Retrofitting LED lightbar

Other Types of Lights LED Headlamps
1

Good morning guys,

I joined up this morning looking for feedback, experience and opinions on retrofitting consumer LED light bars with high powered LEDs. Just a bit of backstory I have been very much into lighting since high school and I seem to come across a new flashlight I have to have in my pocket about once every 6 months. The last light that I added was a klarus g20 with a XHP70 emitter.

I started with a 6 lens “8D” led lightbar from amazon ( I know cheapo lightbar ) but I figured the convex lenses might handle the larger sized emitters better than a traditional reflector. Tore it apart, measured the spacing between the existing emitters and pulled the control board out of the bar to make space for the XHP70.2 stars. I mounted the stars with thermal epoxy and screwed them to the heat sink and soldered them to 2 copper bus bars running the length of the LED.

For control Im running a no name step converter with a current limit of 6a so I will be driving the 6 XHP70.2s at approximately half of their maximum rating until I determine how well my inexpensive lightbar holds up to the additional heat.

At the moment I am about $120 into this build and by the end of the day today I hope to have a few example beam shots.

2

Looks interesting.

What’re the come-with LEDs? Look like teeny XT-Es or XB-Ds or something.

But yeah, reflectors will have lots of spill that can/will cause glare, especially if the LEDs are pushed hard.

3

The manufacturer doesnt have the old LEDs listed but Id agree that they are XTes just based on the size.

I do not intend to run them on roads, I drive a Subaru that we often take out in the dessert so this is purely for offroad rally use.

Ill have some time tonight to play with it so hopefully I can get it running sooner rather than later.

4

Hmm neat. I wanna work on something like this for my buddies WRX

5

Kewl.

I got no idea about the optix, as TIRs can be finicky about the size of the chip being used (efficiency-wise, and integrity of the beam). If they’re more like aspherics, then placement (distance from LED to lens) might be critical.

Maybe just try one of ’em, see how the beam looks.