F.A.Q

Lumens vs Watts, which is more important?

Lumens is a way to scientifically measure visible light, the brightness of a light. Watts is a measurement of the amount of electricity that a lighting device requires to produce that light. Our CREE LED Light Bars are the brightest on the market for a given watt of input and most importantly, for the price you pay.

Traditionally, we have been trained to think of how bright a bulb is by its Watt rating. For example, a 100w light bulb is brighter than a 60w light bulb. This has been true when using a standard incandescent type bulb. But incandescent technology is very inefficient and much of those watts are converted into heat energy instead of light. If you’ve every tried to unscrew a light bulb that has just been on, you would have experienced this heat production first hand.

With the advent of new lighting technologies like CFL (compact fluorescent) and LEDs, light production has gotten much more efficient. Much more of the energy input (Watts) goes toward producing light output (lumens). CFLs and LEDs don’t get that hot when compared to an incandescent bulb. And a 15w CFL puts out the same light (800 lumens) as a 60w incandescent light bulb. A way to compare apples to apples when measuring this efficiency is by looking at the amount of lumens a lighting device produces for a given watt of energy input. You can see in the table below, that our LED Light Bars are 6+ times more efficient than a standard incandescent bulb.

What’s a CREE LED Anyway?

CREE is the leading LED technology innovation think tank that is continually pushing the envelope in LED technology to create more lumens per watt. The result is the brightest LED’s on the market that will turn that dark forest or country road into your midnight playground. Find out more about Cree Inc.

What is Amp Draw?

Amp draw is the amount of current of electricity required to power the lights. The greater the amp draw, the faster your battery will run down when you are not running the engine. When you are running the engine, if your total vehicle amp draw is greater than what your alternator puts out, your battery will continue to discharge instead of charge. But in most cases, this is not a concern as your stock alternator can handle adding a few light bars without issue, unless you are running a lot of extra electrical components (like large audio amplifiers, etc) . For example, a Jeep Wrangler TJ alternator puts out about 110 amps, plenty to handle an additional 2.2 amps from our 6″ light bar and even 17 amps for our 40″ light bar. If you have any questions, contact us.

What does IP67 mean?

This is a standardized way to measure solid particle (the first number (6)) and liquid (the second number (7)) penetration resistance. In this case, 6 is the highest level for solid particle resistance meaning that the unit is dust tight. 7 is the second highest level, but considering these aren’t meant for submarines, it is the highest practical level you should pay for and means these lights can stand to be submerged below 3.2 feet of water for 30 minutes without damage. That should definitely get you across that stream! (wikipedia)

What is meant by “Beam Pattern”?

Our lights come in 3 different configurations: Spot,  Flood, or a Combination of both.

A spot beam produces a cone of light in a narrow 8º – 10º spread (depending on the exact light). This is good for specific task type lighting, or additional visibility when driving at night.

A flood beam produces a cone of light in a wide 90º spread. This is good for general work lighting, lighting up an off road trail that may have overhead tree limbs that you want to see, etc.

A combination combines these both. They have lights on the outside of the bar that produce a flood pattern while the inner lights produce a spot pattern. These are a great overall light with a lot of versatility and are our best selling lights for that reason.

That said, we normally recommend and mostly stock the combo pattern. Why? Because these lights offer the greatest versatility. Due to their small size, the pods only come in either spot or flood, not combo. The spots produce enough light spread that they seem to be more effective and a better all around light, and as such we carry mostly the spot configuration of the pods.