How To Decide The Ideal Rock Lights For Your Off-Road Vehicles? How Useful Are They? 

Have you wondered what rock lights are used for? Do you know why most people find it useful? Are you clueless as to why it’ll be useful for you?

Regardless of the light’s colloquial name, they have various benefits. They have many uses such as rock crawling. They are versatile for different approaches and can be mounted in a place.

This light can be used for hardcore requirements such as unloading groceries late at night. In this article, you will find everything you need to know about rock lights.

You will learn where and how to mount these lights. You will also find their benefits and much more details. 

Rock Lights – What Are They And What Other Names They’ve Got?

These rock lights are installed or mounted in the bottom section of the vehicle. Once they are installed, the area will be illuminated directly.

As the name suggests, these lights have taken the joy of off-road riding to the next level. They have made navigating nasty terrain and rock roads manageable.

However, rock lights have much more benefits than just rock crawling.

The most common name used for these lights is rock lights. Generally, people consider the lights that are mounted to the side of their UTV, Jeep, SUV, or truck as “rock lights.” But you will come across a lot more names at the trailhead.

Some such names you’ll encounter are puddle lights, courtesy lights, and underglow lights. These lights always utilize flood beam patterns as they illuminate a wide area. The focus is not on the distance. We’ll talk more about beam patterns in future articles.

What Are The Uses of Rock Lights?

Make Drivers More Visibility

These rock lights are ideal for going out at night in your Jeep. But that’s just the passenger’s point of view. What do drivers feel?

As a driver, when you’re slowly driving, moving over tough terrain is challenging. This is when tire placement is important, hence the lights are unparalleled.

You’ll be able to see what you need to see without struggling too much like you usually would.

Make Spotters More Visibility

Once you have mounted the rock lights in the right location, you will be able to get more use of them. They will light up other areas apart from underneath your vehicle.

This will help your spotter view better to get more information you need. You will be able to drive through the trail without any carnage. Forward-facing lights might blind the one standing in front of your rig directing the route.

To avoid such hassles, you can turn it off and turn on your rock lights. This will offer a great experience for everyone.

Camp LED Scene Lights

While some believe that rock lights are essentially used for rock crawling, that’s not the case. Most people use these lights in other situations apart from wheeling challenging trails.

The reason why people use it for other needs is because the illumination is wide. The area surrounding your vehicle by 10 feet or so will be covered by the illumination.

These lights are ideal for camping. You can set up your camping gear when you’re at the campsite during the nighttime.

These lights are used in random situations because of their ambient lighting. The underflow lights become beneficial in situations such as unloading groceries at night.

Or you can wire them to your vehicle’s interior in a way to illuminate the area when you open the door. It can be puddle lights to make your vehicle aesthetic as to your imagination.

What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Rock Lights?

It’s true that there are lots of benefits of using rock lights on your off-road rigs. While that’s one aspect, there are some drawbacks that you should know. Let’s discuss them below. 

The Pros of Bumper-Mounted Lights 

There are many benefits to mounting rock lights onto UTV, truck, or Jeep. The most obvious benefit is as we discussed their versatility – you can use them in many situations. Apart from that, you get the following benefits:

• It’s a safety measurement. When you drive through challenging trails at night, you won’t have to worry about going off-road or ending up in the wrong direction. 
• It’s an aesthetic element. You can beautify your vehicle using these lights. They can compliment your vehicle’s color as they come in various colors. 

Rock Lights – Benefits at a Glance

• Managing obstacles when going off-road riding at night 
• Withstands challenging trails, hence highly durable 
• Can be used as courtesy lights for your vehicle’s door 
• They can be used as camping lights, area lights, and rock lights – versatile
• Low power consumption, 5W per light
• They’re super cool

The Drawbacks of Rock Lights

You don’t have to spend a lot of time reading this section because it’s actually short. There are not many limitations to rock lights, so it’s going to be minimal.

The major drawback of rock lights is that you may have to spend a lot of time wiring them. When doing so, you have to work underneath your vehicle and it’s already congested, so you might find it difficult. 

On top of all that, you should wire all the wires carefully. It’s important to run them in a way that they don’t snuck out when off-roading.

This careful procedure requires a lot of time and effort from you, so that’s another drawback there. However, there’s a solution for this. You can find a professional to do it for you so that the wiring time is reduced. 

Based on what you’re mounting these lights onto, the level of difficulty in finding the ideal solution to mounting them will vary. If you’re mounting these lights onto a truck or jeep, you won’t have a lot to deal with. But if it’s a UTV, it’ll be difficult. 

Magnetic mounts, surface mounts, and flush mounts make your life easier when mounting. Apart from this, there are instances when you might not necessarily find the ideal mounting places you expect for a particular angle. 

Where To Mount The Rock Lights On A UTV/Truck/Jeep? 

