G'day U/Wombat, unlike Phantom I won't attempt to answer your question by asking another question...

I have a Light Bar by 'Great Whites'....fantastic for driving at night where you're likely to find Kangaroos or wandering stock...

They are the nearest thing to daylight I have seen and I have had all the usual driving/spot round lights during the years...

Great Whites are not cheap if you Google however they are far superior to Chinese gay pretenders...both in light and indestructability from stones etc....

They use very little power draw, run cool and I have mine set up to dip with my main beam...I think its mandatory...

They are superior to long range spotties because when I'm driving back tracks in the donga I don't need to know if there is a Roo 3 Kms ahead I need to know what's either side and front in the immediate vicinity...

I often see on Forums someone will raise that you have to have 2 lights and that only one is illegal...I've driven with mine through 5 States and also seen hundreds on passing vehicles...

If I'm ever picked up by a pedantic Plod I will tape the centre with plastic tape ...voila' two lights....it won't melt the tape as they run cold.....

Photo of my set up....Hoo Roo

 

Howdy Goldfinger, I've been reading with interest,your thoughts on these "Great Whites", they look like something I could do with,

To tell you the truth, I'm feed-up with these round driving lights which ,no matter how tight you bolt them down, still go out of alignment every time you go to use them !! 

I Have checked on Ebay and you are correct, they're not cheap, been trying to get some the same as yours,

Would these be the same as you have ?..............

 http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/GREAT-WHITES-GWB5181-18-LED-LIGHT-BAR-4X4-4WD-6375-LUMENS-75W-5-YEAR-WARRANTY-/322159785170?hash=item4b023834d2:g:Dm8AAOSweW5VRG-T

One other thing, did your lights come with a wiring kit ?

K.J

-- Edited by kiwijims on Tuesday 21st of June 2016 04:46:16 AM

-- Edited by kiwijims on Tuesday 21st of June 2016 04:53:49 AM

Desert Dweller wrote:

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Are you planning to do a lot of night driving & if you're retired why?  Plenty of daylight available.

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 My thoughts exactly DD, for safety as well as convenience reasons we aim to be well and truly camped before sunset, no need to drive after dark.

Its a whole different world out there between sundown and sun up. There is plenty good reason for night driving.
When I need to do long drives I always prefer night driving because of the vehicle left on the road are professional drivers, not talking driving in suburbia either.
I have a light bar and spots, each have a different use
Be aware though of the light reduction when dipping your lights. I believe the first light upgrade should be to upgrade the orginal lights to get there full potential
cheers
blaze

I would like to thank all of you for your thoughts and have taken all advice on board, Jenko1 I found the magazine article to be very informative and will take my time to see if these are a necessity or a want.

Thank you all

Uncle Wombat
Safe travelling

blaze wrote:

---

Its a whole different world out there between sundown and sun up. There is plenty good reason for night driving.
When I need to do long drives I always prefer night driving because of the vehicle left on the road are professional drivers, not talking driving in suburbia either.
I have a light bar and spots, each have a different use
Be aware though of the light reduction when dipping your lights. I believe the first light upgrade should be to upgrade the orginal lights to get there full potential
cheers
blaze

---

I agree with you  Blaze. I prefer night driving, and have been doing so for 43years. In the past while working full on we traveled long distances on our journey's. I find the km's just disappear.

I have said the same words on here, over a year ago. Everyone to their own. We are now in semi retirement 3 weeks now, and ready to hit the road next month.

We can now sit back and enjoy the driving adventure because we can. The fish will still be there at the end of the track.

Cheers Jim  

-- Edited by Hey Jim on Tuesday 21st of June 2016 09:56:22 AM

I don't like driving lights either so last weekend I stuffed these new 40W LED H4 bulbs in the Territory and OMG no driving lights needed, don't even need high beam they are amazing.

$150.00 from Autobarn and 10 minutes to fit. They seem to be proper designed too with a decent heat-sink and cooling fans..

