After a hot summer day at the campsite taking a ride after dark in the cool night air really is refreshing. Being able to see the trail and its hidden obstacles just makes it that much more enjoyable. This is where having the proper ATV night lights can make a difference in what you see and who sees you.
Just adding a bunch of off road lights to your ride is not always the best solution. Understanding the types of ATV night lights, light beams available and the type of night riding you prefer is the first step. Understanding the electrical capacity of your ride is the next step. Then you find the happy medium between these two steps to get the best possible setup.
There are basically four types of light beams:
- Flood – A wide, narrow beam that highlights the foreground and the edges of the trail on either side.
- Spot – A focused beam that reaches out far ahead of the vehicle.
- Driving – A variation of the flood and spot beam, designed to highlight the foreground a little farther than a flood, but still light the edges of the trail.
- Fog – Similar to flood but positioned down low and typically using an amber lens to reduce glare back.
The best light beam depends on your type of riding, if you like riding the dunes at high speed then a combination of spot and flood beams along with the factory headlights (driving), this way you can see far ahead of the vehicle and still see what is directly in front of you and to the sides.
If moderately cruising the back country trails is more your speed then adding a set of floods to compliment the factory headlights will help keep the trail and the sides well lit.
Typically the factory headlights are 55 Watt halogen bulbs producing between 700 – 2100 lumens. A lumen is a unit of light flow used in measuring the total light output of the bulb. By upgrading your factory headlights to 35 Watt HID (High Intensity Discharge) headlights you will decrease the power consumption and increase the light output to 2800 – 3200 lumens.
Decreasing your power consumption is always a good thing especially on an ATV or UTV. Unlike a car or truck, ATVs and UTVs use a magneto instead of an alternator for generating electrical power. Alternators generate substantially more power than a magneto especially at idle but can not tolerate the harsh dusty and wet conditions ATVs and UTVs encounter.
Finding out the electrical capacity of your ATV or UTV is not as simple as one would think. This information is typically not available on the standard ATV spec sheet and is usually found in a model specific repair manual. The power output is usually listed as the number of Watts at a specified RPM. Rarely is the power output listed at idle (1000 – 1200 RPM) as this is when the charging system is generating the least amount of power.
For example my Polaris SP700 X2 generates about 500 Watts at 6000 RPM (almost full throttle). The output of most ATV charging systems at idle is about 1/3 to 1/5 of what it is at 5000 RPM or greater. So I figure mine is generating around 125 Watts at idle because with the factory lights on they pull about 130 Watts and are slightly dim at idle. I upgraded my pod headlight to HID and my power consumption dropped to about 115 Watts.
Keep in mind that rarely is your ATV going to be sitting idling with the lights on unless your providing light for a trail side repair or the winching of a stuck rig. Most of the time you are riding at a higher RPM than idle thus generating more power, in my case up to 500 Watts which is more than enough power for my lights.
For a great article on ATV charging systems read Gary L. Gustafson’s “A Primer on ATV Charging Systems”. Anyway the idea here is not to overburden the charging system so you need to know what the electrical capacity of your ride is.
As for adding more lights there are some low power off road lights available. We have already talked about HID but the latest option for low power off road lighting is LED (Light Emitting Diode) light bars. LED off road lights are incredibly durable, use less wattage and the light pattern is fantastic. For ATVs there is a 6” LED light bar with a flood beam that only pulls 24 Watts. There are larger ones for UTVs.
For all of your ATV and UTV off road lights look at our selection at CampingATV.com, we have the proper ATV night lights for your setup. Let us help you properly equip your ATV or UTV for night riding. For light where you want it, check out the Lead-Dog Helmet Light.
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