Information about Lazer Lamps Tripple-R 750 Elite and Strands Dark Knight Identity 20" led bar.
Living in the Swedish countryside with its famously long winters, short daylight hours and plentiful animals we want to avoid running into (but enjoy seeing otherwise). Extra driving lights are so common here, I'd say at least 50% of cars have at least some LED bar installed (either above the license plate or behind the grill are common mounting spots).
One of the first modifications on our van was the addition of the Lazer Lamps Tripple R 750 Elite (Gen 2). These are available with a "T6.1 grill mounting kit", which makes it easy to get a good looking mount and an easy installation you can do yourself.
When looking at the Lazer Lamps, there are several options for the T6.1, starting with the ST4, the standard Tripple R750 and finally the Tripple R750 Elite (in Gen 1, discontinued, and Gen 2). The beam pattern and range differs. Roughly, the ST4 are wider but shorter throw length than the standard R750, and the R750 Elite are both wider and longer than the ST4 or R750.
There is a little bit of horizontal adjustment possible with the grill mount, and we've tried to get width rather than maximum length of the beam. Reasoning: The moose on the side of the road 50-150m ahead is statistically more dangerous than the moose standing in the middle of the road 500meters downrange.
However great they are, after driving them for about a year, we felt it would be nice to have something "more" in the middle.... after quite some research and not wanting to spend too much more on lights, we settled on the Strands Siberia Dark Knight Identity 20" LED bar. Whilst price is an important factor, Strands are a Swedish company and generally highly respected brand of quality lights. We earlier had a Strands RV backing light, which is superbly bright and not expensive.
Using the XBB PowerUnit and XBB Dongle for wiring them up, we did not require any original cables of the California to be modified or even located - just connect the lights to the XBB Power Unit (a relay with bluetooth connectivity - just connect it to the battery and to the extra lights, done - NO messing with finding CanBs cables etc.!), plug in the ODB dongle and configure in the app - works perfectly! By adding a XBB SmartButton these extra lights can also be selectively disabled, which can be useful when driving past street signs but still keep the main VW high beam on (which is a couple of magnitudes weaker than the Lazer Lamps / Strands LED bar).
What's the "Identity" part?
There is/was a Dark Knight without "Identity" by Strands. The difference is this one lights up with a snazzy white or orange position light. Driving with position lights is not allowed in several countries, but it can still be useful as an extra parking / camping light to ... identify... your vehicle on a busy campground ;-)
For easy use, it's wired to a three-way switch and powered by the second battery - up is white position light, middle is OFF and down is orange position light.
What's the light like?
Pretty darn nice - a long straight throw, and a great addition to "fill" the slightly angled Tripple-R750's.
Let's see how they add up - screenshots from a video clip (they switch on with a slit-second delay to the high beam, so it can be "dissected" on video (these first examples were taken before we had the XBB Button (see article below for pictures and more info on it) with which we can now selectively switch these on/off - see second set of comparison images further down).
Here's a short video of switching it on and off twice. Note the XBB Bluetooth powered extra lights take as split-second to follow the regular high-beam.
And here is another example, where the light is now properly individually controlled by the XBB button:
All images of light-beams shot with iPhone 13 Pro and locked exposure for as close a comparison as possible, but still hand-held. Generally I's say it appears brighter in real life.
Here's the Tripple-R 750 Elite light pattern (anything past 1 Lux doesn't really matter practically - so 500-600m).
To see how we wired it up as well as with the Strands Red Fox rear lights, check out these articles:
