ad3adman Posted September 3, 2019 Report Share Posted September 3, 2019 So i am swapping lights on the car, not because i want too, but my team mates are complaining they are ugly and they cannot see in the dark. not sure what the issue is, i spent 20 bucks of my hard earned money on Amazon for those lights but.. i see a lot of cars with the nice low-profile LEDs now and since we smashed ours in Charlotte i guess its time for a change. anyone want to share what they have? brand / lummens (lumens (lm) however you say it./ size. flood or spot or mix of both? what i would like i think is a nice low-profile, single curved bar about 28" or so. but this may not be the best option, so id like to hear what you guys have, tried and ended up liking. thanks, and we will see you in sebring, well, unless its dark and im still using my old lights 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandomTask Posted September 3, 2019 Report Share Posted September 3, 2019 We can't see poop at VIR and we're at the limit of what the rules allow. We do notice a lot of teams have MUCH brighter setups than us; how heavily is this lumen limit rule enforced because I'm really wanting to add more oomph to our setup. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakks Posted September 3, 2019 Report Share Posted September 3, 2019 #banlightbars 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ad3adman Posted September 3, 2019 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2019 25 minutes ago, RandomTask said: We can't see poop at VIR and we're at the limit of what the rules allow. We do notice a lot of teams have MUCH brighter setups than us; how heavily is this lumen limit rule enforced because I'm really wanting to add more oomph to our setup. yeah, that why i'm wondering about spot vs flood. i have flood now and i feel like it disperses my little photons too mush to do me any good. and then im concerned that spot will blind someone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeastZ06 Posted September 3, 2019 Report Share Posted September 3, 2019 I’m happy with diode dynamics spot/SAE driving LEDs, only used at Road Atlanta. I’ve tried about 5 different options, mostly cheaper and wasn’t impressed. https://www.diodedynamics.com/stage-series-6-sae-dot-white-light-bar-pair.html 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbaker480 Posted September 3, 2019 Report Share Posted September 3, 2019 Diode Dynamics is the way to go. I run an 18" combo beam with two driving beams and one wide beam in the middle and then two of the 6" wide beams angled on the corners. Wide, flat, far reaching, and NOT blinding to drivers in front of you like the Chinese LED's. I like them so much I'm putting an 18" on the cargo rack of my WRX and very seriously considering putting a pair of the 6" on my daily for foggy mornings (amber wide lens). Keep in mind if someone were to call you out on lumens DD prints ACTUAL lumens where most of the Chinese ones state CLAIMED lumens in their documentation, which in many cases means that a single bar from Ebay could put you over what is printed in the rules as legal even though the output would be lower than that of a set of DD bars. I know I have stated this before but if you have stock headlight housings and the skills to cut out the back of the housing you can retrofit HID projectors of higher output than LED with excellent beam pattern and as long as you go with a regular 35W ballast you will still be within the letter of the rule book. You could combine two HID projectors with two DD 6" bars for more distance and as well. One last tip is wire each light separately back to your power source. The last thing you want is to lose ALL of your lights at once in the carousel at Nelson Ledges, get lost in the fog, and we never hear from you again. I prefer to run thermal reset circuit breakers instead of fuses as well so you can limp it back to pit lane even if it takes a while waiting for the lights to cycle off and on as you find your way home. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ad3adman Posted September 4, 2019 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2019 13 hours ago, bbaker480 said: . One last tip is wire each light separately back to your power source. The last thing you want is to lose ALL of your lights at once in the carousel at Nelson Ledges, get lost in the fog, and we never hear from you again. this never occurred to me but seems so obvious. thanks for the tip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ad3adman Posted September 4, 2019 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2019 17 hours ago, jakks said: #banlightbars i get some ppl dont like light bars, but some of us really dont have much of a choice. ill try not to blind anyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erich Posted September 4, 2019 Report Share Posted September 4, 2019 (edited) 22 hours ago, jakks said: #banlightbars Hear! Hear! Lights without a proper cutoff pattern shouldn't be allowed on track. If you can find a proper pattern light bar I'm all for it. [edit] Those diode dynamics SAE fog/wide look pretty good! We use four ebay HID projectors. Super bright below the