad Matt what are those spot lights that have the low and high beam function please.
They’re the nitro maxx 180s
Hi Matt,
Great video!
My budget doesn’t extend to affording expensive lights so I run kings 9” lights, they’re cheap but work well for me.
The only real problem is with the light reflecting back off large signs that can be blinding at times. I’m not sure what can be done to reduce this other than dropping to low beam.
I have a light bar fitted to the front of my rooftop tent but I haven’t wired it up as yet because I’m not sure on the legalities of lights mounted so high. If you could shed some light (haha) on how to correctly wire up my light bar, that would be greatly appreciated.
The lower colour temp lights will help with flashback but it’s always a problem. The light bar you just need a wiring harness which is easy to come by. Lots of videos showing how to do it.
Thanks for sharing MM. cheers
My pleasure!!
Looking for recommendations for lighting on a next gen raptor , bar and spotties , Aussie made would be great ! Loving the content
Go check out the ultra vision lights website they have good options. Also look at the behind grill video I did a few months ago.
Speaking of over priced, Baja Designs. No one can convince me that spending 10X what other brand names charge is worth it.
I’ve never seen how they perform.
I have had a Baja Designs stealth light bar under the roofrack of my 4WD for years. Have yet to see anything of a similar size that can match it.
@@MadMatt4WD next time you're passing through Kalgoorlie I can show you. I run a Baja Designs stealth bar under the roofrack, a pair of Fyrlyt 9000's on the bullbar and have bi-xenon headlights on a Discovery 4. Best lighting I have ever had on any vehicle.
I find the worst part of having spotties is the time when you have to turn them off as you go past a car
Yes that can be a hassle but I do prefer to see, than drive with minimal vision so that the oncoming is not an issue.
Similar to high beam lights, if you are driving on highway with lots of oncoming traffics, you won't be able to use the high beam lights much too. Unless your car come with those modern adaptive matrix high beam lights that can self-adjust.
It would be great if road sign reflector technology changed. Allow the sign to be lit, but not bounce it straight back at you. My lights are great in the outback, but on a highway with road signs everywhere, the reflection is just too bright and counteracts any benefit you would otherwise get in terms of reduced eye strain.
Flashback is a real issue. I find the 4500k lights tolerable for most situations.
Retroreflective material isnt going to change, due to the nature of reflectors sadly. if it did you wouldnt have a refelctive sign... but 100% agree colour temp helps and Not having excess light spill out in trees etc. As if its bright enough to light up the surrounds by reflecting off the trees its refelecting back at you too.
My spotties might be wired differently from yours. My spotties are wired as we do it in Europe.
My spotties can only be turned on in combination with the factory high beam. I.e., they turn on when I push the high beam lever forward.
That said, at the front of my car I have 3 “groups” of lights.
From bottom to top they are:
#1, at the license plate I have a flat light bar fog light that is aimed to light up the gap under the fog but above the tarmac.
#2 are two flood beams & two pencil beams on the bumper, all are 30 watts and 10 cm in diameter.
#3 are the six on the roof rack. Two flood beams and four pencil beams, same brand and size as the ones on the bumpers. If ever, I would like to replace the two flood beams on the roof to pencil beams.
#4 is the ditch light on the left side of the roof rack.
#5 is the ditch light on the right side of the roof rack.
All 5 have individual relays under the bonnet. All relays use an individual ground wire. These ground wires have been pulled inside the cabin.
Inside the cabin they were given an individual push switch. As I had 5 blind spots on the left side of my steering wheel I used those and bought the switches from AliExpress. It’s a standard Toyota switch, I’m told.
This setup means that I can choose which extra lights to be turned on in combination with the factory high beam. Because sometimes more isn’t better.
And with this setup and wiring I can flash all my extra lights instead of honking, which I prefer.
Wiring was one size larger than recommended by charts. All possible connections were soldered, a few were crimped with dielectric grease. All wires and soldered points were zip tied to avoid vibration damage.
Voltage loss from alternator to the last light in the loom is 0.2 volts which I consider a job well done.
With this setup I have a theoretical Lumens value of 46’000. For fun I googled the value of the sun and was told it’s between 30’000-100’000 depending on the weather.
Yes, I have a heck of light in front of my vehicle and I love it.
That sounds like a crazy setup. We also have to run our spots so they only come on on high beam.
@@MadMatt4WD
I have daylight in front of my car. It’s a heck of a lot and I like it.
That said, I was very lucky finding the lights. With the price of only U$40 a pair it’s one very good deal so far. Time will tell if they last as long as the manufacturer says, ie 50’000 hours. Time will also tell if the polycarbonate lenses will remain clear or turn yellowish over time. I keep my fingers crossed…
Matt, was wondering if you've done a piece on fog lamps... I'm in coastal New Jersey so fog can be an issue. I used to run SEV Marchal amber fogs (40 years back ☺), haven't set up any lately...
I haven’t because I rearly see fog.
@@MadMatt4WD Got it. Consider yourself blessed.
@@bvward 🥰
Thanks for the info Matt. I remember my first light bar. A cheapie off Ebay. My god it was good for the price. Unfortunately, it was damaged in an accident. Had 2 name brands since (1 of which is a current ARB single row light bar) and they're not worth the plastic their made from. Absolute cr@p. The road signs just light up so bright back at me, I'm blinded.
Flashback is a real issue these days. The 4500k range are workable from what I’ve seen. It’s still an issue when there’s lots of signs.
Kelvins are a measurement of heat NOT light ????
colour temperature
Yes you’re correct but it’s also applied to lighting as a measurement of the heat.
In lighting, Kelvin is the unit used to measure the color temperature of a light bulb. The Kelvin scale is based on the idea of heating a black body radiator, which absorbs and emits energy. As the temperature of the radiator increases, the light it emits shifts from red to orange, yellow, and eventually white.
✔️✔️✔️
Your really only need a lightbar, something like the 4x4 superstores thin lethal one is a great all reound cheap performer, yeah you can bitch and moan about its cri etc etc etc. But for $99 you can literally buy 5 of them for the price of one brand name bs spottys that do almost odentical a job. and regarding 2kms away....anything that far away of a night is stupid. Your not driving a fking 70tonne truck. If your reaction time needs 1km+ to react, please hand in your licence. And any peripheral light within 1 to 3 m in front of the vehicle is useless unless your crawling. Ie at 60kmh even with f1 driver response times your not gunna react in time.
CRI plays little to no diference of a night because of the way our eyes work of a night time. Colour temp is important. CRI means fuck all unless you want to take colour acurate photos. Yeah ok it your sitting there looking at blades of grass, good cri, but your most likely moving at a speed where looking at the colours of the fucking trees is pointless anyway.
End of the day, All the leds are made in china, apart from a few rare older ones and it comes down to a fishing lure market, ie painted up shiny to entice the fisherman more than the fish.
i swear by fyrlyt halogen . best cri possible . heaps of.light. led cant deliver what halogen does
Modern LEDs are very impressive and I’ve sat these beside Fyrlyts and they’re comparable.