HELP! on making a LED lightbar

[Logant12]

So me and my buddy got bored and decided to try to make a light bar so we figured it would be quite easy make a casing with something inside to reflect the light and make it enhance the light have like 10-20 little 2 pin led bulbs run all the bulbs into one big positive and then have one big ground mount it as a bar and use it for **** hunting offroading etc.... Thing is I am like electrically challenged it seems easy but it seems like its too easy.. would those bulbs drain my truck battery.. is there something im missing it would all be run on a toggle switch. If there is something im missing could someone explain to me how it works in simple "uneducated" terms please thank you very much.

 

[glendayle]

Well, you need to do a lot of research before just throwing together a home made light bar.

1st. research LEDs. They are not the same. Different quality, and different output levels. As usual, good LEDs cost money.
2ndly One of the major issues with the LEDs is that LEDs with high output generate a lot of heat. Casing and heatsinks need to be sufficient to diffuse the heat from the LED or they will burn out.
3rd is to be able to put something together that will withstand vibration and shock as well as the elements.

I'm sure there is much more to it than that. IMO by the time you get all of the parts together to create a light bar, you'll spend a fair amount and have a pretty poor product. There are some cheap knockoff products out there that appear to be decent. Once again, not as good as the expensive brands, but at a fraction of the cost, they work for many. Quality control is sometimes an issue though.

 

[kamokevin]

The LEDs that are used in a standard lightbar are not regular LEDs but rather surface mounted LEDs. Typically CREE due to their reliability and quality control.

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They take a soldering iron with a small precision electronics tip on it to solder them in and are soldered onto a board rather than just sitting freely in an aluminum body. This board is what's connected to the housing/heatsink.

The reflector would have to be custom designed for the body and the LED placement then chrome plated. The body would have to be custom designed and milled. SMD LEDs are not rated for 12V so if they were wired in parallel you have to do the math to determine what size resistors to use. You'd also want to make sure each LED is getting enough current to activate, since diodes are either on or off and current is split between each LED in parallel.

In short, it would be more work and more money to try to make your own. I'd recommend a set of Rigid Duallys. You can get a set of two for like $175, they're crazy bright and crazy reliable.

 

[michael hurd]

The optics and quality of parts are what set Rigid and Baja Designs apart from the 'wanna be' from across the pond. As was said, it's not just a matter of connecting up some wires and applying power.

Some of the things that an 'integrated' system with LED's have: reverse polarity protection, buck drivers for each LED ( or pair in series ) thermal protection, an optical reflector / lens system, a weatherproof housing that won't corrode, and a mounting system.

Heat sinking is a very important aspect of high power LED's, since there are little to none thermal emissions out the front, all of the heat created in the junction has to go out the back of the die or 'star'.

As was mentioned, buying a 'system' already designed is the way to go in your case.

 

[77Impala]

For price verses the headache of building your own buying a light bar is not expensive. I just added LED driving/fog lamps to my truck for less that 30.00. And as pointed out they are the CREE LED's and the housing is a built in heat sink.