cutoff, DARK above. We got a pair of LHD and a pair of RHD lights setup so there's a dip in the middle and up out on the edges. We love them. Edited September 4, 2019 by erich 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wink Posted September 4, 2019 Report Share Posted September 4, 2019 DD 12'' Spot bar in the middle, two 6'' wide bars on the corners. Been pretty good so far Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turbogrill Posted September 4, 2019 Report Share Posted September 4, 2019 Or everyone just get NODs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted September 4, 2019 Report Share Posted September 4, 2019 We had 2 hella 500 and 2 hid lights from hella also. Great lighting and fits the rules. However, the diode dynamics made our lights look like we were driving by holding a cell phone on the hood. They work! They didn't blind me even when @E. Tyler Pedersen would appear in my mirror like I was standing still! @E. Tyler Pedersenhas dd lights also. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest E. Tyler Pedersen Posted September 4, 2019 Report Share Posted September 4, 2019 I love my lights by Diode Dynamics. We had two apex lights and two driving lights. Here was Nelson's last July and it's dark there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grufton Posted September 4, 2019 Report Share Posted September 4, 2019 On 9/3/2019 at 2:26 PM, RandomTask said: We do notice a lot of teams have MUCH brighter setups than us; how heavily is this lumen limit rule enforced because I'm really wanting to add more oomph to our setup. I'm betting the center bar here is well over 4000 lumens... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erich Posted September 5, 2019 Report Share Posted September 5, 2019 1 hour ago, Grufton said: I'm betting the center bar here is well over 4000 lumens... And half of them go up and are useless on track. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BionicPhil Posted September 12, 2019 Report Share Posted September 12, 2019 Yeah, we got dinged for having 4 8" LED mini- light bars AND two apex lights aimed down and out. Too many lights, even though the total size/area of my lighting, number of LEDs and overall brightness was much less than the guy that had the hood-width light bar that was bright enough to alter bird migration patterns. I'd love to see more consistency in how these lighting rules are applied, as I'm not sure "total number of lights" matters when someone has the Bat signal strapped to their hood. Thanks for the recommendations to check out Diode Dynamics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Advisory Committee Andrew D Johnson Posted September 12, 2019 Technical Advisory Committee Report Share Posted September 12, 2019 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erich Posted September 12, 2019 Report Share Posted September 12, 2019 1 hour ago, red0 said: [picture of really poor lighting removed] If it were up to me those wouldn't be allowed on track. You're putting as much light ABOVE your car as down on the track. This is exceptionally disrespectful to the other drivers. Notice how high up the building in front of you is lit. That needs to be remedied. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Advisory Committee Andrew D Johnson Posted September 12, 2019 Technical Advisory Committee Report Share Posted September 12, 2019 31 minutes ago, erich said: If it were up to me those wouldn't be allowed on track. You're putting as much light ABOVE your car as down on the track. This is exceptionally disrespectful to the other drivers. Notice how high up the building in front of you is lit. That needs to be remedied. This was the night before MIS 2014?, and we pulled the car into the alley to aim the headlights as they had never been on this car before. Apparently the other drivers did not find our final aiming exceptionally disrespectful, because we won the sportsmanship award on our way to victory. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erich Posted September 12, 2019 Report Share Posted September 12, 2019 5 hours ago, red0 said: This was the night before MIS 2014?, and we pulled the car into the alley to aim the headlights as they had never been on this car before. Apparently the other drivers did not find our final aiming exceptionally disrespectful, because we won the sportsmanship award on our way to victory. I guess this was a daytime race then? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Advisory Committee Andrew D Johnson Posted September 13, 2019 Technical Advisory Committee Report Share Posted September 13, 2019 11 hours ago, erich said: I guess this was a daytime race then? 14 hour race, probably ended at 10PM? https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Sessions/3234970 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blubusdrvr Posted September 13, 2019 Report Share Posted September 13, 2019 On 9/3/2019 at 4:53 PM, jakks said: #banlightbars ^^^THIS!!!^^^ Some of these things are getting rediculous. I'm about to mount a huge effing mirror on the back of our car! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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