SAN MARCOS, CA – Baja Designs (BD) has always engineered and manufactured LED lighting systems with replaceable lenses and optics. Amazingly enough, almost all other LED bars are silicone sealed and not serviceable. If a BD lens is scratched or scored, you don’t replace the entire light as you do with most imported products, nor do you need to send it back to the manufacturer as you would with other popular LED lights.

BD’s uService™ technology allows you to simply unscrew BD’s water and dust proof lens and seal to replace the damaged optics or lens. On top of that, the same uService™ technology means you can also change the optics of your light. When you consider that BD also includes a limited lifetime warranty on all their lights, uService™ offers the ultimate in purchase protection.

“Racing off-road for over 25 years has taught BD engineers to design products to endure even the roughest of conditions. Our uService™ replaceable lenses and optics will further guarantee a race finish while also saving you money from needing to buy a replacement light,” says Chief Scientist and Baja Designs founder, Alan Roach. Alan also added, “You wouldn’t throw out your car if your windshield cracks, would you? No, you’d just replace the windshield. So why would anyone design a disposable LED driving light? That’s crazy!”

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Baja Designs has also evolved the uService™ technology to permit “customization.” Replaceable lenses and optics allow you to customize your pattern for any application on the fly or make repairs quickly and easily. BD’s uService™ products are uniquely o-ring sealed and carry an IP69K rating – that means they are submersible up to 9 feet and pressure washer-safe up to 1450 PSI. Catch the company’s YouTube video featuring Zog the Caveman attempting to rebuild his disposable lights while the Baja Designs Scientist easily breezes through his rebuilding process in minutes.

Look for the uService™ icon on all applicable LED products from Baja Designs. More product news from Baja Designs in the upcoming months will reveal a complete series of innovations designed to continually bring you a re-evolution of bright ideas made better.

Each optic in a Baja Designs LED light is user changeable to create a spot, driving, or cornering light. This means you can modify your light depending on the terrain instead of buying multiple lights. * Baja Designs provides optics designed by an engineer with over 30 years of real world off-road experience and racing.

 Candlepower and Lumens

Don’t be misled by lights that are rated by brightness (candlepower).

Candlepower – ratings only measure light from a single point within a beam of light. A tightly focused beam of light may rate a high candlepower but if that light only falls on a very small area, the light will be less than useful. An extreme example of this would be a laser pointer. While the candlepower would be great, the light would be near useless for illumination.

Lumens – are a measure of potential light output. All 35watt, 4200K HID light bulbs produce essentially the same amount of Lumens. A light’s candlepower or lumens measurement is worthless if the illumination is not where you need it.

Light Distribution – Terms

The most effective off-road light will provide smooth light distribution without Sharp Cut-Offs or Hot Spots.

A “Sharp Cut-Off” is where the light drops off dramatically, creating a horizontal or vertical line into darkness. With the pitch and roll of the vehicle, the sharp cut-off affects your ability to see where you need to see.

A “Hot Spot” is an intense concentration of light in a small area. Hot spots can be very distracting while driving off road; your eyes tend to focus on just that bright spot of light bouncing in front of you.

Light Color

The color of emitted light, or “Color Temperature” is rated in Degrees Kelvin.  The most usable light for the human eye is sunlight, which is rated at 4000K-5500K.  Don’t be fooled by lights offering higher temperatures than this – they tend toward the blue spectrum, which is only good for a “cool looking” light.  6100K and higher bulbs produce fewer lumens than the 4200K and 5000K and are less usable to the human eye.

Light Sources

HID (High Intensity Discharge) – lighting is a quantum leap forward in off-road illumination.  HID lamps produce a daylight quality light (4200K-5000K) and brightness (3200 lumens).  A single HID bulb produces the equivalent of 250 watts of Halogen lighting power, while consuming only roughly 45 total watts of electricity and generating far less heat.  Instead of a filament, HID bulbs fire a charge between two electrodes encased in a Xenon gas filled bulb.  Since the bulb has no filament, vibration does not affect its operating life of approx. 2000 hours.  The benefit of internally mounting the ballast is easy installation and serves to protect the HID components from the elements.

 LED (Light Emitting Diode) – lighting has been around for years but is new to the forward lighting off-road scene.  Recent advances in technology have made it possible to produce high-output LEDs capable of reaching the performance and pricing of HID lighting.  The lights have an extensive life (approx. 100,000 hours) and are very resistant to vibration.  The benefits of LED lighting include smooth, even light patterns and the possibility of making the light assemblies in many varying sizes and shapes.

Beam Patterns   

 Pencil or Spot Beams – provide a longer and narrower beam that focuses the pattern further down the trail.  These lights are designed to be used in conjunction with other wider beam patterns.  Baja Designs pencil beams come with a 10 degree wide pattern than can be widened by 4 degrees if desired.

