Rigid Industries LED Beam Patterns
My obsession with light started when I was little, I was that kid shining the light in everyone's eyes. I don't think anyone grows out of it, they just get brighter lights as technology progresses.
I was on the hunt for an LED sponsor at SEMA 2010 when LED was starting to go mainstream. That is where I met the owners/partners of Rigid which had a small booth in one of the lower cost areas and a few people working. At that time they only had double row bars and the Dually pod. They gave me a bunch of pods and I bolted them on the buggy that night at the show. Security even stopped by because they thought I was a tweeker stealing lights after hours.
Fast forward 12 years and LED technology has come a long way. Power, beam options, uniformity, tint, color rendition index, form factor have all improved over the original options back in the day. Rigid went from being one of the pioneers, then had a slow streak when others were coming out with more options while Rigid was slow to react, then Rigid was purchased by Penske and dumped everything into R&D and now Rigid almost has too many options to choose from. Much like Taco Bell that reconfigures the key ingredients over and over again, LED emitters, lens, and optics can be Lego'd into a number of different options. Due to marketing and sales numbers many options are not available for sale. That does not mean they are not good options, they just don't fit the market or are misunderstood. My kids are pissed Taco Bell discontinued the Mexican Pizza by the way.
I have been planning light beams for the new buggy for a while now. Many are Lego options to get the beam profiles in the forms I wanted. Listed below are some of the lights I will be using as well as some of the before options to see the difference.
The SAE lens was designed for spreading the beam super wide for fog light use and was also designed to be used in front of the Hyperspot optic which has a sharp cutoff with a super long range throw. Together you get a wide beam with a sharp cutoff that does not waste or blind oncoming traffic, it also conserves light by not letting it spill up or down.
Putting the SAE lens in front of the Driving beam makes it a wider beam and evens out the narrow shape that the driving beam creates under and over the main beam profile.
The SAE Selective Yellow normally only comes in the Legacy emitter which is the older emitter at a lower power and less desirable tint and color rendition index. By using PRO emitters the output is brighter and has better color and the beam gets a little taller since it is less focused but it still has the sharp cut off and long range.
The Hyperspot normally only comes in the Legacy emitter just like the SAE. So by switching to PRO the power goes way up as well as the range.
The plan is to run:
2 QTY Q SAE Driving in the front near the winch for general headlight use which will give super wide fill and good mid range.
1 QTY Q PRO Spot in the front near the winch for general headlight use which will give longer range fill straight ahead.
2 QTY DXL PRO SAE Selective Yellow in the front near the winch for dust, fog, and rain conditions when glare is created by too much white light.
2 QTY SR 10" PRO Hyperspot up at the roof line for super long range which will have a sharp cut off to keep light off the hood and surrounding dust to reduce glare. The hot spot of the hyperspot is so intense it is hard for the camera to pick over that long of a range, but the part to notice is how you can see the outline of the tress all the way at the end. The human eye doesn't have the issue of over exposure and can use the light at max distance without being blinded. That being said, having the Hyperspots up high helps to reduce the chance that all that beam will hit a hill face or whoop and bounce back at the drivers eyes.
The large trees at the end is 1,100 FT or 367 Yards away
At 75MPH = 110 FT/Sec = 10 seconds to react to what you see at 1,100 FT away
