What Are Rock Lights And How Are They Useful?
If you’re an avid offroad enthusiast, you probably already know about Rock Lights and how they can be used to illuminate the trail at night and add some serious style to your ride.
If you’re new to off-roading, you might be wondering what LED Rock Lights are, what they can be used for, and how they can be helpful to you. If that’s the case, you’re in the right place.
Watch this in-depth overview video for a good understanding of what rock lights are and how they function in multiple applications on your off-road vehicle. For more information and answers to some common questions about Rock Lights, be sure to keep reading the rest of this guide!
Table of Contents
- What Are Rock Lights And How Are They Useful?
- What Are Rock Lights?
- How Are Rock Lights Useful?
- Where Else Can I Use Rock Lights?
- What Color Rock Lights Should I Choose?
- How Do You Mount LED Rock Lights?
- How Many Rock Lights Do I Need?
- Are Rock Lights Street Legal?
- Are Rock Lights Waterproof?
- Rock Lights Recap
- Why Should I Choose Stage Series LED Rock Lights?
- Where Can I Buy Rock Lights?
What Are Rock Lights?
LED Rock Lights are lights that provide increased visibility at night by shining directly underneath a vehicle. Unlike LED lightbars or headlights, which throw a focused light beam in front of the vehicle, Rock Lights illuminate the ground beneath a vehicle with a wide unfocused light for even distribution of visibility.
How Are Rock Lights Useful?
Rock Lights are most often associated with off-roading, but they have the potential to be useful in an endless number of applications.
Rockcrawling Visibility
As the name implies, Rock Lights are useful for the extreme off-roading sport of rock crawling.
The Rock Lights can be mounted directly in the wheel wells, or other areas on the underside of the frame, of an off-road vehicle allowing the driver to look out the window and see directly what the tires are making contact with.
In a sport where precision is paramount, lights help provide a clearer view of the rocks and tough terrain which is key to ensuring that there is enough traction in order for the driver to conquer the technical obstacle they are tackling.
When a spotter is assisting the driver to overcome an obstacle, rock lights are incredibly beneficial. A clearer view of the wheel’s positioning enables the spotter to better communicate with the driver and advise on the best course of action.
Ambient Lighting
Not every day calls for precise undercarriage visibility in extreme off-roading sports, but that extra light is helpful all the same.
Rock lights are especially useful for trucks whether they’re on the job site or loading materials for a weekend DIY project. The additional lighting ensures that work doesn’t stop just because the sun went down.
Even simple tasks like loading groceries or picking the kids up from after-school activities can benefit from the added security of extra ambient lighting around your vehicle.
If you’ve ever dropped something and it rolled under your car, you know how frustrating it can be to use your cell phone light and try to locate it. Worse yet, what if it was your cell phone that you dropped? Few things are as unpleasant as kneeling on the ground while blindly sweeping under your truck at night.
The flood beam pattern from rock lights is useful for making those lost items easily visible and accessible, saving you time and frustration.
Campsite Lighting
Rock lights are also useful for camping adventures. Whether you just need to pitch a tent or get the fire going after sundown, rock lights provide convenient lighting to help you get the job done and start relaxing. The rock lights will provide more than adequate ambient light to help you see when your marshmallows are toasted to perfection when you're making yummy campfire smores.
Puddle Lights
Rock lights can also be used as effective puddle lights. Puddle lights illuminate the area on the ground near the door. This is helpful to avoid stepping in puddles, mud, or any other mess you don’t want to track into your truck or SUV.
Style
While Rock Lights are designed to provide useful light output for functional applications, their stylish flare can’t be ignored.
Because of this, they are often used as accent lights on vehicles. With different color lenses available for single-color rock lights, changing their color is as easy as snapping on a new lens.
RGBW LED Rock Lights have an even higher degree of color control and feature strobes, fades, and can even flash to the beat of the music (keep reading to find out about the color choices on rock lights).
With these attention-grabbing looks, it’s no wonder enthusiasts use rock lights to make their vehicles stand out.
Where Else Can I Use Rock Lights?
Given their low profile design and numerous mounting options, LED Stage Series Rock Lights can be conveniently placed in these multiple locations on your vehicle:
Wheel Well
Rock Lights are usually placed in the upper parts of the wheel well to usefully shine light over the tire and onto the ground.
