4x4 offroad LED "rock lights" Cree P4 XR-E

When driving at night during off-road rock crawling (not baja) you turn off the headlights as they provide very little useful light. Instead you light up the underside of your truck to see where you are going. Ideally you would to have 2 lights at the front bumper and 2 lights behind the front tires and 2 lights in front of the rear tires and 2 lights at the rear bumper. That's 8 if your counting. Normally people use 55 watt H3 driving lights, but these pull a ton of amps and get very hot too.

My goal is to use some Cree P4 XR-E and a constant current driver or two.
Need ideas on drivers and number of LEDs per string. I would suspect I should run 3 LEDs in series with my 13-14v car battery application I've read a little about the LM317 as a constant current driver. I'm looking for somebody that has used these LEDS and what driver setup did they use. Would a variable driver be a good idea too. Does anybody offer a ready made unit?

I'm ging to mounting the LEDs to some aluminum flat bar as a heat sink, would JB weld be ok? How about water proofing them? This is all new sorry for the 20 questions.

No one makes a rock light that uses the Cree XR-E currently there are 1W Luxeon units available from people like Roundeyes on Pirate4x4 but they are pricey.

I don't know how you would water proof them. To attach the LED's to the aluminum you would to use a thermal epoxy. It would probably be best to use a driver of some sort as you will probably not need to run the LED at more than 350mA IMO.

Autolumination and Superbrightleds both offer lights that can be directly connected and used as rock lights on the Autolumination site under bike/trailer lights I have the white units mounted under my truck hooked to the remote. They are dual mode (Hi/Lo) I use the low for normal use with the hi wired to a switch.

Thanks, but I'm looking to build my own. Roundeyes wants $35 for one 1watt led The Luxeon is rated at 45 lumens vs the Cree P4 which are twice that at 80-86 lumens. I can build a driver, but thought maybe somebody offer what I need to drive several of these LEDs




Cree


I did a search on thermal epoxy, Jand can use something for CPU's Maybe I can just coat the whole thing in clear epoxy to seal them up good.

Looking through other forums I found these buck puck drivers
http://www.ledsupply.com/wired-buckpuck.php.

Now which one to get. The manufacture recommends 350ma, which would last like 60,000 hours. What would be the life span at 700 or 1000ma

i always thought about using some of these in an auto light project, you would just have to make some sort of waterproof housing for them, but that would be easy. they're small, bright, and have the driver, led, and reflector already there! you could put some sort of diffusion lens over it to give you more of a flood light if you wanted. or, just unscrew the reflector and you'll have pure flood!

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.11836

R290 you don't have to worry about building you're own just wanted to let you know there is a option. And I know about having to build it just to build it. I am currently building a set of tail lamps for my Ram 6 stars per side a strobe tube & whatever works out for reverse.

I just don't know which emitters to use. The lay out I have now if for 6 pre side what do you guys think.

Red PG180A LED Emitter on Star (20mm 2.5~2.75V) @ $3.52 Ea


OR

Red CREE LED Emitter (20mm 1.9~2.2V) @ $4.97 Ea

Definately red star. Putting a red filter on white led cut the output by at least 60%, maybe even more.

Bogie said:

I am currently building a set of tail lamps for my Ram 6 stars per side a strobe tube & whatever works out for reverse.

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I'm working on the same thing for my Jeep. I'm planning to create a flat heat-sink/reflector with four red and four amber rebels, and a Whelen flange mount strobe on each side. It will be epoxied inside my existing plastic housing. I also want to build a CHMSL, since I have a 1990 and it didn't come with one. I'm probably going to use a voltage regulator and simple resistor set up for the LEDs. I like the rebels because they're cheap, I just need to find some star boards.

What wheel do you have? If you have gambler wheels you can do this with a $10 led marker from parts store.

R290 said:

I'm ging to mounting the LEDs to some aluminum flat bar as a heat sink, would JB weld be ok?

Click to expand...

We don't even have JB weld here but I recall a couple of posts saying it wasn't very good, and recommended arctic alumina or similar instead.

TorchBoy said:

We don't even have JB weld here but I recall a couple of posts saying it wasn't very good, and recommended arctic alumina or similar instead.

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Thanks, thats what I figured out.
I used Qled software and you need a big heat sink if you want it cool enough to touch and melt the skin off your finger.

There was an awesome thread from a guy who made exactly what you want for his Jeep over at www.GreatLakes4x4.com, but that site is temporarily down for remodeling.

I'm looking for someone locally who could build me a third brake light with super-intense Cree red LEDs to mount above my tire carrier. (I ain't handy with electrical stuff....) I think about 8 of those LEDs would get the attention of the guy behind me so I wouldn't get rear ended AGAIN.

Canonista said:

There was an awesome thread from a guy who made exactly what you want for his Jeep over at www.GreatLakes4x4.com, but that site is temporarily down for remodeling.

I'm looking for someone locally who could build me a third brake light with super-intense Cree red LEDs to mount above my tire carrier. (I ain't handy with electrical stuff....) I think about 8 of those LEDs would get the attention of the guy behind me so I wouldn't get rear ended AGAIN.

Click to expand...

I was following a paramedic truck the other day and when they pressed on the brake, the LED taillight would blink/flash once and then come on solid. I thought that was cool, but don't yet know how the do this. But it does get the driver attn that's behind the vehicle.

P.s. thanks for the link http://www.greatlakes4x4.com/showthread.php?t=81920&page=3

http://www.greatlakes4x4.com/showthread.php?t=81920

I post there as "JellyBelly".

I use three Red Cree Leds for my custom stop light in my motorcycle, the side Leds are turn signal...



BRIGHT

R290 said:

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My goal is to use some Cree P4 XR-E and a constant current driver or two.
Need ideas on drivers and number of LEDs per string. I would suspect I should run 3 LEDs in series with my 13-14v car battery application I've read a little about the LM317 as a constant current driver. I'm looking for somebody that has used these LEDS and what driver setup did they use. Would a variable driver be a good idea too. Does anybody offer a ready made unit?

I'm ging to mounting the LEDs to some aluminum flat bar as a heat sink, would JB weld be ok? How about water proofing them? This is all new sorry for the 20 questions.

Click to expand...

Here is the driver you should use.
http://www.kaidomain.com/WEBUI/ProductDetail.aspx?TranID=2982

You should use Artic silver to mount the LEDs.

Oddly enough, I was looking for CREE driven driving lights when I found your forum. I own XXX Illumination, a start-up company that specializes in CREE flashlights.

I was actually toying with the idea of combining 10-12 CREE Q5 XR-E's into a single 4" light designed for driving light use. I'm sure someone here can guide me in my quest!

VisionX has a KIT with 8 pucks for about $120.
Nifty.

Search this in ebay;

Led work light cree