We met Nick Irwin of Vision X at the 2007 SEMA show where
they we debuting their new
LED technology. I have been a long time proponent of LEDs
ever since I was a kid, going
to the electronics store to put LEDs on my r/c cars. Well
now you can have LEDs on your
big toy.
The biggest benefit of LEDs is their shock resistance which
is perfect for off-road use. Vision X’s LED lighting
technology with its Xmitter LED Light Bar is designed for On
and Off Road use. Each weatherproof low profile light bar
produces tremendous light output, with a 12" bar producing
3600 lumens, 100 more lumens than a 35 watt HID while
drawing only 4 amps and boasting an astonishing 292,000 hour
life span.
Now that you know the technical stuff, let’s see how they
work in real life. I unbolted my HIDs in order to mount the
LEDs. This was not the best arrangement as the mount was not
really set up for the LEDs’ 12 inch width, so we had to kind
of MacGyver it to work. Since we had to mount them to the
bottom of the tab I don’t think we got the full benefit of
the spread of light these LEDs are capable of. Also when you
mount these LEDs you will need to small mounting holes
instead of one large one like conventional off-road lights.
Originally we were going to do a test between Vision X’s
LEDs and our KC HIDs, but this is really not a true test. It
is like comparing apples and oranges. Our KC HIDs are a spot
beam, great for long-range. The LEDs on the other hand are
better for flooding the road with a ton of light.
We headed to the desert with camera in hand to see in
completely darkness how well these lights work. Where we
live if the moon is not out you can not see past your nose,
so we knew we had a good base to start with. We tried taking
a picture of the darkness and our camera could not replicate
anything, it just looked like a black square.
The pictures you see below show you the LEDs by themselves
and the LEDs on with our headlights. There is a huge
difference in not only the amount of light, but also the
quality of light. What comes out of these LEDs is pure white
light, and this is evident when you see the yellow light
added by our headlights.'
Like any new technology there is going to be some time
before LEDs become mainstream. And no they are not meant to
replace long range spot beam HIDs, that is just not how they
are built to function. They are made to flood the area in
front of you with a lot of light, be impact and vibration
resistant, and consume very low amounts of power. That is
what these LEDs do best.
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PreRunnerManiacXmitter.pdf
