2qik2see

jscherb

One of the reasons I removed the rear seat was that I like to carry a second spare on off road expeditions. The reason for an extra spare is that if I do have a tire problem in a remote location, I don't have to disrupt my plan to search around for a repair or replacement - I can keep on my schedule and still have a spare. Normally I carry the extra spare on the rack, but this time with the RTT up there I don't have room, so I'm putting it in the cabin. To keep things clean I've put a Tactical Spare Cover on it; I won't hang Molle stuff on it in the cabin but I probably will use the inside pocket on the spare cover to store something.

jscherb

And speaking of the Tactical Spare Covers, I was in one of my favorite military surplus outlets and I came across a nice bag for the Tactical Spare Cover. It's got one large padded compartment and two smaller pockets.



This: https://colemans.com/shop/pouches-ba...g-acu-digital/

It's not intended to hang horizontally on a Molle grid, so I had to cut the three straps on the bag and install snaps on them, but that only took a few minutes.

I can also use it on the Molle Bars sleeves on my roll bars, shown here in the LJ:

jscherb

At $49.99, the Multipod LEDs I've been working with compare very well to a "major brand" LED with similar specs that sell for over $100 each (I just checked 4WD Hardware the major brand ones I'm referring to are $219.00 per pair).

When the Multipods first went on the market someone posted here that they thought $49.99 for the Multipods was too much and referred to an inexpensive light they found on Amazon that on paper had the same specs and in fact is advertised to use CREE LEDs just like the Multipods (the major brand light uses CREE LEDs too). This person said that since the lights on Amazon were cheaper, the Multipods were too expensive.

I acquired one of these Amazon lights to do a test. The photo below is my quick test fixture - a battery, some clip leads, 10-degree and 20-degree beam Multipods and the inexpensive LEDs on the bench, and my Nikon DSLR on a tripod. It's aimed at the garage door, which just under 50 feet away.



I set the Nikon to manual shutter speed and manual aperture, so the comparison photos will have the exact same exposure. I've done no processing of the photos other than to crop/resize them for posting (the full resolution images from the Nikon would be way too big to post), and combining them into one image file for easy comparison. Here goes:



The first thing you see is that the inexpensive lights illuminate a much smaller area than either the 10- or 20-degree beam Multipods. Check out how many garage door windows are illuminated in each photo, and how much of the second story is illuminated.

At first glance it looks like the illuminated area of the inexpensive light might be brighter than the Multipod, but the eye can be fooled by color temperature, so I turned the images into grayscale using my paint program. The resulting grayscale images:



Now with only the luminance component in the images, you can see that the Multipod 10-degree image is both brighter and larger than the inexpensive LED.

Proof that the Multipod is brighter: at the brightest spot in the grayscale image the RGB value for the competitor LED is 184 (R, G and B are all 184 because it's a grayscale); for the Multipod the value is 230, the ratio of 230/184 is 1.25 which means that the Multipod is 25% brighter than the competitor. That difference may not be all that obvious in these images, but were I to do distance tests they would show that the distance where the Multipod declined to 184 would be a lot further than the distance of the inexpensive light.

While the competitor's specs say they use CREE LEDs, I can't verify that the LEDs in the Multipod and the competitor are the exact same LED chips, especially since the color temperature seems to be different. But it's easy to see that the optics of the two pods are very different.

I staged this quick test to illustrate that while different lights may have the same specs "on paper", there's a big difference in the results. A quality light will have quality optics to focus the beam and the result will be much better.

A side note, the competitor comes with a zinc-plated steel mounting bracket and zinc plated steel bolts; the Multipod comes with a powder-coated aluminum mounting bracket and stainless steel hardware. Zinc brackets and bolts will rust in short order on a Jeep.



And of course the Multipod LEDs also have a wide range of specific mounts for JK and TJ Jeeps, which a bargain LED won't have (and the "major brand" doesn't have either). The rounded shape of the housing on the inexpensive LED doesn't lend itself to stacking multiple light pods as is done on many of the Multipod mounts. The major brand does have an octagonal shape like the Multipod so it would stack well - if they had the range of mounts that the Multipod does.



FWIW.

jeepmojo

nor quality of the flex over the cheaper knock offs , have the hood hinge mounts become available on the site as advertised ?
also no wiring harness comes with the lights , has this been updated as to a harness that will work on these . i have not bought anything as of yet , still looking at kc flex lights because they include the harness and wiring diagram. also i noted that your pics had a black bezzel in some photos and are not shown , same with mounts not available on the site for these ones you displayed . i want to mount just two on my hood. prob on the posion spyder hood louver . would this work or reflect off hood as shown with yellow dots , im not sure if ill put pillar lights also or just go with the single flex ones on hood . im sure i could raise it with a spacer if need be. i wasnt degrading the lights , just seems like a incomplete system with out a harness for those of us who arnt into wiring automotive lighting . also does one need to shrink tube the leads ? it looked as though the red and black wires just hang out of the back with no protection , Im still interested but not convinced after buying all materials the kc flex lights arnt the way to go , how do those compare to your lights? id also want the black bezel as shown in your early pics . kc flex lights have optional black or interchangable bezels
in fact the hinge mounted triple set shown in this post show black bezel but cant see them on site or those style mounts , but i actually like the mount that comes standard with these anyway . is there a way to make them theft proof to some degree ? Hate for someone to just walk off with them i might buy two singles and see how they do. if i can resolve the unknowns otherwise the kc flex lights will do with a 27 year warranty i suppose . but i do like these lights of yours as well after seeing the pics . they come in flood and spots correct . i think floods would work better for me , i dont care for long distance as much as bright flared out to sides and some in front of me
did not mean to insult the lights or the concept just price could be better seeing you dont get all the materials needed to complete install maybe im wrong . but borderline of what i expected . ( i still might end up with these on my rig idk)

jscherb

The Multipod lights compare very well to Flex lights in terms of brightness and beam pattern - the reason I recommended them to the company was that they have high quality optics that compare to "name brand" lights, the compact octagonal shape offers many interesting mounting options, and they're less than half the price of many name brand lights. They've also got high quality stainless hardware, which you want for the hostile environments Jeeps operate in.