Driving Beams – offer better peripheral vision than the Spot while maintaining good distance projection.  They can be used alone or with other beam patterns to create an excellent light system.  Baja Designs Driving beam have a 20 degree pattern.

Wide-Driving Beams – are slightly wider than a Driving beam and are good for trail riding or filling in spots closer to the vehicle.  They can be used alone or with other beam patterns to create and excellent light system.  Baja Designs Wide-Driving beams have a 28 degree pattern.

Wide-Cornering or Fog Beams – are the widest and most evenly distributed light pattern of the bunch.  These beams are used for lighting the ground close to the sides of the vehicle and are great for turns or twists on the trail.  In addition, this beam is great in dusty or foggy conditions.  Due to its low and wide angle of dispersion, this beam should always be used in conjunction with other beams to provide the best possible lighting effect.  Baja Designs Wide-Cornering beams have a 42 degree pattern.

One way to calculate different model LEDs is to calculate the Lumens/Watt. LED output is measured in “Lumens,” which is the total luminous power emitted from the light source. If you divide the total Lumen output of a light by the power draw of the light, you will get the Lumens/Watt. A high lumens/watt number means that you will get a brighter light for the draw. For example, the older 10watt Cree MCE and Seoul semiconductor P7 LEDs are rated at 75 lumens/watt. Contrast with the 5watt Cree XPG LEDs that produce greater than 100 lumens/watt or the latest 5watt Cree XML that produces 140 lumens/watt and you can see why newer LED lights are brighter/ more efficient.

Of equal importance, all LED models have a die size or footprint. The smaller the LED die(“bulb”) the easier it is to create the reflector and optics that put the light where it is needed the most. For example, the older 10watt Cree MCE and Seoul semiconductor p7 LED(long name:)) dies are very large which makes it virtually impossible to focus the light without wasting a significant portion of the light. The result is a dimmer and less efficient light for the power draw. On the other hand, the 5watt Cree XPG die is 85% smaller which allows for almost completely efficient use of the available light. This also allows the reflector to be half the size resulting in a much smaller overall lamp size.

Baja Designs is always researching emerging light technologies and maintains close relationships with LED manufacturers; BD is often one of the first companies to get new LED prototypes to test.

These are cheap imitations that come nowhere close to achieving the optical patterns and lighting output provided by the Baja Designs’ LED lighting systems.  It is easy to imagine that companies from China would copy quality light bars and they do sometimes, as far as looks(cosmetic). The fact is, it’s not cost effective for Chinese or Korean companies to make quality light bars. They use the cheaper components, housing, optics, boards, etc. and sell them effectively to U.S. distributors that mark up the cost. As far as real physical problems, yes they all have them and will continue to have problems because it is easier to cut corners and costs . The optics will have sharp cut offs, the boards and housings will not allow for proper heat dissipation which will  ruin the LEDs and the light itself overtime. Basically the light would be no where near as bright as a company who has control over optic design, heat sink management, diodes, etc. Ultimately a person will have to go with what they feel is best for them, their budget, or vehicle; but we will continue to produce the highest quality U.S. made LED lights possible.  Be sure to always question the origins of the LED lights you are looking at.

For More information regarding LED technology please view this ARTICLE

1. Let’s keep it simple and take the sun at its highest and brightest point in the sky: high noon. At noon, assuming no additional effects from weather and atmospheric conditions, the sun has a perceived color temperature anywhere between 5000K and 5400K.
2. Since the sun is our only external light source, our eyes have evolved to see best at this color temperature.
3. So, doesn’t it make sense to use LEDs that mimic this color temperature, thereby allowing our eyes to perform at their optimal level of receiving and processing light?  We sure think so.  In fact, once the color temperature surpasses 6500K, which many other LED light companies use, it now actually looks like twilight or the light that the sun would produce through cloudy conditions.
4. At Baja Designs, we not only select LEDs out of the highest lumen output bin but also accept only those LEDs with a color temperature of 5000K, thus producing a light that truly shines like the sun at midday.

Now, this selection doesn’t come without a price (literally). LEDs come in a wide array, and one of the sorting criteria is by color temperature.  5000K is more expensive than the bluer LEDs used by most other lighting companies.  Here is what Chuck Hovey, BITD and SCORE champion has to say: “When driving at night, fatigue is certainly a factor.  With a bluer LED, it is more difficult to process terrain at speed. Baja Designs has the perfect color temperature, therefore making it easier on the eyes and brain. When doing 120MPH down a dirt road at night, you need every advantage you can get.”

Bottom line, a light with the proper color temperature allows for optimal terrain recognition and less driver fatigue.

1) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/color+temperature
2, 3, 4) Kip, Arthur. Fundamentals of Electricity and Magnetism, McGraw-Hill Series in Fundamentals of Physics