5 Baja Designs Lights, One Clean Package
With 16 Baja Designs lights discreetly tucked into every conceivable spot on our Jeep, we already had lots of light. The thing we lacked was overhead mounted lights to fill shadows caused by low mounted lights. While high mount lighting can solve this problem, it creates two more. 1: It will light any dust/rain/fog/snow/particulates in the air, and in many conditions hurt visibility. 2: More often than not, overhead lighting will cause a VERY bright foreground picture by shining on the hood right in front of you. This will cause your pupils to constrict and make all the light you do put on the trail less effective.
Fortunately, the first issue is solved by not using overhead lights in the wrong conditions. The second issue can sometimes be harder to solve. Most light bar mounts put the lights in a position that will guarantee a bright hood. Even spot lenses won't solve this issue. This is some of the reason we hadn't tackled our desire for overhead lighting sooner. The solution is often some sort of goofy shield below the lights, or to simply mount them back far enough on the roof to shade the hood, but not so far back as to shade the ground in front of the vehicle. This can also be a bit goofy.
The design idea
A solar installation on the Jeep finally pushed us into the lighting as we needed to somehow protect the MC4 connectors on the panel. After considering aluminum doghouses to protect the connectors, we ultimately came up with this tiara of lights as the appropriate solution. It would protect the connectors, house the lights, and still be low profile enough to still squeeze into the garage. This also gave us the opportunity to mount the lights so the leading edge of the roof blocks any light from reaching the hood. With the idea somewhat stable, we figured out what lights would work, and I immediately set out to design these brackets:
Assembling the Lighting
With the brackets in hand, we temporarily fitted the 40" S8 light bar, powered it up, and positioned it precisely where it needed to be to shade the hood. We then drilled the roof and made nut plates for the backside of the Ursa Minor top.
These were then installed with Sikaflex sealant to keep water out of the camper:
The last step in mounting was to pull the faces off the S2 Pro lights and install them into these side brackets we had laser cut:
Wiring the Lighting
To complete the installation, we needed to wire the lights up. In order to make everything fit in what little space exists, we drilled the roof, and removed the connectors from the lights. We then used Sikaflex to seal up where the cords penetrate. Everything is spliced under neath and routes back into the Jeep along the same path as the rest of the camper wiring. Everything was then landed on our modified Spod BantamX controller for super seamless lighting control.
Final Thoughts:
We've had this setup installed now for 9 months, 10,000 miles, and countless trips at night to places like Colorado, Moab, Death Valley, the Oregon Dunes, and even down a mine shaft. The added benefits of overhead lighting have been very obvious when covering lots of ground fast or looking for a dispersed camp site at night. This tiara of light has also done its job protecting the solar connectors in places like Kane Creek Canyon in Moab, where the trees are constantly trying to pinstripe every inch of your vehicle. This is another little project that grew in scope to something much larger, but the benefits have been very apparent. Finally, here's a few shots of the fully installed setup:
To be transparent as possible, I want to add that we bought these lights retail through an authorized reseller. Also, we will earn some commission if you buy through one of our provided links. If you found this information useful, and want to help us out, click a link on this page to shop and we'll earn a couple percent. This does not affect the price you pay, and we greatly appreciate it! In fact, any shopping through our affiliate links, like this one to Amazon.com, and this one for Summit Racing, works the same way. For the full affiliate disclosure and vendor list, click here. I wish you the best of luck with your lighting project - Thanks for visiting!
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