Hello folks, If I may be permitted to post on my bar, I can probably answer some things about it and why it is the way it is. I am sorry that it took me so long to reply but I was at work when the topic was first posted and on the road most of the 24 hours so please forgive the delay.
1) when I first got the idea, I had all but two of the reds and 1/2 of the amber lightheads. I knew I wanted to build a bi-colour lightbar with these lightheads. That was my only requirement of what was going into the bar.
2) I had the frame narrowed down to either an Edge frame or the Tomar Heliobe frame that I used. I had asked around with people I knew and everyone had said the same thing that the Edges can draw moisture and quite a bit in my area. And I always did like the Tomar Heliobe bars. So I went with the Tomar.
3) This bar was a winter project to build and test. I made a few mistakes when I was working on it. I selected too thick of a aluminum plate as i went with 1/8'' and should have gone with a 1/16''s as it would have been just a lot easier to work with. Also, if you were to look closely, u will see that some of the lightheads are off level and that is some of the other mistakes.
4) I went with Gen1 as I still love the 5mm lights overall. If I had the money tnems7, I would probably buy any reds/amber you have. Personal preference I guess. For the corners, I went with TIR3s as I already had the red TIR3s and just had to buy the ambers and I couldnt find any 5mm lights that would fit the exact location. The same goes for the ends. For in the back where you see the 5mms and the Pods, I wanted a mix to help break up the look since I had done that in the front. I went with a 5mm white light for an alley light and that is one thing I wish I would have done differently now in hindsight.
5) All segments of the lights are separately switched. The rear ambers are separate from the front ambers, and so it is the same with the reds. This is the reason why you see the many flashers. Each section has it's own ULF44 flasher so depending on the circumstances, I can pick and choose the lights I want to use. (i.e. rear ambers and led arrow bar, vs front ambers and no rear etc just to name a couple.)
6)
tnems7 said:
Also, since he built it, he knows how to troubleshoot it and can easily replace a head if it goes out. Several flashers also mean redundancy in case one flasher fails.
Now being my first bar project, I did have one or two issues I did have to troubleshoot in which a wire was pinched or a lighthead wasn't working and a lot of the issues actually came down to having the thicker aluminum plate as it had pinched a couple wires. So a bit of modification to the bar to prevent the pinching and voila, problem solved in one case. Another case, I ended up running a new wire as one wire I had run wasn't conducting power. Turns out the wire was broke inside.
7) Yes the wiring may not look as good as I could have made it, but with it being my first project bar, I left some of it semi-open in case I have to open the bar up later in order to either add to or replace anything that crops up. The wires I had left semi-open were the ones that I felt would be the hardest to trace from the terminal strip to the end point if in a loom.
Yes I made mistakes and yes it may not look as neat as others, especially others that I have seen on here but I wanted a bi-colour bar with full functionality and separation of each section for switching. If I had of had to buy a bar built like this, it could have run into a couple thousand to get one set up like this. This bar cost me less than $500.00 to build and install, and while the looks aren't the best ( I will even be the first to admit it) my lightbar will outshine any lighting system out in my area.
Total number of lightheads - 30
Total number of flashers - 4
Overall cost -far far less than $600.00 USD which was the most I was willing to spend on the build.
I wish only one thing, that I had the skills of some of the folks on here in building and constructing lighting systems. However, being new at the game, I have a long way to go and my only way to go is up.
Thanks for allowing me the time to reply to some of your comments.
