Consumers are often bombarded with tons of choices for LED driving lights when they buy them for their trucks. When options increase, it isn’t easy to settle for an ideal product. Fitting high-quality driving lights to your vehicle is a good call.

It’s, in fact, one of the best investments that you make for your vehicle. It will increase visibility at night, which means the driver is safe and comfortable. Apart from that, quality LED driving lights will help you fight off eye fatigue.

Yet, you can’t assume that all driving lights work fine because they don’t. There are features and qualities to consider before deciding on a particular light. Yet, you shouldn’t compare incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs to decide. They’re like the North and South poles.

Here are 13 things to consider when buying LED driving lights for trucks.

Why choose LED driving lights

There are plenty of reasons to consider LED driving lights. From the manufacturer’s and consumer’s point of view, they are beneficial. High performance and compact size make the product better than traditional bulbs.

LEDs draw less energy, and the heat generated is low when compared to conventional globe bulbs. Additionally, damages from vibration and shock are less as LEDs are more resistant.

You already know that an LED is a tiny semiconductor that emits light once the current is passed through it. There will be high intensity when the current is passed, and it will reduce when it’s switched off.

Yet, there are many other benefits to LED lights when they are used as driving lights.

How long do LED driving lights last

If you compare a filament-style globe to an LED, you’re likely to see a vast difference, such as 150 times. But LEDs’ life span depends on the diode’s quality, which is approximately 50,000 hours.

An issue with LED is that you can’t replace the diode if it burns out; rather, you have to replace the whole assembly.

LEDs are compact and grouped into an array to offer equal performance like the conventional globe. Lens and reflector technology support the array to spread. They focus light into a pattern that fits the designer’s application.

There is complex LED driving lights that have optical characteristics and beam pattern. These lights avoid the need for many sets of lights on your vehicle’s front.

What are lumens, and what is the difference between raw and effective lumens

A lumen is a standard measure that is used to check the brightness. This describes the light’s volume emitted from a source of light. Lumen rating is the sum of light’s volume emitted from that particular source. In this case, it’s a set of LED driving lights.

Yet, there are two different lumens, so you can classify them as effective and raw, How to Measuring Light Output

A raw Lumen is a theoretical figure that you can count by multiplying each LED’s greatest output. Then, multiplying that amount by LEDs in the array. For example, if there are 20 LEDs with 1,000 Lumens rating each, then the amount is 20,000 Lumens. The amount doesn’t include the following:

absorption, thermal losses, lens’ reflection, or the assembled unit quality.

So, these losses are usually around 10-25%.

An effective Lumen – the real light output calculated through high-tech photometry. This is the most accurate and realistic representation of LED driving lights’ brightness.

Most manufacturers quote the raw Lumen figure when advertising these lights. This figure is grand and higher. Another reason is they don’t have facilities and expensive equipment to measure it. You shouldn’t let them fool you, so remember, it’s the effective lumen that’s mentioned.

We have quality equipment and a photometric laboratory to measure the accurate output.

Is the color temperature, CRI, or Kelvin rating of LED driving lights important

Light’s color temperature is indicated on the Color Rendering Index (CRI), a qualitative measure. This is used to check the ability of light’s source in revealing the colors of objects. These are illuminated compared to the natural source of lighting.

Some countries such as Australia express color temperature in degrees. So the warmer colors show a lower degree value, such as 1,900K, and a higher degree as 10,000K for cooler colors. The midpoint scale, which is at 4,800K, is close to the Daylight.

Knowing LED driving lights’ color temperature is crucial than anything else. It’s also important to know the environment that you will be using the LED driving lights. So that you can decide the color temperature.

The longer wavelength (mentioned as a lower K value or CRI) of warm light. Or that shows red to yellow, is better to get through fog, dust, and mist (precipitation) with less reflection.

The only con factor is warm light can damage your eye’s ability to detect color.

colors such as brown and grey of animals such as wallabies and kangaroos.

The shorter wavelength (mentioned as a higher K value or CRI) of cool light or blue to violet is brighter . Also, it will stress objects with darker colors, and you will also have much clarity.

The downside of cool light is that it creates excessive reflection and glare that cause eye strain. Drivers might find it hard to manage fog, precipitation, and dust in such cases.

So, you must consider color temperature that goes like the natural Daylight. Usually, white lights are great for the eyes as they offer close to real contrast, illumination, and near-perfect color rendering. A 5,000-6,500k is ideal for greater vision and perception.

Light distance VS beam patterns

The very reason that LED driving light enables drivers to see as far as possible is a good selling point. It’s obvious that being able to see long distances will help you notice dangers from afar. But that’s only a part of the whole picture.

