I never actually got around to hooking up any rock lights, so recently I started shopping. The light source needs to be rugged and reasonably cheap to replace as it is likely to live out its life being bounced, drowned, and pretty much beat around. The search for the perfect rock light has typically involved two types of choices.

One popular light for this application is the good old tractor light. These can be found at some auto parts stores, trucking supply places, tractor supply stores, etc, and are a 5" diameter, 55 watt bulb encased in a rubber housing. They cost about $15.00 and do a good job. They are bright enough and come with a mounting bracket. They are also kind of big and can be difficult to fit into tight places, such as a wheel well. This one in the pic has a plastic case, not rubber, but it gives you the idea. I am using this one for a back-up light.

Another option has been the el-cheapo driving lights that a store like WalMart may sell. They usually come with some cheap wiring, a switch, and two small lights that were designed to run on the front bumper of a car for additional lighting. These work, and usually are less than $20.00 for the whole kit, but they are not very durable and are easily destroyed, especially by water.

The other issue with running rock lights is the extra current draw on the electrical system of the vehicle. A 55 watt light will draw around 5amps each. If you were running 4 of these lights at various spots on the truck, you are demanding an additional 20 amps from the alternator. Add regular headlights and tail lights, maybe some off-road lights, and a winch session and you could be pushing beyond the point of the limits of your charging system.

So, what we need is a rock light that is rugged, small, bright enough, operates with a low current draw, and is cheap.

Enter the LED and the wonders of modern technology. LED stands for Light Emitting Diode, and while nothing new to the world of electronics, the LED has become popular in the world of imports and the search for the personalized, custom touch. Ricers, as the import tuner world is known, use various LEDs to accessorize their cars using them for accent lighting both inside and outside the car. You have seen these little cars running around town. They are the X Generation's muscle cars. Lowered Hondas and Acuras, Nissans and Jettas, all sporting coffee can sized muffler pipes and enough money in engine, suspension, and stereo mods to make wheeling look pretty economical.

The LEDs come in various colors and can even be set-up to change colors to a musical beat. Who said the disco ball was dead? Neon tubes are also used for this effect. LEDs are also inherently rugged and long lasting, do not heat up like a regular bulb, and maybe best of all, they draw hardly any current to operate. Usually rated in milliamps, not amps, you could cover your truck with LEDs and still not kill the battery.

A recent product hit the market and is aimed at the rock light niche. It got me thinking about whether LEDs are the rock lights of the future, so I did some web searching and ordered a few different samples to see how LEDs stack up against the old favorites.

I also cruised the local Pep Boys to see what the import customizers had on the shelf. I looked at the neon tubes that were from 12" to 3" long. Several were broken while still in the package, so I ruled neon out as a good idea. It is kinda like taking the fluorescent bulb out of your office lighting, sticking it in a plastic tube, and bolting it under the truck. Hmmm. Maybe not.

The LEDs were packaged that way as well, and could be bought as a kit with two 3'-4" long tubes and two 12" tubes. These were priced at around $120.00. Kinda pricy just to experiment with.

I wanted to see how cheaply it could be done and just how much light an LED will give off for this application. LEDs typically provide a "spot" of light rather than a diffused, wide pattern like an incandescent bulb and lens. I chose green for the LED color, but that is up to you. White, red, blue, etc, are all available.

The three samples I compared gave me a pretty good idea of what I could expect. To judge the pattern in a measurable way, I set up the lights so they were suspended 3' off the ground and then took a look at the light pattern. The pics show the results. A yardstick was placed in the light pattern to provide a benchmark.

Sample one: A small 6 LED pack. $9.00

You can see from the size that this thing would fit pretty much anywhere.

It really is designed for something less than lighting up the underside of a truck, and, as you can see from the pic, it lit up the yardstick with a diffused glow that was barely able to illuminate past the length of the yardstick. I will say that it did better than the pic shows, but this little guy is best suited to fill in the gaps that the main light source would miss. It also would make a killer interior light for footwells, etc.

Sample two: A 12", 12 LED tube. $25.00

I was curious how the tubes would do, thinking that the 4 tube LED packs at Pep Boys would make a neat way to get all the vehicle covered in lights, the long tubes on the sides and the shorter ones front and rear. You can see from the pic that the 12" tube is pretty bright, allowing the markings on the yardstick to be seen in the dark and extending just beyond the length of the yardstick. It was more of a spot than the smaller sample #1, and although brighter, it faded pretty fast as you moved out from the center of the light. Still, it would do a pretty good job of lighting up an axle, etc, if it was placed above it parallel to the axle tube. Based on this, I bet the 3'-4' tube would do a good job placed under the rocker area, but you would not expect it to shine out in a very wide pattern.

Sample three: The one I was waiting to see. A new tech, high dispersion, high output LED ready made for our needs. $29.95 This guy is sooo cool looking even in the package. Called the Ultimate LED by www.Roundeyes.com, they are pretty proud of this little fella and claimed some pretty impressive performance from it. We shall see.

But is it worth the extra cost?

Check out the pic of the yardstick. Notice how the light does not seem that bright, but you can see waaayy beyond the edge of the yardstick? This one LED, hanging three feet off the ground, lit up wall to wall of my garage width at floor level! Wow. It was bright enough to walk around my garage without killing myself (you have to see my garage to know that is hard to do). It is brighter than the pic shows it to be and it really puts out a wide pattern.

Here are some pics that show (as best I could) the Ultimate LED mounted on the rocker area of my Scout. The light is actually fixed to the bottom of the frame rail just for demonstration purposes, so it is about 20 some inches above the ground. One pic shows the yardstick for scale and the blurry lit up one was with the flash just to give you an idea of the rest of the truck, etc.

As you may be able to see, the Ultimate LED really lays down a dispersed pattern and easily reached both tires and as far as the middle of the undercarriage. I would think that 2 of these, one on each side of the truck would be pretty good and 4 well placed lights would be amazing considering how little space they require. One thing, though. You could never mount it like I did cause it would get scraped off. But keep in mind that anything that hangs into the light pattern will cause a big, black hole just like any other light would do. It ain't magic. So, tucking it up somewhere out of the way will impair that big spread of light.

To draw some conclusions, the LED looks poised to be the rock light choice of the future. Right now, The Ultimate LED fills all the requirements except being cheap. It would take 4 of the Ultimate lights to really light up the night and that is over $120.00 with shipping , etc. One of the 4-tube kits from the auto parts store would not do quite the job as the Ultimate light would do, but would be about the same cost. I have seen the LED tube lights at a discount, so shop around if you think that would do it for ya. Anything smaller in an LED may not get the light level to where you need it to be.

So, for now the Ultimate LED looks to be the king of the hill, but at a fairly high cost. Still, it appears to be a quality product that does what it says it will do.

Ultimate LED
www.roundeyes.com
530 642 8003

Other LED products
www.superbrightleds.com
314 972 6200