Deciding where to place and mount lights on off-road rigs is mostly similar to how you do them on a UTV, Jeep, truck, or any other vehicle.

The major difference is the vehicle’s length. Based on the vehicle’s length and your goal, the required amount of light will change – sometimes more, sometimes less.

That said, there are some general rules you must know, and will discuss them in future articles. 

Essential: 

Usually, when mounting a complete rock light kit to your Jeep or other off-road vehicles, you will have 6 lights to enjoy. Some lights such as multiple color LEDs include add-on kits.

These help you add more lights effortlessly. Once you’ve added them, the setup will look more advanced needing coverage. We will discuss it below.

Let’s start with discussing the vehicle’s front and go backward. It’s wise to organize them from the driver’s side to the passenger’s as it’ll be systematic then.   

• Position two lights on each side of the vehicle in front of the front tires. Potentially underneath the front bumper or on the front-most portion of the frame. 
• Follow this by placing another pair of lights just behind the front tires. 
• Lastly, position the balance of two lights in the rear tires’ front. 

This system is the most functional for mounting locations for rock lights during nighttime. This ensures overall coverage across a wide area when going off-roading.

From the driver’s point of view, what they want to see is the light illuminating from the rear wheel’s front and behind the front wheel. It’ll be easy for the spotter to keep you on the line with the help of these two lights.  

For serious off-roaders: 

It’s best to add over 6 rock lights for serious off-roaders. You can start doing it by focusing on the overall coverage. Adding two lights behind your rear tires is the best way to start it.

Once you’ve done that, anything additional goes as bonus points. You can include a couple more in the vehicle’s dead center for extra coverage.

Or if you feel like adding lights to any other areas would be useful, don’t think twice about doing it.  

RGB Rock Lights vs White LEDs (Single Color) With Colored Lenses

One of the most common questions people have is what’s the difference between single-color LEDs and color-changing RGB lights.

Although this is simple, it’s worth discussing. Generally, single-color LEDs, which don’t have the color-changing feature with an app are brighter. They also offer usable light.

You can buy these lights with colored lenses which handle the color output. The color frequently appears noticeably purer to the naked eye.

RGB Lights that are in LEDs have 3 color dies, such as Blue, Red, and Green. They come in one package. The single dies are smaller and they die themselves. This is why they do not emit light like the single-colored LEDs and are not intense. 

They are used in different levels of brightness. It’s done to create a rainbow of color choices that can be controlled by an app or controller.

Another feature with these is for any color that is not blue, green, or red, the representation of color won’t be as crisp as single ones. The single-color utilizes colored lenses to manage the color output.

 Hence, the “white” light emitted from RGB light might have traces of blue. The best thing about RGB rock lights is that it’s possible to alter the color to match your style or situation as needed.

For example, white will work best for setting up a camp. But once you have done it, switching to red is an option. Or if you want to drive away the insects, you can switch to ambient lighting. 

Common Questions And Answers On Rock Lights 

Q1: Why do people use rock lights, and for what purpose? 

A: The rock lights are used for lighting. But it’s not just for lighting, it’s rather to illuminate the space underneath the vehicle that you use for off-roading. They will provide enough light to set up a camp, rock crawling, and much more. You will also find them cool once installed. 

Q2: Do rock lights generate heat?

A: Although RGB rock lights don’t get hot, They have the chance to generate heat. This is because of their higher output. However, you don’t have to worry about serious issues because they don’t overheat to cause serious damage.

For example, if you’re worrying about premature failures, melting of wiring/plastics, etc that they’re installed to or closer to, you can rest assured. 

Q3: Can rock lights be submerged?

A: Yes, they can be submerged up to the depth of 1.5m underwater. If they possess an IP68 rating, they can endure submersion for a maximum of thirty minutes. If it’s anything beyond that, you wouldn’t want to submerge in water for too long or too often. 

Q4: Do rock lights vary for Trucks, Jeeps, and UTVs?

A: No, they are all the same. You will not find any difference between rock lights used for trucks, Jeeps, UTVs, or other vehicles used for off-roading. 

Q5: What is the recommended number of rock lights for a truck or UTV?

A: You can consider adding around 6 rock lights onto your UTV or truck. It’s the minimum amount. But eight rock lights would provide a rounded output. 

Q6: Can keeping rock lights on lead to battery drainage?

A: It’s true that these lights don’t need a lot of power. But if you keep them turned on, the vehicle’s battery might drain, if you don’t drive for too long.

There are exceptional cases too. If it’s a standard Toyota Tacoma battery with a capacity of 100 AH, the case is different. It will take over 5 hours for the battery to show a significant change if turned on for too long.

Similarly, a smaller battery in a UTV will take less time to show a difference. If it’s a diesel truck that has a large battery, you will see that it takes more time to drain.