Typically, two rock lights are placed at the “ten and two” position of the wheel well to provide the desired amount of light.
Our Stage Series Rock Lights are bright enough that only one rock light is necessary, and single rock lights are most often placed at the “twelve o’clock” or noon position to shine light directly downward.
Cargo/Truck Bed
Rock Lights are a good addition to add to a truck bed or other cargo areas. Their compact size yet high output makes them ideal for adding light in cargo areas without taking up too much space.
Under the Hood
Many trucks, SUVs, and other vehicles don’t have under-the-hood lighting. This makes it difficult when you need to get under the hood at night, but don’t have an extra hand to hold a flashlight.
Thanks to their compact design, Rock Lights can easily be installed to provide much-needed lighting when working under the hood.
Roll Bar
Roll bars are an ideal place to add extra lighting to your off-road vehicle. With tube or roll bar mounts, Rock Lights can be added to nearly any roll bar with two clamps to complete the off-road look or provide illumination from the top of the vehicle.
Dome
Interior lighting is often overlooked when it comes to off-road auxiliary lighting. But you can brighten up the inside of your truck or UTV by adding a Rock Light to the dome area and greatly improving your overhead interior lighting.
Roof Rack
Roof Racks are another great place to put Rock Lights by utilizing roll bars or tube mounts. Just like Roll bars, you can attach the lights with clamps.
However attaching them to a roof rack allows you to direct light to not only the front but also the sides and rear of the vehicle, resulting in full illumination in any direction you want.
This is perfect for setting up a campsite or using ambient lighting in an application where less light is needed.
Forward-Facing Grille or Bull Bars
Our rock lights can be used to enhance off-road lighting on the front of your vehicle, as well.
Attaching to the grille or bull bars with tube mounts is the easiest way to achieve this quick, yet useful lighting upgrade.
Essentially, you can place LED Rock Lights anywhere you want additional evenly spread lighting for your off-road rig!
What Color Rock Lights Should I Choose?
When it comes to deciding what color your rock lights should be, you definitely have some options. However, the major factor you should consider when deciding is what you’ll be using the rock lights for. If you’re a serious off-roader then you should consider:
Single Color Rock Lights
Single-Color Rock Lights are more powerful than RGBW rock lights and provide a more useful spread of light to clearly see the ground and contact points of your tires.
For a unique lighting style, you can add a colored lens to your rock lights to add some flare to your off-road adventure. Our Single Color Rock Lights have clear and diffused lenses available in these colors:
- White
- Amber
- Red
- Blue
- Green
If you’d prefer complete control of your rock light colors, you’ll be more interested in
RGBW Rock Lights
With RGBW LED Rock Lights you’ll be able to select any color you can think of without having to get out and switch lens covers.
You’ll also be able to show off custom lighting features such as strobing, fading, and other custom patterns when you pair your rock lights with our RGBW Bluetooth controller and app.
As previously mentioned, RGBW Rock Lights aren’t as powerful or functional for off-roading. However, if you’re more interested in being seen, these are a great choice.
How Do You Mount LED Rock Lights?
When it comes to mounting Rock Lights to your vehicle, you have plenty of options to choose from.
Bolt-On Mounting
For many, directly bolting the rock lights onto the vehicle surface with bolts or screws is the simplest way to mount the rock lights.
Our Stage Series LED Rock Lights feature center-bolt mounting with a center hole for a single bolt and a grommet to cover it. This means that the bolt is hidden within the rock light for a clean look.
Zip Ties
The fastest way to secure Rock Lights to your UTV or Truck is with a zip tie. Our Stage Series Rock Light comes with built-in side mounts for easy zip-tie installation of your rock lights.
Surface Mounting
Our surface mount kit allows you to mount the rock light to any flat surface. The light will protrude from the surface, but with it’s low-profile, it will hardly be noticeable.
A 20-degree angle rubber mount is included in case you want to mount your rock lights at an angle for more directed lighting.
Flush Mounting
For a truly flush-mounted Rock Light, our flush mount kit allows you to mount your Stage Series LED Rock Light flush into your bumper, truck bed, or anywhere else you need.
Tube Mounting
A tube mount option allows for versatile rock light mounting to existing points on your vehicle like
Tube mounts are secured with clamps which means you have control over their placement and lighting direction on your off-road rig.
