Heads up.....some people may not like hearing this info. I'm not trying to insult, I'm just crunch number.
I'm a huge fan of Rigid Ind lights after running them for years, so there is some bias.
But...be weary of the "Lumens claim", thermal loss, and optical & assembly loss. With the cheaper lights on the market, a light bar that claims it's 40,000 lumens is often referring to it's "raw lumens" number, so it's effective lumens is actually 16,000 lumens (which is still very bright, but significantly less).
If the optical (the glass) is poor design and the assembly is too shallow, you can loose up to another 20% of that value. That brings your 40,000 claimed lumens light bar down to 12,800 effective lumens.
If the housing is poorly designed and using cheap materials, the thermal loss will grow significantly after 10 minutes - 30 minutes of use as the LED heats up...usually a 10-20% loss of effective output. After optical/assembly lose plus thermal loss, now your 40,000 claim lumen light bar is only throwing out 11,520 - 10,240 effective lumens.
So, in the end, you paid for a 40,000 lumen light bar but you're only getting 10,240 lumens of light output after 10-15 minutes of use. Still much brighter than the stock headlamps by far!
Now don't get me wrong, you can get a 40,000 claim lumen light bar for $100-150 which ends up putting out the 10,240 effective lumens...you're still getting a lot of light for your money. It's just not the amount of light you thought you were getting. A higher quality light such as Rigid Industries, Baja Designs or others will end up still costing you significantly more for that much light. But you will notice that their housing are much larger, the assemblies are deeper, and they'll utilize a high quality optic. They will often provide you both the raw lumens and effective lumens count as well as what you can expect from, if any, thermal losses. You will, without a doubt, have a much better and useful beam of light as the cheaper LEDs tend to throw light in every direction whereas the major manufactures will focus their light where it's needed.
On a personal note, I've used the Rigids and cheaper lights and compared them myself, and with others throughout the years on Jeeps, bikes, and now SxS. Every time, the Rigid's, even with smaller lights, projected a much more useful light. I've been with guys who had massive light bars and they end up throwing most of that light in the trees above them because the housings and optics were s***. A pair of my Rigid D2 Dually Pro lights put more useful light down the trail than a 52 inch light bar, but they also cost more. Few of my friends said they didn't care because they still liked the look of the huge light bar over a bunch of pods.
I have 3 sets of pods on my machine for a few reasons. 1) Because I recycle my lights. They were installed on other vehicles and when I sell the vehicle, I replace them with cheap lights so I can keep the ones I spent the money on. 2) Pods allow me to put the light right where I need it. In my case, 2 forward facing, 2 at 30º angled out, 2 at 70º angled out. Providing me with full range light coverage.
Just my two cents. Good luck on the purchase!
