“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.”
― Og Mandino

Such true words to anyone that can find peace in calling themselves an explorer, it is in the dark times on the road or on foot that you need to count on a source of light to guide you on your path and yet, you still have the knowledge to understand the beauty of the darkness to find solace in the stars.

The Lady Alice a.k.a. My Land Rover, well she is just a special piece of technology. One of my partners or sponsorship towards all my travels and adventures is Hella South Africa, the guys at head office sent me a set of Hella Luminator X LED spotlights, both clocking in at 40W of LED power as well as a LED Work Light for the back of my landy.

As soon as i found out that they would be sponsoring the i-livewild cause, i almost jumped through the roof! as this now meant the start of great things to come, and it most certainly was the case. I received the package from Hella and got building on a new bracket for the bull-bar on my landy to fit the new lights along with my older spotlights. Luckily my brother was busy with a steelworks project so i could bum a piece of metal from him to do some steelworks manufacturing of my own.

Out came the tools and i got cracking, soon after i removed the old bracket and started marking out the new piece of material getting everything ready to start cutting it down to size, only to realize that i forgot to buy paint for the bracket. I finish what i could and then i start to pack everything away, i ended up using like 16 cable ties to keep my old spots from dangling in the wind for the trip to work and back the next day.

So it went on and eventually i finished the new bracket and at last i could mount all my lights 🙂 and WOW! i am so chuffed with the results!! Now the landy looks ready for those night drives 🙂

Since then there was a lot of things that started falling into place and now i am a Proud Brand ambassador for Hella South Africa and my landy now shows off with another set of Luminator LED spotlights. Once again i could not wait to receive my package from them, every day i would get home and scout to see if nothing arrived for me, and eventually the long awaited package finally got to my doorstep!! As i start opening the box i am stunned at the size of these lights! i knew they were big but never thought this BIG! now the thoughts are running through my head whether my home made bracket will still be sufficient for the extra size of the new spots?! I instantaneously start walking outside with the Luminator at hand to go see if my clearances would be enough to fit them in the place of my old (self converted Hella 700FF HID) It’s going to be a close shave but i recon i will make it.

Again project mounting new lights kick off, out comes the tools and i start striping the old lights carefully, preparing the bracket for the new kids on the block, i ended up using small pieces of conveyor as spacer blocks beneath the light bracket and it would double as a shock prevention mechanism minimizing vibrations on the light units. Upon closer inspection i come to see that the new lights now have 3 wires that need to be connected…dumbstruck by this as to my knowledge there should only be one positive and one negative wire but now there is an extra one…i dig inside the packaging to find the little instruction pamphlet that came with them, the lights have an auxiliary function that doubles them for fog/park lights as you are to connect the third wire to your fog lamps and voila you instantly turn your vehicle into a modern day Knight Rider or something that you would typically just see on movies, and believe me, with the sheer size of these things plus the auxiliary light on these bad boys will be turning heads everywhere you go! My Landy has now entered a total new realm of awesomeness and we are still going!

Eventually i had the old units stripped off and got the Monsters mounted and connected and boy oh boy!!!

The new lights look INSANE!! The monster that is my Land Rover has awakened!

The Luminator LED lights features 3 main LED’s that shine backwards towards the reflector thus projecting the light forward, making for an optimal light output! (i will be doing an article about spotlights vs light-bars shortly). And then at night it lights up and goes commando on the dark:

Being in full beast mode i just never want to switch these lights off at all! paired with the Luminator X versions there is a wall of light projected in front of my Landy and makes it a true pleasure to drive at night. I would recommend anyone to have a look at Hella and the various products they offer they are truly remarkable.

These lights have full metal casings paired with a perspex type of material for the screen thus being able to survive hard-felt shots from rocks or big bugs en-route to your destination, they are very easy to set up as on both pairs they are mounted on a swivel bracket that locks them in place with a small Allen-cap screw on both sides.

The Luminator X versions pack a big punch for their size and i am quite impressed that two LED’s can manage that kind of distance from within such a small package, Hella has really carefully thought the engineering part through. The Luminator X version in my opinion almost reaches further than the big brother Luminator spots, BUT…the Luminator X provides more of a solid beam flattened out beam (almost like a horizontal figure of 8) that effectively stretches for about 200-300meters of visible beam. The Luminator lights on the other hand serve a much different approach as they are a bit more shallow than the smaller ones the light does not get projected as harsh as with the Luminator X lights, the big ones create massive wall of light going forward at a wider angle, thus enabling you to see more of whats happening even on a wider field of view. Both these models have their advantages and maybe (I am yet to discover them) disadvantages… in my situation when they are paired you will have insane amounts of light for any adventure.

so to sum it all up, if you are planning on doing some night driving, make sure to have a look at the LED products Hella has to offer, you will not be disappointed.

Go…seek adventure and till next time, fare well!
i…