Some terrains need light for the sides as much as for the vehicle’s front. So if you’re in such terrains, LED driving lights might come in handy. This is why drivers buy flood and spotlights sets when purchasing conventional lights.

Yet, what’s best about LED driving lights is that you don’t have to buy flood and spotlights if you have these.

These individual lights access lighting zones providing intense spread for broader space. White light for both sides, and illuminating greater distance.

IP Rating 

You already know LEDs are electronic devices. Thus, it’s important to keep them safe from contaminants that will harm the LED lamps. There’s a high chance for water getting in or salt spray, so the interior application is likely to be harmed.

Sealing is the best way to protect your LED lamp and internal components. Quality lamps for leisure while commercial lamps have at least IP 67. This means the same luminaire fits both the exterior and interior of the vessel.

These are in both dry and wet conditions. If the LED light is sealed on either side, then lighting is safe and clean. So worrying about water ingression will not be a problem.

Materials

The maritime environment is salty, strong, and extremely humid, along with UV. Some lamps are manufactured using corrosive metals that are low-graded. Or you might find lamps that are coated with alloy and might rust and degrade soon. Less quality material will cause

blemishes that will ruin the lamp’s look. It will impact the system and create breakouts, leading tong moisture in the lamp.

This is why it’s important to consider durable housing to manage internal components. Most buyers end up purchasing products that are from plastic materials.

Though it might be less expensive, it will not last long when exposed to UV. Constant exposure might cause cracks in your LED bulbs. It will enable moisture and water inside.

You must make sure to check materials that have high UV resistance, high humidity, and salt in LEDs. It’s also important to check whether materials are for usage. When there’s excellent transparency, it impacts the fatigue strength of the bulbs.

The lamp’s excess heat is removed and cooled down by a metal heat sink. Yet, there are instances when metal-based LED lamps were not well coated, so they flake off .

This results in a compromised system that allows moisture into the electric circuit. There are products with a revolutionary ceramic polymer that has excellent thermal performance.

Do LED driving lights require thermal management

There is less heat when you deal with LEDs, and it is true. A diode doesn’t produce infrared radiation means the light source doesn’t produce heat as an incandescent globe.

Yet, LEDs produce heat at the junctions of semiconductors. Sometimes concert around 85% of the input energy is turned into heat (the rest of 15% is turned into visible light).

Thermal management is a challenge for LED-driving light designers. This is why the housing or the body of the LED driving light uses aluminum. It’s more like a heat sink.

IC drivers check the thermal levels of diodes. This ensures that levels are not over-driven by thermal conditions.

This feature is visible only on LED driving lights of high quality. It also reduces the heat transmitted to diodes. So protects the parts from premature failure.

Electromagnetic Interference

Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) is a crucial safety concern for almost all industrial applications.

As devices like LED lamps grow common, the dangers of unintended electromagnetic interference (EMI) have an adverse impact on other devices like communication equipment or radios.

Our LED products are certified by electromagnetic interference’s international standard CE. Our products are with shallow levels than the norms of the markets.

Power Consumption

LED driving lights can save around 90% of power. One of the misconceptions is that 4W lamps create an equal amount of light performance. Actually, designed 3Watt LED lights can create higher light compared to a 4-Watt lamp. The performance is on the following:

• Usage of LED
• Optical quality
• Electronic
• Thermal management.

Your decision shouldn’t be on Wattage alone. This is because there could be 4-watt lamps that don’t have similar light output. Along with the LED technology, manufacturers have produced LEDs with higher lumen per watt.

This means the power consumption reduces while the bulbs are becoming brighter. This is why when calculating efficacy, it’s vital to consider the lumens per watt measure.

Like traditional lamps, LEDs too need to be cooled down. The lamp gets heated further with more power and might impact the lamp’s performance.

Aren’t all LED driving lights as good as one another?

When a product has more demand, it’s apparent that it will get more rivalries and imitations. It’s the same with LED driving lights, given that it’s one of the vehicle accessories.

You will find cheaper products, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right choice. This doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money to purchase lighting accessories. Of course, you shouldn’t spend a lot. But you should definitely do your research before purchasing LED driving lights.

If you want to find the ideal LED lights focus on the following:

• Water and dust resistance
• Should have a lens and resist shock
• Mounting hardware and housing that support tough conditions
• Robust casing
• A lens that won’t budge for UV light and vibration
• Mounting brackets (4mm thickness)
• Tool-free adjustments to increase the light spread.
• Works well on the terrains that you drive.

Also, don’t forget to buy LED driving lights from a reputed brand. You know, selecting branded products saves you from a lot of hassles.