I discussed wiring harnesses with the company when I was first working with them on these lights and we decided that since so many people have custom switch systems, SPods, etc., or have specific ideas about the types of switches they want to use in their Jeep it didn't make sense to increase the cost for everyone when many people might not be using a supplied switch, etc., anyway. If you search on "light harness" on eBay you'll find lots of choices that include switch, relay, wire, etc. for about $12 with free shipping, so for people who don't already have custom switch panels that's a good choice. The company might add harnesses like that to their web site if there's enough demand.

One thing to look at if you're considering the Flex lights - check the size of the wiring harness plug on the light and how close it is to the light itself - seems to me you'll have trouble fishing a plug that large through many places where you'd want to run the wiring. If you do chose the Flex lights make sure you know where you'll run the wiring and that there's enough room to fish the plug through or you may end up doing your own wiring anyway.

You'll have to check with the company on alternate bezel colors, I don't know what they have in stock or what their plans are. The bezels are easily removable so if you wanted a custom color, say to match a Jeep's body color, they would be easy to remove, paint and reinstall.

I'm pretty sure the company has all the custom jeep mounts in stock, including the hood hinge mounts but I don't know why they're not on the site yet, I haven't talked to them in a few weeks.

Heat shrink is a good idea for splices in most cases with automotive wiring, especially wiring that goes outside the vehicle or in the engine compartment.

The prevent theft you could mount them with Torx Security screws, these are like normal Torx bits but have a stud in the center so a standard Torx driver won't be able to undo them. I would think few thieves will be carrying Torx Security bits in their pocket. Here's a source for screws: https://www.mcmaster.com/#button-hea...crews/=19uwqnw. The bits for them are available at many sources, sets are typically less than $10.

Hopefully that answers your questions, if I missed something or you have more questions just ask.

Just to be clear I'm not trying to convince you to buy Multipod lights, you should buy whatever you think best for your needs. And for the record I don't work for the company and I don't get anything when they sell Multipod lights - I did this project for them because I thought I could do something creative and design a bunch of interesting and useful mounting solutions. I do projects like this for companies because I enjoy the design challenges.

jeepmojo

distributors , appreciated ! i did notice the plug ends on other brands & problem it may be to fish wires too . Good point. i suppose i could make my own harness. what size wire 14 stranded ? if i were to use 2 of those and maybe 2 pillar lights 4". do i actually need a relay with just 2 flex lights . i was going to go direct to battery. prob inline 15a fuse on supply side. but i really need to understand the wiring on automotive before hand , thats why i like the harness method. do you ground the neg, side of lights just to frame or tap and go right back to battery ? maybe a scetch drawing would help with install on jeep jk with out pod switches. true lots of people do have those set ups. ill have to know more of how to wire them before i take on this task of lights with out a harness. auto wiring seems much diff than home wiring. i dont want to burn things or start a fire lol
will those lights work ok being close to hood or would i need to raise them up?

jscherb

Retrofit Offroad posted this in another place so I'll repeat it here:

jscherb

Each LED draws 0.8 amps, so if you're planning on two they'll draw 1.6 amps total. 14-gauge wire is good for up to 5 amps over a 20-foot run, so that gauge will be fine. BTW here's a table showing what gauge wire is required to handle various current loads over different distances: Amps and Wire Gauge - 12V Circuit.

If you choose a switch that is rated for at least 1.6 amps you won't need a relay; relays are generally only needed when current draw is greater than a switch can handle.

You can ground the lights anywhere convenient, you don't have to run the ground back to the battery.

Conveniently the JK battery terminals have places for additional connections, so you can start your wiring there, run a 14-gauge wire into the cabin, put an in-line ATM fuse holder in the line (any auto store will have them), connect the wire to your choice of switch, run the wire from the switch to the LEDs, and ground each LED wherever it's convenient.

jeepmojo

Thanks , i saw a braided ground strap, under hood bolted to hood on my 2012.
That would be easy to get to, short run of black wire .
I guess the only thing that needs to be grounded are lights not switch i doubt.?
So id just run a red wire from battery to the switch with inline fuse and then from load side of switch to the red wires on led correct?
I wouldnt need to bring a black wire from neg on battery to lights if i understand correctly, the black wire leads hanging off led would just dump out on the grounded wire to the strap of hood . Does that sound right?

Id only need
5 feet of black wire to get the led's (neg - wires) to the strap
maybe 20 ' of red wire to hit switch and then to lights .
1 single pole 1.6a 12v rated switch (plastic)
* a couple of terminal fittings to attach to battery and one for the ground strap
2 crimp connectors for the led connections pos +
2 crimp couplings for (neg-) to extend black wires from lights to that ground strap.


battery + red wire --------------- to switch %------------- > to red of led
then just extend - black wires on lights to the ground strap
( done? )