I am working on designing an LED lightbar for my 2000 Blazer. I got the casing planned out and everything, but, to be honest, I know almost nothing about LEDs. This lightbar is only for off road or emergency use. no strobe effects or anything. Just lighting. I am trying to figure out which LEDs are bright enough to really light the way off road, and what other stuff is needed, resistors and such. If there is someone who knows a good deal about LEDs, Please PM me. I had a guy build me some LED taillights for my old Cherokee, but this time I want to build it, and hopefully it comes out decent, but I want to try. Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

How big? If you are asking questions like these, you very well may be in over your head.

If you want some decent output, you'll probably want at least 3W leds (depending on the size of bar you want) and optics, which would operate best with constant current drivers. If you don't want the drivers, you'd need a V-regulator and the correct size resistors for your application. Not to mention any high power leds will need good heatsinking or they will go into thermal runaway.

If you just want to use the 'superflux' leds, you'll need a ton of them to get any decent amount of output, but you won't need heatsinking.

A project like this is a bit more difficult than most people think to do it correctly. Taillights are fairly easy in comparison due to the fact that the light doesn't need to be focused or nearly as bright as an offroad light.