CREE LED Light Bars?

[Palmer Digger]

Gedday there Folks .. 'CREE' Led light bars? .. Does anyone have any experience/knowledge or opinion on these Chinese cheapies?
Just looking for a smaller, compact unit to give that broader light fill for bush travelling and the led bars seem to be the go in terms of brightness and spread rather than distance.

Repco are running a very good deal on Great Whites at the moment, but I came across the Cree brand units for nearly a third less on Gumtree .. A bit of googling later, It seems that Cree either supply some of the top brand manufacturers with critical components and even supply some with complete units for re-branding!

I'd really appreciate some feed back on this one.

 

[Westaus]

Don't know anything about them but these looked quite compact and for the price you could make fit ?

http://www.starproducts.com.au/products/60w-led-light-bar-11-11inch-flood-spot-offroad-lamp/

 

[backcreek]

Take a look here.
http://www.importerdeals.com.au/leds-lighting.html

Gedday there Folks .. 'CREE' Led light bars? .. Does anyone have any experience/knowledge or opinion on these Chinese cheapies?
Just looking for a smaller, compact unit to give that broader light fill for bush travelling and the led bars seem to be the go in terms of brightness and spread rather than distance.

Repco are running a very good deal on Great Whites at the moment, but I came across the Cree brand units for nearly a third less on Gumtree .. A bit of googling later, It seems that Cree either supply some of the top brand manufacturers with critical components and even supply some with complete units for re-branding!

I'd really appreciate some feed back on this one.

 

[elrodeo]

I deal with China a lot in one of my businesses in Auto led lighting and the whole Chinese gear is junk theory is a load of crap.
Yes, you can buy cheap and nasty quality but you can also get cheap , well priced high quality gear.
All that lovely ARB gear you see on 4wd's, one guess where that comes form. Rooftop tents they buy for around $250 or less FOB end up retail between $1500- $2000.
Same goes with the lighting, You can get high quality gear Chinese made, (especially in Led Cree lights) but it's the buggers here in OZ that put 2,3 up to 400% or more and crap on about cost's of import duties, taxes etc. Biggest load of crap. It's all about making as much profit as possible.
I've spent a lot of my life living o/seas and seeing how other countries operate when it comes to sales profits and in Oz it's pure highway robbery.

Anyway, point is, do a bit of research and hunt around as there are high quality led Cree lights out there at good fair pricing.

 

[ArmstrongIndustries]

I would have to agree totally with Elrodeo.
All the electrical fittings I've imported have been quality.
So LED light bars wouldn't be any different.
I could have picked you up one last week Palmer Digger and put in with the rock breaker

 

[Guest]

Iv got a 20" cree light bar on the front of the 4x4 cost me $160 cheep Chinese one and it works excelent the main fault is they drop a led but who cares right' there under half the price of even the iron man brand that probley are the same company.
And if they do drop a led you still have 39 to go

 

[slowflow]

Cree have been around for a while, try sites like banggood & dealextreme as they may stock these now both sell cree torches. check the bin, colour temp, lumen and amp draw. Cheap Chinese is catching up in some areas.

 

[Hoddo1960]

Hi all I am new to this
just reading all question's and answers,I have just started a store on facebook called aussie 4x4 Led Lights & fittings in which I agree that you can buy cheap and nasty or purchase high quality good's and that's what I sell is high end Led lights and at factory Direct prices
like 7'' 90w pair at $399.00 a pair using cree xp Led and BAYER LENS FROM GERMANY WE ARE A SMALL Aussie FAMILY RUN COMPANY and we offer I have found that alot of stores sell cheapy's at a big price I have spent the last 10 month's in research and have traveled to china as well to find to right suplier.So you can contact me via email or facebook store

 

[condor22]

I'm a great believer in the saying "You get what you pay for" I also like to, where practical, support Australian Made.

I have Lightforce spotties on the 4x4. They are brilliant, every pun intended. Designed in Australia, for Australia, by Australians and well worth the extra money.

Gimme 5 I have a PDF somewhere comparing and testing spots and LED lightbars, I'll post it shortly.

