Knock off 20" Amber light bar?

Gilligan said:

The 2 color thing kinda makes me nervous, I know you guys put out a good product so i'm not questioning that at all. I'm just habe the mindset of less parts=less problems

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Olympus Offroad said:

The dual Color Light bars we make do not lose any output. Where are you coming up with this idea? I fail to see how a Light bar that uses half its lights for amber and half its lights for white is brighter. When we first started working on the concept of a dual color light bar we choose not to use Cree Chips because they could not give the output we required in a colored led, nor could we have a chip with multiple colors that produces enough light to be useful. We reached out to a company called San’an in Japan. San’an make colored chips that are fantastic and provide more light than anything on the market. The effective lumen output is greater than the standard Cree Chip used and there Is no colored lens to go through that will reduce the actual effective output of the light itself.
The problem you run into is the fact that when you push light through a colored filter or cover, it takes away from the output. Speaking of output… let’s look at a couple things… effective Lumens vs Raw Lumens.

Yes you can have a much higher raw Lumen output, and many people market a light based on this, but the reality is the goal is the effective lumens. The effective lumens are the actual output of light that reaches the target. Once the light leave the chip what happens then. If you run the light through glass there is a loss, if you run the light through a refractor lens, there is loss, sometimes people run through both and there is a loss. The best choice is to use as thin a piece of glass as possible as not to degrade from the amount of light transmitted. So in short if you place a lens over a light or add a colored piece of glass to a light, you are lowering the amount of usable light that is output. .

So why am I saying this…..

“If you're looking for a simpler version that doesn't lose any output” – This comment logically is not even possible to be true. Beside that fact that the San’an chips we use offer a higher output than anything on the market, how can a light that only uses half the rows for white and half the row for amber possible not lose output. Science tells us that the more you put in front of a light the less light there is on the other side. Put an amber lens on a light… you lose light…. Put a clear lens and use a colored chip… no loss…
Our dual color light bars measure equal if not better to our single color lights.

We stand behind the products we make and we offer a warranty that not matter what you do to that light, if it fails and or stops working, we will fix and or replace and even pay the return shipping to you. So… yeah…

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Nick@Apollo-Optics said:

Well here is my explanation for my original statement:
As you know, each LED chip has a dedicated optic that projects its light down range. When we first explored the option of having a dual color bar, we looked at what was the best option to get the absolute most light projected. When doing this we looked at a measure of both effective lumens and more importantly, Lux. We found that having multiple chips in each optic was not an effective use of the optics and caused a loss in output. We also explored the idea of a dual-color chip, but were unable to find a chip of a high enough quality that could project in both pure white and true amber without a loss in total output. That's why we settled on the design that we offer with dedicated optics for each individual chip and the option to select between either the white row, the amber row, or both. If your San'an chips are a dual color chip that doesn't cause output, then I retract my previous statement. But as I said before, in our testing, we couldn't find a chip that accomplished those results.

Now, about the raw lumens vs. effective lumens, you're correct. There are plenty of lights on eBay and Amazon that are making baseless claims on raw lumens. That's why we differentiated our product and had Lux testing done at Texas Raptor Run 2014. This test used our Elite series lights and compared them to other lights on the market. The test was done taking measurements from 50, 100, and 150 yards away at 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 yards offset to measure the depth and spread of our output. You can find more information on that testing here: http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f81/lighting-shootout-results-trr-2014-a-33574/

As for your explanation of the projection of the light through your optics, you're correct. Putting a colored filter in front of the light will decrease output. With that being said, that does not apply to our dual color or true amber lights. While we do offer snap-on covers to give our customers flexibility, we use true amber LED chips in our amber and dual color lights. The light is then projected out of our optics and through our optically clear Lexan polycarbonate lens. This gives us a very high optical efficiency and allows us to project the maximum amount of light downrange.

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Gilligan said:

I'm willing to provide an unbiased comparison/shoot out of the two lights !

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Gilligan said:

Can't blame a fella for trying haha

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Gilligan said:

I'm willing to provide an unbiased comparison/shoot out of the two lights !

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Olympus Offroad said:

lol I'm sure you would love to.

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Gilligan said:

Can't blame a fella for trying haha

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Olympus Offroad said:

Ok you win!!

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