Ebay LED Light Bar

I guess there isn't a way to check the chips unless you dissemble it. However, I do not believe 1 lux, the vendor just bragged too much! 1500M, even a lightforce spotlight won't make it!

Most of the spotties can only reach nearly 1000m, and top lightforce lamps would touch a bit further, but check out the big ass reflectors!

As far as I am concerned, CREE doesn't produce light bar, or any LED lighting stuffs. Nearly all LED stuffs in Australia are made in China, except the luxurious ones imported from US(could be china made if traced back). It seems Lightforce is the solely producer in Australia.

200AUD for a 180W is a bit overpaid, anyway.

Quote: "The light only cost $220...."

Therein lies your problem I would suggest.

Terms like "CREE" and "xxx Lumens" are bandied about like confetti and unless you have access to a laboratory you will never really know whether the advertsing claims are fact. The suppliers know this and they take a punt that they won't be found out.

Having said that, EVERY LED light bar I've ever had (and there has been a large number of them) has only been good for lighting-up the immediate area to the front of the vehicle. They do a great job of throwing a wide band of light off to the sides of the road, but you wouldn't want to be relying on them for distance lighting.

I've got a pair of Fyrlyt Nemises (250 watt each) halogen lights plus a quad-row light bar (60 x 3w LEDs = 180 watt). It is on a separate switch to the 500 watts of Fyrlyt. There are times when you don't need to see a kilometer down the road (like tootling along a winding bush track at 20k/h) and the light bar is GREAT for that.

Contrary to popular belief, I also think the white light emitted by LED and HID is NOT as good for our eyes (well, mine anyway) over extended periods of night driving. The bright halogens are much easier on the eyes.

In summary.....don't expect too much from your LED bar; or ANY LED bar!

Roachie

I have got a cheap light bar (low life's in Darwin won't steal them)234w, 32 inch for about $150 and friends with expensive ones, well up over $800 -$1400 etc. They are on mining wages, I'm not. But I'm happy with the light output for the price, again, no great distance but decent close to medium range.
The light output on the dearer ones at 6 times the price isn't 6 times better or brighter, but there is a lot more engineering and quality with the mounting brackets, ease of adjustment and wiring harnesses etc, and the whole units just feel more solid and upto he rigours of off-roading, corrugations and the like which is probably why they still have theirs and Im onto my 3rd cheap one due to broken brackets.

Gordon in answer to your question - you can't really check... but I'd imagine they will be Cree's but just an older version.

Cree is the top manufacturer and they are always updating their technology. I don't see many light bar manufacturers keeping up with the developments and putting the new super LED's into their lightbars.

I can only guess why we are not seeing some of the newer and better value LED's in the marketplace. - maybe people would not buy a lot of the older stock if the manufacturers release a fantastically bright lightbar using newer cheaper LED's....It makes little sense to me. I am holding off buying a LED lightbar until I see much better performance for the money.
Some light bar manufacturers are beginning to use the newer (2 year old) Cree XM L2 LED - they are much brighter ... but you have to specifically search for the XM-L2 models.

Interestingly enough, last year I bought a Jetbeam Torch with a single XM-L2 in it runs on 4 rechargeable AA batteries and it throws more light the one of those 6" Lightbars from Supacentre in fact it is brighter than the headlights on some cars. .......worth doing the homework on.

http://www.cree.com/LED-Components-and-Modules/Products/XLamp/Discrete-Directional/XLamp-XML2

You're bringing up a lot of different points but what is your main concern?
You were happy to pay the dollars and if you managed to incinerate trees out front you'd be terribly happy and would not be looking any further.

So your only concern should be 'what is the light output'
Well you can A:/ buy/borrow a lux meter and measure it for yourself.
B:/ get out into a forest track at night and fire up the hi beams on their own and then the bar on its own. Compare the illumination impact on the surroundings...

I run 360w of led spots and the additional illumination over the hi beams is staggering.

I bought a 20" light bar about 6 months ago. It was quite a frustrating experience as I found it hard to weed out all the rubbish from something semi decent. As Gordonk has mentioned, pretty much all LED bars promote lots of big fancy numbers like wattage and lumens. I don't know much at all about light terminology, which is why it was frustrating. Apparently the wattage only relates to the power draw (40x3w led's = 120w) and lumens measures the light at the source. Also, the lumen figure is often just the maximum potential possible based on the maximum rated output of each LED. Its a minefield.
Long story short, i looked at plenty of reviews and decided on a brand called 'Cosmoblaze' which reviewed quite well up against the big names like great white, Rigid industries etc. here is one page i came across http://lightbarreport.com/ need to scroll right down toward the bottom to see 'best led lightbars by size'.
Cosmoblaze aren't as cheap as ebay ones but also about half the price of lightforce etc.
Once again they 'claim' 1 lux at over 500m, but on my car i would say its closer to about 300m. I do a reasonable amount of night driving and while i can't compare it to traditional spot lights, it certainly improves forward vision over standard high beams. It is 6000k (brightness) so on the bright side (5000-5500 considered best) but after driving for some time with the lightbar on, when i turn it off, the highbeams look like candles in a tunnel.
I have a FG falcon. The high beams are very good standard. The lightbar does shine slightly further but also much much broader, which is great for spotting kangaroos before they reach the road. There is no real aiming required either being such a broad light beam and no noticeable bounce on rough surfaces.

While on the topic of lights, i'm not a fan of changing factory globes in low beams. while they all claim 'ADR approved' none have been tested in the exact application of every vehicle. Different reflector designs, diffuser designs, light shapes/mounts etc all play a role, and its easy to tell the cars that have modified their low beams when they are coming toward you.

I would recommend lightbars to people, but you do have to do a little bit of homework and determine what you are looking to achieve as well.