Magnetic Mounting
The easiest rock light mounting option offered is the magnetic mount kit. This option requires no drilling and features a rubber over-molded neodymium magnet mount that fits with the single center mount hole on our Stage Series LED Rock Light.
The rubber coating seals the magnet, eliminating its potential to rust, and cushions it so no marring occurs at the contact surface.
By using a neodymium magnet, the strongest commercially available magnet on the market, you can trust your rock lights won’t budge even if you’re tackling some really rough trails.
How Many Rock Lights Do I Need?
People commonly use 2 generic rock lights per wheel to achieve a consistent spread of light on the ground surface. So typically, 8 rock lights are necessary. However, the Stage Series Rock Light can provide similar output with only one rock light per wheel well!
For serious off-road adventurers, more rock lights on the underside of the frame may be desired to illuminate all of the ground under their vehicle and not just the wheels.
Are Rock Lights Street Legal?
No. Rock Lights are not street-legal.
Rock lights are not SAE-compliant for on-road driving, however, they are ideal for auxiliary lighting in off-road applications. Before operating your rock lights, we recommend that you get familiar with any local laws in your area.
Are Rock Lights Waterproof?
Not all rock lights are waterproof. However, our Stage Series Rock Lights have an IP68 waterproof rating. This means they can be submerged in water up to 1.5 meters (almost five feet) for 30 minutes.
They aren’t ready for submarines, but they’ll be able to withstand forging through streams on the trail and wherever else adventure takes you.
Rock Lights Recap
In this guide you’ve learned a lot of information about Rock Lights so here is a helpful summary for you:
What are Rock Lights?
Rock Lights are lights that illuminate the ground beneath a vehicle.
How are Rocklights useful?
Rock Lights are used to increase visibility where tires meet the ground or terrain. However, they can be utilized almost anywhere additional lighting visibility is desired due to their low profile design and various mounting options.
This makes them useful for Rock Crawling visibility, ambient lighting for everyday and special occasions, campsite lighting, accent lighting, and puddle lights for a vehicle.
Where Else Can I Use Rock Lights?
Rock Lights can be used anywhere you want more light in a vehicle. Some examples are: In the wheel well, cargo or truck bed, under the hood, on a roof rack, as a dome light, etc.
Essentially, if you can mount them, you can use them.
What Color Rock Lights Should I Choose?
Your color selection depends on how you plan to use your rock lights. If you want a more useable light, a single-color rock light with interchangeable colored lenses is ideal.
If you are more interested in style over function, then the color and lighting effect options of the RGBW Rock Lights are best for you.
How Do You Mount Rock Lights?
You have a variety of rock light mounting options and kits to easily install Rock Lights however you deem fit. Options include bolt-on mounting, zip ties, surface and flush mounting, tube mounting with clamps to existing bull bars or cargo baskets, and magnetic mounting.
How Many Rock Lights Do I Need?
This also depends on how you plan to use your rock lights. Typically two rock lights are used per wheel well for consistent, even lighting. Therefore, you’ll need 8 lights or more if you mount lights to the underside of your off-roader.
However, our Stage Series Rock Lights are so bright that you only need 4 rock lights from Diode Dynamics to fully illuminate your wheel wells.
Are Rock Lights Street Legal?
No. Rock lights are not street-legal or SAE-compliant. However, they are perfect for off-roading.
Our Stage Series LED Rock Lights have an IP68 waterproof rating, which means they can withstand water intrusion at a depth of up to 1.5 meters for 30 minutes.
Why Should I Choose Stage Series LED Rock Lights?
Diode Dynamics Rock Lights are the most powerful and brightest rock lights on the market.
They also feature diffused lenses that have been designed with optics in mind to give you the best lighting possible for your rock lights. Not to mention the range of mounting options and features that set them apart from other lights on the market.
For more information about why you should choose our Stage Series LED Rock Lights, read this helpful article.
Where Can I Buy Rock Lights?
If you’re ready to add LED Rock Lights to your Jeep, Truck, UTV, or other vehicles, you can upgrade to Diode Dynamics Stage Series Rock Lights by clicking here or using our dealer locator to find a dealer near you.
Want to know more about Diode Dynamics products? Visit DiodeDynamics.com and subscribe to our newsletter for new product releases and more!
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