LED light bar

[Mr Morlock]

I have forgotten the name of the aluminium bar used for lights and accessories but these are still used on Police vehicles for a variety of accessories. Driving lights especially smaller ones work well and I have used them the last time on a Magna. There are slots to mount the lamps. If the licence plate holder is rigid then the bar should work. Bear in mind that MX5 s can be used as Rally cars with the right lights.

One thing I don't seem to explain well is that light fillers don't really work at speed. If you use a light without penetration and when an item comes into view there is no time to react. Ie you see the cow and then your reflexes are not quick enough to stop or maybe even take evasive action. People hit kangaroos for that reason. Rally drivers light the road for 500 metres or so. A boxer can hit an untrained person before you can react unless of course you were Johnny Famechon and he knew what you were going to do before you did it!

iA fog light is an example in that it works well if you are travelling slowly. Imagine using a low beam and then travelling at 100km per hour in an unlit road and calculate the distance per second and the distance when the object comes into view- that's why cars have high beams.

Not disagreeing with Manga if you are on really tight twist roads at night then a wide low beam is useful and reassuring.

Ps the light bar mounting is much the same as a simple accessory bar but whether there is any advantage of an led bar I am not sure. I don't have any experience of them but it still appears that the rally guys are using traditional lamps. You can also use a pencil and a spread beam in 2 separate units and adjust each lamp whereas I imagine that a light bar cannot cater for this only vertically?

[Okibi]

I have forgotten the name of the aluminium bar used for lights and accessories...

Nudge bar or a light bar

[Ruffian147]

Remember The Knight Rider TV series?

[Magpie]

Yep that is what I'm thinking without the moving light plus the Perspex cover would match the curve/shape of the existing bumper.

Looking at this anyway to play with the rules of time attack a bit. Since I need working lights but the car could do with a nice intake where the headlight is why not have a track option of swapping the headlight out for the vent but still have the ability to have lights...

[Cus]

Thread revival time! CLEAR! *thuwmp*

https://www.flickr.com/photos/simon_cor ... 687606008/

This is basically what I had in mind, but moving it forward an inch or so to get the maximum amount of side fill instead of illuminating the inside of the bumper.

Does anyone happen to have a photo of what's behind the bumper here?

I could pull my bumper off and look, but that'd be way too easy

[aka_juffa]

Here ya go Cus

[Cus]

Thank you Sir!

[Cus]

Cross-posting some info form my garage page.

I put a LED bar into the mouth of my car - I couldn't bring myself to cut the bumper knowing that I'm not really a good fabricator... It might have to go when summer comes back, all depends how the temp gauge feels. (It's fine at the moment, the light has been in there for a few days and the temp needle isn't moving)

Because I like to be mildly scientific all of these photos were taken in "Manual Mode" on the camera, ISO 100, f/4.0, 0.5 Second exposures and equate to "about as bright as looking at it with the eye" - I didn't spend ages calibrating this though.

Low Beam:


High Beam:


All of the Beams:


Bigger versions can be seen here: http://imgur.com/a/pfvF3

I don't actually know what kind of LED bar I have - My sister gave it to me after her car got written off (You can hit an awful lot of Kangaroos with a Kia Rio before it's terminal, but the roo's win eventually) - What I do know is it was "the cheap one from ebay", draws about 8A @ 12v, and has 42 individual LEDs in it.

I thought there would be more foreground shadow from hills on the road than there is. There's not "none" but it's not as bad as I'd imagined it would be. There is also a fair bit of side-light, which is what I was after.

So there you go, LED bars in the mouth of an MX5 are better than I expected.

[Mr Morlock]

that is really underwhelming. I you put small driving lights halogen or HID or a pencil beam and driving lamp in the nose it would make much more of an effect than that underperforming light set up. Maybe people don't know what an extra set of driving lights / spread beams etc can do. Having said that unless one is on backroads or driving in wee small hours with no traffic you cannot use these things. A light bar is the same deal- anyone coming the other way risks being dazzled. Modern cars often have such good lights that they don't need additional lighting. Its bad enough people using fog lights in normal weather conditions- no matter how many times the rules are spelled out it does not make a scrap of difference.

[sailaholic]

Led light bar has the benifit of being very low profile. I also don't think they are doing any worse then cheap ebay "driving lights"

As you yourself have said many time Morlock, reflector size matters and it's hard to get a decent reflector in the mouth.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[hks_kansei]

Having said that unless one is on backroads or driving in wee small hours with no traffic you cannot use these things. A light bar is the same deal- anyone coming the other way risks being dazzled. Modern cars often have such good lights that they don't need additional lighting. .

It's worth noting that Cus lives in northern Victoria, so likely drives on a substantial amount of backroads with minimal traffic (much as I used to when I lived up that way)
Good headlights are a godsend when kangaroos and wombats are a common occurance.

In saying that, i've never been a fan of the LED bars, I've found the light output to be both far too white (no real contrast) and often more floodlight than driving light.


You are correct that modern cars do often have good headlights (not all however, the Kia Rio I rented in Tasmania early this year had terrible headlights)
The NA MX5 is not however, a modern car (although I really do find the 7inch inserts to be great)




End of the day it really depends on what the user is looking for in the lights.
I fitted lamps to my car mainly to increase the lighting to the sides so that when driving on tight roads at night I can essentially look through the corner. For that they work well enough, but for use in fog, or as long beam lamps they are pretty lacklustre.

It sounds like Cus wanted something similar, which I imagine the LED bar can do.