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Looking for some lighting suggestions. I live in the sticks where it is about 15-20 miles to the nearest street light.... In other words, it is dark out here. While we don't have the deer cockroach problems people back east have, we do have a bit of wildlife to dodge.
My wife's explorer have the OEM HIDs and they have much better viability over my truck's halogen lights.
Truck is used for my 70 mile "stick" and highway drive into town to work daily and for hunting or getting to remote long range shooting spots.
Would I be better served getting OEM HIDs, an aftermarket kit or a good quality LED bar behind the grill? I tend to use my high beams a lot getting to/from the highway.
I like the idea of the LED bar for backwoods driving but it won't do much good with lighting around other traffic, I don want to blind anymore or cause glare issues.
LED bar is going to give the most light in the "sticks" but youd be better off doing an HID retrofit for all around performance. A PnP HID kit often causes glare issues. If you've got a truck compatible with OEM HIDs that would be a good way to go, but cheaper would be building your own set of projector retrofits.
LED bar is going to give the most light in the "sticks" but youd be better off doing an HID retrofit for all around performance. A PnP HID kit often causes glare issues. If you've got a truck compatible with OEM HIDs that would be a good way to go, but cheaper would be building your own set of projector retrofits.
I should clarify that I'm looking at a HID Projector retrofit..... Not just dropping HIDs into my halogen lamp assembly. Truck is a 2014 F150.
I don't care about the angel or daemon eye Projectors, just want the best when it comes to low beam output and high beam output.
Gotcha. I'd still go with a DIY retrofit. It'll be cheaper than going with OEM, likely have better output, and will definitely be cheaper than paying someone to do it for you.
This is the low beam output from mine that I just did. They're cheap amazon projectors ($40/set). There's a link in my headlight build thread. If you go that route, buy better ballasts than I bought. I'm having flickering issues with my Kensun ballasts.
Looking for some lighting suggestions. I live in the sticks where it is about 15-20 miles to the nearest street light.... In other words, it is dark out here. While we don't have the deer cockroach problems people back east have, we do have a bit of wildlife to dodge. My wife's explorer have the OEM HIDs and they have much better viability over my truck's halogen lights. Truck is used for my 70 mile "stick" and highway drive into town to work daily and for hunting or getting to remote long range shooting spots. Would I be better served getting OEM HIDs, an aftermarket kit or a good quality LED bar behind the grill? I tend to use my high beams a lot getting to/from the highway. I like the idea of the LED bar for backwoods driving but it won't do much good with lighting around other traffic, I don want to blind anymore or cause glare issues.
Go with a quality retro from Bilinvic, Rpator retrofits or another reputable company.
This will give you better and more light than most light bars.
As you can see in the other posters pic, that is just OK light output from mediocre projectors. I have Hella Evox-R projectors with XB 50 watt ballasts and 5000K 50 watt HIDs and the lows are great and the highs, forget about it! The highs are so insane and you will see any animal in plenty of time and it will light up the night like day!
You can get an OEM set which will be great, even better than the pic the other poster posted but you can swap out bulbs for some OSRAM bulbs and get better performance.
You will pay to play though, you're looking at around a $1000 for OEM with harness and around starting $1500 for a custom retro set.
To me it sounds like you would be best off with both. Thats the route I went. I do some driving in the mountains and woods every now and then. I wanted to be able to see anything and everything when I needed too, yet not blind people on the roads.
I would suggest getting a nice HID projector retrofit first and foremost. While the cost will be more than a Light bar, you will use them more often. Mine have been modified, but you can get OEM projectors with a adapter harness for under a thousand. The result is night and day for sure. The "Highs" on them are not actually a brighter bulb, just the lifting of the cutoff. So you have bright light without blinding people.
After that. If you want to see further while off the beaten path (like I did) then I would get a lightbar, and/or a few rigid duallys.
Hope this helped. There are many fine retrofitters on this forum, but its always doable yourself if you just want to minimize the cost.
Go with a quality retro from Bilinvic, Rpator retrofits or another reputable company.
This will give you better and more light than most light bars.
I see that Bilinvic uses OEM headlines and Raptor Retrofits uses aftermarket HID's as their building platform.
Any reason to go with one way or another? Again, not concerned with the LED/Angel/Deamon eye stuff.... I care about quality of light out put and not blinding oncoming traffic.
I did notice that Raptor Retrofit has a jig built to help aim the headlights while building, that's a nice touch.
I see that Bilinvic uses OEM headlines and Raptor Retrofits uses aftermarket HID's as their building platform. Any reason to go with one way or another? Again, not concerned with the LED/Angel/Deamon eye stuff.... I care about quality of light out put and not blinding oncoming traffic. I did notice that Raptor Retrofit has a jig built to help aim the headlights while building, that's a nice touch.
They both use OEM housings but Raptor will sell brand new OEM housings and harness to you.
They both use special jigs to align, I know Bilinvic uses lasers to align his stuff and it's right on.
If you just want a clean nice light just go with the black or chrome OEM version. There will be plenty of light over your stock halogens and there will be room to upgrade later.
03-24-2015, 01:47 PM
Lighting suggestions - HID Conversion or LED Bar?
