Backyard Aquaponics
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Looking at getting some additional lighting for my car as I nearly hit a roo the other night which i didn't see on the side of the road, does anyone have experience with lightbars? Are they worth it or are you better going more standard?

I've been scanning some 4x4 forums but interested in anyones experience here..

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Lightbars are more for wheeling, low-speed off-road driving where you need to see a little to the sides and have good light to stay shine side up. I'd get something more focused for wildlife road-driving. Though bars get the cool-toy nod for sure.

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Happy bees and homebrews in Lyons, CO

Lightbars are great to give you a wide range of white light vision. Really good for offroad. Not so great for long distances though. In time some of the LED's can drop out reducing the efficiency of the overall bar and as far as I know they cant be replaced. Lightbars are like most things too, you get what you pay for. A good one is usually around $400 - $800. You can also get curved ones now too.

A combination of standard spot and spread beams are still very popular due to the reletively cheap HID conversion kits you can get now days. You can also get them for your stadard headlights. Fairly easy to fit with minimal tooling. So if you already have spotties you could look at conversion kits for them and then also do your headlights and that would light up the road like the MCG.

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~2010/2011~
~2012/2013~
~2014~
~Backyard farming~

Or he could get some under body christmas lights and a flashing Santa on the roof and some of those whistling things that are supposed to be inaudible (but aren't) and scare the crap out of the roo's.

I'd go the spotties and headlight mod as Charlie said.

If Joel put on a red outfit he'd look a bit like Santa.....

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~2010/2011~
~2012/2013~
~2014~
~Backyard farming~

lightbars are quite good for upto 400-500 meters ahead most these days are a combo light and will light up the sides pretty well and give you a good forward light too but for long distance HID's are still the way to go, give them a few more years and LED will get there though cos the new you beaut ones make it 700 meters but cost an arm and a leg, just remember that HID conversions on your headlights are classed not roadworthy and can earn you a yellow sticker by themselves if you get caught

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If the car lightbars are made anything like the ones for shops yes you can defect on one led (usually poor heatsinking) worse is when you get a component on the circuit board fail and they all go.

I've got HID spots on the truck and can't recommend them highly enough.
Light bars don't throw light very far so really only good for slow 4x4 work.

I've got 1 large spreader and 1 large beam on the bull bar, 2 spreaders and 2 beams on the roof. Bit of overkill but I love it.