Is it unsafe to run sheet metal screws into my trailer for mounting reverse lights?

Otherwise I can just use worm clamps

 

Here's how we roll in the dark in Spain Sorry, not the best pic....






6.0 in the dark

 

Rigid Industries have some real nice single row, even a few flush mount...but they are not cheap!

 

There have been several guys use this brand and been very happy with them. You can also get them on Amazon. Make sure the Amazon vendor is Tuff LED Lights.

Tuff Led Lights - Your one-stop shop for your led light needs : Tuff Led Lights

I would prefer bolts over sheet metal screws. The clamps would probably be fine. If you use sheet metal screws, you may want to loctite them to ensure they stay put.

 

On the Tuff LED lights, I found an 11" single row flood that burns 60 watts.

Heck, the halogen flood lamps I've got now burn 55 watts.

With those gargantuan heat sink housings on the backs of the LED's, I assume they generate a lot of heat. So that must be where a lot of that 60 watts is going... wasted in the air as excess heat energy. The LED's may get warm, but I'm not getting a warm fuzzy feeling that moving to LED flood lamps is going to cut down on my battery power consumption at all, contrary to popular belief that LED's consume less energy.

Help me sort this out guys.

 

If your truck was not ordered with the upfitter switches the four wires thru the dash are NOT there, I have been looking all over the firewall to see if they are,next step is pulling the fuse box. but so far no glory here

 

I don't think those are heat sinks I believe they are just the housing because LEDs don't get hot, that was the big problem with them when they first came out for commercial vehicles, if you were running in the winter in an area that has a lot of snowfall they would not get warm enough to melt the snow off of them and would become invisible due to snowpack. Plus they use about 1/3 the power that an incandescent bulb uses.

 

Thanks Wiz!
I made a call to large Truck/Trailer accessories company. They just said putting holes in hitch frame wouldn't look good if you had a hitch failure.

I will be using worm clamps. Lights are only $13 from Harbour Freight. LOL

 

No, they are heat sinks. In a typical led light you have your conical reflector dishes, and about 1/4-1/2 inch of space for a circuit board. The back of that is attached with thermal paste to an aluminum block which dissipates heat to the heat sink.

LEDs do generate a LOT of heat.

LEDs have been around for a long time. You only recently have seen them become high intensity as we just started being able to control the heat.

The issue with LEDs not melting snow is two fold,
1) low intensity LEDs like blinkers won't produce enough heat to melt snow
2) led headlights and off road lights do, but dissapate the heat rear word through heat sinks.

I invite you to touch my light bar after a night ride.

 

Most single row light bars (marketed to the off road crowd, like my double row) are just as tall as the double rows. Make sure the one you get has the dimentions you want.

On another note, your halogen vs led power question... I think the variable is light output. Halogen lights may only take 55w and the led bar 60, but I would fetch a bet that more light per watt is being produced.

Although, if you're looking for back up lights, more light may not be the most important thing.

 

They are on all trucks.

 

Look at the lumens produced by the LEDs and the halogens.

Watt is just a unit of power. It really tells you how much power the lights require. Lumens tell you how much light you actually produce with the power. If you look at it in house lighting, incandescent bulbs make the least lumens per watt, then fluorescent make more, and now LED make the most.

A 100W H3 bulb produces 2300 lumens. THis works out to be 23 lumens per watt.

Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply

The Tuff LED 4" 27W flood light produces 2150 lumens. So these produce 79.63 lumens per watt.

Round LED Work Light - 4 Inch 27 Watt - Flood : Tuff Led Lights

So you can see here that these 4" 27 watt LEDs would have about the same light output as a 100w Daylighter (they use H3 bulbs).

If you look at the brightest list bar Tuff offers, it is 22,500 lumens @ 300 watts. This works out to be 75 lumens per watt. But more importantly, this light bar would be the equivalent of having almost TEN 100w Daylighters pointing forward! Talk about light....

Ultra Series LED Light Bar - 52 Inch 300 Watt : Tuff Led Lights

And based upon these small calculations class, we can basically determine that Trey's truck could illuminate a black hole in space...

 

Super Duties have been equipped with the four pass through circuits since before the "upfitter" switches were invented. My 2000 has four pass through circuits. And I was able to locate the four pass through circuits on a friend's early 1999 and another friend's 2002. And all these trucks were built before Ford came up with convenient switches. Keep looking!

 

Here is my setup. 10 150W H3 pointing forward and I also have 2 150W H3 rear facing on a 3rd brake light cab mount.

 

Running boards are next.