As we get older, our eyes age right along with our other muscles. We can enhance our muscles with exercise and better tools, but other than glasses, we can't improve our eyes with exercise. So we have to rely on better tools, in this case, Rigid Industries LED light fixtures.

Rigid offers lights for almost every reason; white marine lights to black off-road lights. With the company headquarters and manufacturing plant in Phoenix, Arizona, we enjoyed working with fellow Arizonians to outfit our 2005 Jeep Rubicon Unlimited with all the lighting it'll need for the foreseeable future.

Before we get into the gritty details, below is a list of the lights that we chose for this Jeep. Each light - or pair of lights if they come in a kit - we used in this article was wired to the Jeep's electrical system somewhat differently. Please see our explanation as to how they were wired into the system below. All the part numbers and prices are from Rigid Industries.

Fog - SKU20211 ($200/pair):

With only four LEDs, this lightweight 3x3-inch D-series light (which is street legal) has a low amp draw but puts out 1,568 lumens. It can be mounted anywhere from the A-pillars to the bumpers and is extremely durable. The kit comes with two Dually LED lights, wiring harness, and a switch. The pair features a 20-degree flood pattern, 50,000+ hour LED lifespan, instant on/off with no warm up, over/under voltage protection, cast aluminum housing, polycarbonate lens, and integrated thermal management. They are assembled in the USA.

We applied a pair of amber lenses to these lights to aid the visuals during bad weather driving. These fog lights pretty much saved our trip when we hit a blizzard on I-70 near Aspen by providing a low angle beam pattern with minimal reflection. We were one of the few vehicles still able to drive in the snow because of the Jeep's four-wheel drive and these fog lights.

Fortunately, the 2005 Wrangler Rubicon was equipped at the factory with optional fog lights, which were controlled by a switch on the turn signal lever. We were able to reuse the same circuitry, which allows the fog lights to be on only when the headlights' low beams (or running lights) are on. In other words, the fog lights can't be used when the high beams are on. You may need a good shop manual with electrical circuit diagrams should you decide to go this same route, or you could use the existing cables. All necessary wiring, relay, and switch were included in this kit, but they were not used since we utilized the OEM circuits.

Spot - SKU50231 ($380/pair):

These driving lights are also D-series lights (also street legal), the lights are slightly larger brothers to the 3x3-inch fog lights, and each has six LED lights in a 3-1/8x3-1/4-inch package, which puts out nearly double the lumens with the additional two LEDS (3,096) while using just 2.5 amps and 34.5 watts. They also feature a 20-degree flood pattern, instant on/off with no warm up, over/under voltage protection, cast aluminum housing, polycarbonate lens, and integrated thermal management, and are also assembled in the USA.

It is one of the most versatile lighting products on the market today that produces extremely high output while consuming very little power, and its compact size and shape allow it to fit almost anywhere and be used for virtually any lighting application. The Dually is designed to project far and wide. It uses a narrow, oval-shaped reflector that projects both spot and flood beam patterns at the same time.

These slightly larger D-series lights were wired directly to the battery with a switch on the dashboard (wiring, relay, and switch included in the kit). They weren't wired into another lighting circuit, so they can be used without any other lights involved. Therefore, in addition to using them to supplement the headlights, they can be used solo—which works great for those highways where DRLs (daylight running lights) are required for safety during daylight hours.

Cowl - SKU106612 ($665/pair):

Known as the E-series 6” (wiring, relay, and switch included in the kit), these lights—along with the above mentioned fog and spot lights—are SAE Compliant, which means they can be used on-road or off. Therefore the E-series can be used as an auxiliary high beam while on the freeways. The E-series light (with 12 LEDs) puts out 5,280 lumens while pulling just 2.85 amps and 41 watts.

These 6-inch-wide lights, being street legal, were perfect for mounting just above the cowling and below the windshield on the Jeep's A-pillar. An additional advantage to this mounting location gave the lights excellent highway coverage because of the added height. To ease their use—and to better control them—we wired them into the Jeep's high beam circuit, which means the circuit's relay is controlled by the high beam lever just as the Jeep's headlights are. However, we didn't want them to come on every time we hit the high beams so we also mounted a toggle switch on the dash (the toggle switch is also illuminated when the circuit is in use). Now, when we're driving down the highway with no opposing traffic, we flip up the toggle and now we can control the cowl lights with just the high beam lever, which makes night driving much less stressful.

Light Bar - SKU25004 ($500 each):

Its full name is Radiance 50” LED light bar with an amber back light, but we'll call it a light bar—and it is really cool. When not in use, but with the Jeep's headlights on, the amber back light illuminates the full width of the bar. If you don't like the amber back light, you have a choice from five colors: amber, blue, green, red, and white. According to Rigid Industries, the Radiance is built with the same high-grade aluminum alloy housing as the E-series. Inside, the light bar is equipped with a black exposed printed circuit board and optics that combine the attributes of a spot and flood beam pattern. Fifty inches long, the light bar's other dimensions are 6.25×7×6.25 inches. It pulls 278.7 watts and 19.9 amps while pushing out almost sixteen thousand lumens (15,876)!

Not being street legal, we pretty much ignore this fantastic 50-inch light bar while on the highway or driving around town. But once we're in the dirt, playing in the sand dunes, or looking for an isolated, back of beyond campsite, it comes into its own. This is where you really want to say, “Let there be light!” every time you flip the toggle switch up because energizing this Radiance light bar is like touching off a mini-sun! Combining its full width and the combination of flood and spot lights gives you one hell of a “bubble of radiance.” Nearly sixteen thousand lumens illuminate a huge swath of ground in front of your Jeep.

There are a few caveats, however. Unlike the other LED lighting kits in this article, no wiring harness is included with the Radiance light bar—you'll have to order wire harness SKU40200 ($80). Also you'll probably need to order one or more sets of the Rigid Industries LED Light Bar Resonance Damper (SKU40280/$15). We call them "puppy's feet" because that's what they look like and they're for dampening the highway whistling and howling caused by wind at high speeds. This three-piece set can be slid on to any location on your Rigid Industries LED light bar to absorb harmonic distortion from the fluting of the extruded heat sink fins in your LED light bar. Depending on location, you may need more than one set of puppy's feet.

See the photos below to see how we installed each light to our 2005 Jeep Wrangler.

Rigid Industries, http://www.rigidindustries.com/
Summit Racing, http://www.summitracing.com/