Black Oak LED IR Pod Lights

When predator hunting you want to get into the stand as quietly and low key as possible, noise and light discipline is key.  Wearing a helmet mounted PVS-14 makes that pretty easy to do on the walk in since I don’t need white light to see and have IR lights on my helmet when a little illumination is required.  I wanted to take that to the next level and be able to do the same on the drive in with the truck.

That had me in the market for IR LED lights I could mount on the truck to be able to drive using the PVS-14 on those moonless nights.

In the course of looking for IR LED pods I ran across Black Oak LED and their 850nm IR pod lights.  The guys over there were extremely helpful and quick in answering my questions.  Ended up working out a sponsorship deal with them and an exclusive discount code for us.  Code ZeroFox20 will get you 20% off on anything on their site.

Wanting a similar light pattern as my normal headlights I ended up going with two spot lights and two flood lights in some SDHQ Off-road A pillar mounts.  Two lights per side, spots on the inside with the floods on the outside.

The lights come with all of the wiring needed to install them, including a switch, relay, and mounting hardware.  I also purchased two of their split harnesses to connect two lights into one set of wiring to reduce the amount of wire needed to wire up 4 lights.  Since my truck has factory accessory switches I removed the switch from the provided harness and wired the relay into the factory switch on the truck.

The spot lights are aimed straight ahead and the floods are angles outward to provide ditch lighting.  This gives plenty of light directly ahead and a nice wide area of light off to the sides to see for turning.

One concern I had with the A pillar mounts was glare off the hood.  Putting the spots lights on the inside minimizes how much of the light hits the hood and the floods are aimed so not much of their light hits the hood.  Glare from the hood ended up being minimal and not very visible from the drivers seat.

 

 

 

After getting some time behind the wheel driving with these lights I’m extremely happy with how they perform.  The brightness levels and beam patterns work out very well, getting enough light out there to easily navigate.  The quality of the lights is outstanding and the price can’t be beat for what you get.

My only complaint on the lights is the slot for the mounting bolt could have been a little wider.  This would have given me a little more flexibility on mounting and aiming them for my particular setup trying to fit two of them side by side.  I don’t expect this to be an issue for most applications though.

Thanks again to the team at Black Oak LED for partnering up with us and be sure to use the discount code ZeroFox20 if you decide to get some of their lights!

 

-Levi