I was skeptical at first because they are brighter than HID and was expecting to blind the oncoming traffic but nope, no complaints at all so far.

Did I say amazing?

Done the same as Cloak, no need to put light bar or spot lights on. Only ever drive of a night if it is a emergency otherwise why run the risk of hitting, kangaroos, wombats or other native wildlife. No amount of lights are going to save you if a wombat decides to cross the road in front of you!

Well once again I thank you all for the comments, have decided to go with Light Bar first and see how it goes with existing driving lights.
Let you know how it goes, thank you everyone.

Uncle Wombat

Well, I've solved my light problem on the cheap,

I went onto Evil Bay and put in an offer for a Pair of upgraded head light globes for the Nissan,

The sales price was $26.00 I was successful on saving a couple of Bucks and got them with free delivery,

I've since fitted them and "WOW" what a difference. I can now actually see where I'm going, but as someone has said, it's back to half light when I dip them.

  

K.J.

Couldn't agree more Dieseltojo.....and it happens with most threads where someone asks a valid question as to which Product or Service is best ,and why, and then a patronising lightweight comes on and asks another question, rather than attempt to provide an answer,...... and worse, some proceed to tell you why you don't need the product or service in the first place..based on the fact they themselves don't need one.........to my mind if someone asks a question of which product is best, I would think they are already well past the question of whether they actually even need one....

I'm not referring to the helpful positive posters who suggest an alternative which still achieves the OP's question....my point being how often must we see a thread denigrate into a slanging match because the following posts are totally irrelevant or belittle the original questioner....... ..that's my Sermon from The Mount today.....Hoo Roo

Agreed.....I enjoyed Lyndon's famous quote more.....'Tis better to have someone in the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in.......how apt......Hoo Roo

There is a great deal of mis-information provided by vendors of LED lights and LED light bars about how you should judge or measure the effectiveness of LEDs, so let me just break it down for you with a little history lesson, to assist you in whatever your choice is regarding additional lighting.

Light is NOT measured in Watts. The Watt is a measure of energy consumption. Your household energy bill shows the electricity consumed in kilowatts (thousands of watts).
Back when the original Edison lightbulb was invented it was graded according to the power it consumed. Brighter bulbs were those where the filament burned hotter because of its design. Brighter bulbs consumed more Watts. Household light bulbs were graded such as 25 watt, 60 watt, 75 watt, 100 watt, etc. To the unknowing, all bulbs were the same so you purchased your bulbs based on watts but we've all experienced cheap sh!t bulbs where the light output was somewhat suspect whilst consuming as much power as another brand.

If you'll excuse the pun, here is some illuminating news, Light is measured in lumens! (from the Latin for light, aka luminous flux).
One lumen is roughly the equivalent of light measured in one degree from the light of one candle in the 18th century.
(Modern candles burn much brighter than old 19th century candles but that is another story).

Now lets move ahead to light bulb construction.
Incandescent lights have a wire filament at the end of a pair of storks. The position of the filament is such that it is placed at the focal point of the reflector. Different bulbs (H2, H4 etc) all have different reflector designs.
The design of the reflector is such that the dispersal angle of the light is very narrow. A normal H4 bulb has approx. an 8 degree spread and it normally has 2 filaments per bulb, one with an occulting cup under it for low beam to only bounce from the top of the reflector downwards, and one without any shade for high beam.
Over the years the material used for the filament and the gas or lack of, inside the bulb, has improved. EG, halogen bulbs have a halide gas inside that allows the filament to burn brighter without burning out.
So we could get more light from less watts consumed with a halogen bulb over an ordinary vacuum bulb.

Next comes fluorescent bulbs filled with the rare gases such as neon with metallic additives for colour. Sodium for orange, mercury for white.
Great in our homes with even more light output than halogen for even less energy consumption, but far too delicate and difficult for automotive uses because they are far too hard to focus the light in one direction.

