I have started adding better lighting to my off road machines lately.  Most recently I added a set of Baja Design LP6 lights on my Jeep.  They are about the most amazing lights I've ever used.  Spread of light is great, and range is incredible.  The first time I pulled in my driveway late at night with these lights on I noticed something next to my garage that I had never seen before.  It was very obvious, so I stopped and studied it for a while before I figured out what it was.  My house is on a ridge line, and there is usually nothing but the darkness of empty air visible next to my garage.  With the new lights I was seeing the canyon wall way over on the other side of the canyon behind my house, and it was lit up like daylight, nearly a mile away.

So now I want to add better lighting to a couple of UTVs.  The LP6 lights on my Jeep won't fit well on a UTV, so I thought about using their smaller brother, the LP4, from Baja Designs.  But I have also thought about using a light bar.  For the X3 I would want enough range for speeds up to 60 mph or so, at night, on desert roads.  For the Defender I doubt it will ever be driven over 30 mph at night, and more often in the mountains.  What are the advantages and disadvantages of a light bar over a pair of round lights?  I've never owned a light bar.  What are good models to look at?

I like that idea of the hidden light bar, behind the front windshield, on your Jeep.  It looks much better than putting one outside the windshield on the roof.  How do you keep from damaging the outside lightbars with low hanging tree branches, or even from going through the local Tag-N-Go car wash?  If I were going to install a light bar on my Jeep I would go the route you went.  I do have one question though ...

I had roll bar mounted lights on a pickup truck, way back in the day, and didn't like the lights shining light on the hood.  Does that cause any problems with a light bar mounted at the top of the windshield?  I would think that the light shining on the hood would decrease your night vision for being able to see things farther away.

That 20" light bar you are using also looks pretty good.  12,000 lumens is decent light output.  Are you using a 20" light bar on your ATV though?  Do you have an pictures of it?  I am going to try and use a 10" light bar on both of my UTVs, and mount them up on the front end, so I don't have light shining on the hood.  I am looking at a Baja Designs OnX6 10" light bar that puts out 15,000 lumens, and a Rigid dual row 10" light bar that puts out 19,000 lumens.

Here is the light pattern of the Rigid 10" LED I am thinking about using on the Defender.  It is a combination spot/flood light.  19,000 lumens of "oh baby".

For the Maverick X3 I would probably go with a combination spot/driving light to get a little more range, because it gets driven at higher speeds.

I finished the project, and I like the way it turned out.  This little 10" light bar throws down some serious lighting.  I drove around the block to check it out, and when almost home I turned off the light bar, and for a second there I thought I didn't even have the regular headlights on.  They were actually on high beam, but they are so much dimmer that it takes a second or so to realize you still have lights on after switching off the light bar.