Overland Lighting Types: Which light is right for your off-road adventures?
Traveling long distances across rugged terrain requires more than just skid plates and all-terrain tires. Visibility is one of your greatest tools on off-road trails, but it’s not always readily available, and this is where auxiliary lights come into play. There are many off road light kits for trucks, each with their own benefits. So, how do you know which 4x4 auxiliary light is right for you? Which overland lighting types offer the right mix of features and benefits? Let’s take a look at some of the options.
Driving Lights
Driving lights are a great complement to your high beams for better illumination when off the pavement. They’re ideal for higher-speed driving on dirt roads or in wide-open dunes and help to provide greater reaction time for objects you may encounter. Let’s look at some different types of driving lights.
Floodlights
Floodlights emit an expansive, broad beam of light, providing illumination over a significantly large area compared to other lighting types. These lights “flood” an area with light at a short distance. This makes them the go-to lamps in low visibility situations, such as fog and dust.
A floodlight’s wide beam pattern can alert you to potential obstacles or dangers in your immediate surroundings, such as wildlife or unexpected drop-offs, rocks, or stumps. Floodlights should be an integral part of any overlanding excursion. At Ironman 4x4, our cube lights showcase a flood beam, which can be mounted anywhere to maximize visibility.
Spotlights
While floodlights offer a wide beam for shorter distances, spotlights are the opposite. When exploring which 4x4 auxiliary light is right for you, one overland lighting type you should consider is a spotlight. Spotlights, as the name suggests, concentrate their beam spread into a targeted, powerful area of illumination. These highly focused, long-range lights are engineered to pierce the darkness providing exceptional visibility over great distances and at higher speed. This makes them ideal for illuminating debris, fallen trees, or wildlife from a long distance. Spotlights pair well with a set of floodlights for both long- and short-distance lighting. These are an excellent overland lighting type.
Ironman 4x4 sells LED spotlights that prioritize long-range light, reducing blind spots in low-visibility areas. Identifying hazards on off-road trails can be the difference between a successful overland journey and an unfortunate mishap due to an unseen obstacle.
LED Light Bars
LED light bars are popular off-road driving lights due to their impressive durability, exceptional brightness, and adaptability.
Mounted either on the front bumper or the roof of your 4x4, LED light bars offer a combo beam—a perfect blend of spot and floodlight capabilities. So, you get the distance like a spotlight, but the spread of a floodlight. Light bars can provide ample coverage, yet their narrow beam pattern can enhance long-range visibility. This combination ensures a well-illuminated path, improving your overall safety during nighttime overlanding excursions.
LED light bars are available in an array of lengths, allowing you to customize your setup based on your vehicle's size and specific lighting requirements. The light bars at Ironman 4x4 include 20" and 50" light bars, and more.
Trail Lights
Driving on the trail requires specific kinds of lighting, and in general, you want a wide beam spread, and this means floodlights. Because trail driving is slower than driving dirt roads or even sand dunes, you want a light with a broad beam pattern. This lets you illuminate a wide swath around the vehicle. Floodlights are great for more technical driving, where you’re crawling over objects, or there’s lots of twists and turns. Additionally, floodlights mounted on the vehicle’s rear can be excellent for when you need to reverse on the trail at night. Even floods mounted on the sides can be beneficial.
Camping Lights
Having lights on your vehicle specifically for being at and around camp is also important. In these scenarios, you want lights that illuminate a broad area. So again, floodlights are a great choice. They’ll provide a low, broad beam perfect for lighting up camp and the areas around it. Having floodlights on the front, side, and rear of the vehicle is optimal for complete campsite lighting.
Ironman 4x4 offers a variety of camp lights for use off of a vehicle. So whether that’s a rechargeable LED lantern or an LED Area Light Kit, Ironman has all the lights you’d want on your next camping trip.