 

[condor22]

Won't let me upload it as it's too big a file, but I found the link

http://www.lightforce.net.au/images/pages/4WD 161 LR2.pdf

Interesting reading.

 

[Reeks]

Gotta agree with Condor.
Cheap lightbars are a waste of time. Put your cheapie next to a good quality unit and i bet you would fork out the extra for the quality bar, even if it is 1/3 the price.

A set of Hid Lightforce, Narva or Hella will kick the arse of 90% of the lightbars on the market.

Like everything in life, go the best you can afford or even can't afford as you will only regret your cheaper option.

 

[nuggethunter]

light bars are a spread light for low speed travel. spotlights do produce light a lot further away for higher speeds.
eg if you doing 100km on the highway lightbars are useless as they dont light up far enough away to give u any warning.
doing 10km in the bush the spot lights light up that far ahead on winding roads that there in the trees not on the road.
hope this help a little in your decision

 

[Guest]

Agree to disagree with the last two posts the cheep light bars my brother has been importing have been around now for 3 years I paid $160 for mine and a mate has a iron man one with the same candle power he paid $385 and has had continuous problems, out of hundreds of the cheep ones 2 have been dodgy and 3 have dropped LEDs. I agree that quality is every thing but there's no way I'll spend $600+ on light force or any other top brands when they come off second best to skippy'
Its not that important to me how far lights shine skippy doesn't sit on the road waiting, I think it's more important to see 100m wide and the 20" light bar I'm using increases the stock high beam just nice.

If there isn't much fog around tonight I'll go for a drive and take some photos.

 

[condor22]

I use 1 spot and 1 spread Lightforce Genesis. Gives the best of both worlds.

The good thing with Lightforce is the protective cover comes in different shades. The clear is obvious, the blue one whitens the light from Xenon globes and the yellow is for foggy conditions. So a simple clip on /off is a lot cheaper than buying extra lights.

The Chinese are really good at copying a design, their ability to copy quality control of knockoffs is not good. But if you remember back to the 50s and 60s, Japanese stuff was similar in quality, now it's superior. I'm sure the Chinese stuff will improve over time.

For now I'll stick with quality

 

[stevo]

Just fitted a 22.5 INCH 126w CREE LED SPOT FLOOD COMBO to the front of my Rodeo on the nudge bar. I just tonight got a chance to give them a good try out between Mudgee and Bathurst in the dark, I'm more than impressed with the nice white wide light output from them, could easily see both sides of the road clearly and I reckon I would have plenty of warning of any movement from a roo. I would say if you want good distance go for a combination of spot beams and a light bar.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/22-5-INC..._Parts_Accessories&hash=item43c2771fc3&_uhb=1

 

[stevo]

Forgot to add the wiring kit supplied with them was rubbish, I went and bought a Narva driving light wiring kit, a little pricey but well worth it for ease of installation.

 

[Guest]

That's what mine is stevo I think all the ones the brother gets are a spot spread' I tried to take photos last night but it's just too foggy at the moment.

 

[HeadsUp]

the trend used to be to whack two big round 9 inch halogen spotties on the front of your fourby and block the airflow to the radiator coz its really cool when you're parked on the side of the nullabor highway with steam pissing out from your radiator overflow bottle.

thats what i like about light bars

they can sit nicely below the radiator grille without messing up airflow . and so cheap now too

but you have to pick carefully from fleabay , some of the ones claiming to be CREE are not , but you can get a good 22 - 24" LED bar for $ 90 - 110

Who has one of those 30 - 40 inch ones that put a suntan on the bum of a roo at 200 metres ?

it wouldnt surprise me if those get banned for their affect on global warming

 

[Guest]

Iv got two mates with the 40" ones WOW! Bit over the top if you ask me .

 

[HeadsUp]

Iv got two mates with the 40" ones WOW! Bit over the top if you ask me .

yeah . one of those turns a corner in front of you and BAM ! its like being 8 inches away from a nuke detonation

but its okay . your nightvision returns within a week