Periphery lighting for cars

TorchBoy

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What is there in the way of periphery lighting for cars? I've seen spotlights mounted on the sides of (normally little) security cars, on either end of a roof bar. That sort of thing could be useful for looking for letterboxes too, as I don't have cornering lights. Is that all there is? If I want something to light up a camp site on one side of or all around my car is there anything designed for that? How bright is the 12V strip lighting from DX and would it be suitable anyway?
 

Ken_McE

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I think that anything that you could carry in the car and run off the cigarette lighter would do the job, no?
 

TorchBoy

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For non-moving situations that would be OK, but it wouldn't be as good if I should have both hands on the wheel at the time, unless it had a fixed mounting or I had a willing navigator.

I was wondering a night or two ago about changing the setup of my car alarm so that the indicators stayed on when I disarm it, instead of the normal flashing thing they do. Is that ever done with a manual switch?
 

Ken_McE

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For non-moving situations that would be OK, but it wouldn't be as good if I should have both hands on the wheel at the time, unless it had a fixed mounting or I had a willing navigator.

I realize this is on the wrong continent for you, but perhaps it will give you a lead:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Crow...004QQitemZ140192487304QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

I don't know what they call them, but I have always thought one would be handy. Over here we have a more ambitious one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/JABS...021QQitemZ310003096564QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWD1V


I was wondering a night or two ago about changing the setup of my car alarm so that the indicators stayed on when I disarm it, instead of the normal flashing thing they do. Is that ever done with a manual switch?
It would depend heavily on what vehicle you have. My guess is no.

I don't have cornering lights. Is that all there is?

As a CPF'er you have options. Serious options. What would you like?
 

TorchBoy

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I don't know what they call them, but I have always thought one would be handy. Over here we have a more ambitious one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/JABS...021QQitemZ310003096564QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWD1V
Nice! That would cut down on the need for all sorts of other lights, and would get rid of reflection from windows in a passenger was using a handheld spotlight.

As a CPF'er you have options. Serious options. What would you like?
:laughing: Give me some ideas for retrofitting some halogen cornering lights.
 

Ken_McE

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:laughing: Give me some ideas for retrofitting some halogen cornering lights.

If you want the ones that come on automatically when you activate the turn signal, that's a bit beyond a brief answer on a forum.

A bar on the roof with various lights mounted on it is of course the classic solution. It will cut down on the maximum speed the vehicle can go and reduce your mileage (kilometerage?) slightly.

If you are willing to carve up your car a bit you have options. Massive options. There is probably room in the front fenders to cut out an opening and embed a headlight facing sideways. Get a mounting off a wreck, preferably the same mount and bulb as your car already uses. Give it its own switch and don't use it for driving down the road.

For a softer light suitable for setting up a camp, something more frugal and diffuse, you could run a string of one or three watt LED stars down the passenger side of your vehicle, mount a switch just inside from them. Then you park, hit the switch, light up everything on that side. It'd be much less blinding than cornering lights, give a more even light for working.

A somewhat trickier setup, but one that wouldn't require altering the car, would be to make a mount for an LED strip just inside the top/bottom of each window. The tricky part is that you'd have to have a setup where the window could still go up and down, but not much light would leak around the edges and back into the car.
 

TorchBoy

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A bar on the roof with various lights mounted on it is of course the classic solution. It will cut down on the maximum speed the vehicle can go and reduce your mileage (kilometerage?) slightly.
"Fuel economy"? I don't think it would be permanently mounted. I've wondered for a while what sort of plugs/sockets I could use to give a waterproof thing while it's not plugged in.

A somewhat trickier setup, but one that wouldn't require altering the car, would be to make a mount for an LED strip just inside the top/bottom of each window.
Ah. Now that is a good idea. Light strips mounted just under the slimline monsoon shields along the tops of the windows. If it wasn't raining right now I'd head out and have a look. That may be just what I wanted.

Edit: Yes, there's about 1.2m that I could put LED strips into, and because of the shielding it might even be legal here to drive around with it on.
 
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TorchBoy

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DX has a couple of nice-looking options, of which I'd put a couple along each side for a metre of lighting under each rain shield. There's the perfect amount of width, and the strips could easily be held on by cable ties.

Plain white, 30 LEDs: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5256
Psychedelic RGB (18 each colour): http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10061

That second one has a strange draw for me. A two position (plus off) switch for each colour of LED would give 26 different colours/intensities (plus all off). Or some sort of Christmas light controller could be connected to it to fade each colour in and out. :clap: Is that sort of thing available off the shelf?
 
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