Now we come to LEDs. Along comes the very clever America company CREE www.cree.com who work out a way to make really large versions of the tiny LEDs found in our electronic devices as indicators of on or off etc.
CREE only makes the LEDs and other companies buy them and manufacture products with the CREE LEDs.
Problem.
LEDs are a surface mounted device. Just how do you focus the light when they are simply soldered onto a circuit board and you can't put a reflector behind them like traditional light bulbs?.
Because of this reflector dilemma, early uses were solely for security "flood" lighting because without any focus, the light scatters very quickly. Flood, as in a flood of water, it spreads everywhere.
I'm sure you have all seen those bright little bicycle LEDs that are blinding to look at but 2 meters ahead you can't even see the ground. That is the effect of light spread.
It is only of recent times designers have overcome the issue by using very complex design optical lenses to focus the light rather than to reflect it.

Doing some simple math, if we have a square source of light emitting at a 30 degree spread, over 20 meters distance, the beam of light will be over 10 meters wide AND 10 meters high, covering and area of 100,000,000 mm square.
This means that tiny little LED that is only 5mm x 5mm (25 mm square) casts only one 4 millionth of its light on the same 25mm square area at 20 meters distance.
Naturally the narrower the beam, the more light is shone onto objects that reflect back.
A 5 degree beam angle is only 1.75 meters wide at 20 meters distance or roughly 3,000,000 mm squared so casts one 122 thousandth of its light on the same 25mm square area at 20 meters distance.

So if you know the amount of lumens output of a particular light, it is absolutely worthless without knowing the angle of spread.
A 20,000 lumen light with a 5 degree spread will carry up to a kilometer but won't give you any warning at all for a roo ready to jump out from the roadside.,
A 30 degree spread gives you approx. 150 meters roadside lighting but wont show that roo sitting in the middle of the road until you are only 5 to 6 seconds from hitting him.
A 40 degree spread will light up the paddocks but it will barely carry for 50 meters. At 100 kph you travel 28 meters per second. That means with a 40 degree spread you only get a 2 second warning of a roo jumping out from the side of the road.

30 degrees is NOT a spot beam it is a wide flood and anything over 40 degrees is pointless.

If however you know the lumens AND the angle of spread you can work out the distance the light will carry until it is reduced down to one lumen, the brightness of one candle.
Hang in there whilst I do the math.
In that example above of a 5 degree spread, at 200 meters distance the beam is 17 meters wide (305,000,000 mm squared) or one 12 millionth the light over 25mm squared.
So if your light bar is throwing out 30,000 lumens divided by 12 million that means 0.0025 of a lumen per 25mm squared. Two and one half thousandth of a candle!
Doesn't sound much does it and it isn't, but, a kangaroo is not 25mm in size. It probably stands 1.3meters tall and half a meter wide.
That's 650,000 mm squared or 26,000 lots of those little 25mm squares.

Now shine that 0.0025 lumens over something 26,000 times the size of the LED and your roo is lit up with the light of 65 candles at 200 meters. And that's plenty to see him with!

So what is the best for you? That depends on what sort of lighting you need.
Do you want distance or do you want spread, and to cater to that mixed need, are todays light BARS which are replacing old style rather than plain narrow beam spot lights.
Many light bars today are available with a mix of narrow beam spot and wide beam flood.
Usually the spot LEDs are in the middle for distance and the flood LEDs are on the outside for roadside scrub and paddock illumination.
The best mix for distance AND spread is a bar with one third 30 degree flood, one third 5 degree spot, one third 30 degree flood.
And, the more lumens the better, BUT, be aware that with LED lights, watts is the measure of energy consumption.
When you divide the watts by the volts you see some pretty BIG numbers for Amps requiring large wiring.
That fancy enormous 700watt light bar is going to draw down nearly 60 amps from your battery!

I hope I've helped you to perhaps be able to choose a little more wisely.

Gday...

LED regulations for Straya ....

https://practicalmotoring.com.au/car-advice/where-can-you-legally-mount-led-lightbars/

Cheers - John