LIGHTING THE WAY AHEAD

Lighting Technology

IT

AUXILIARY LIGHTING ALWAYS SEEMS TO BE AN AFTERTHOUGHT, BUT WE RECKON IT NEEDS TO BE GIVEN A BIT MORE PRIORITY, PARTICULARLY SINCE THE LATEST GENERATION OF LED LIGHT BARS HAVE DELIVERED BETTER PERFORMING, LIGHTER AND WHITER LIGHTING WITH A LOT LESS HEAT. WE RECENTLY TESTED THE LATEST GENERATION LIGHTS FROM BRITISH INNOVATOR LAZER LAMPS AND REALLY TOOK A SHINE TO THEM.

As we all know Australia offers unique operating conditions for coach and bus operators, particularly for those based in rural and country areas.

Apart from all of the usual challenges like temperature, long distances and rough roads, the task of navigating country roads at night imposes its own special difficulties. Kangaroos, cattle, even camels and horses as well as an array of other feral animals all make driving at night in the Australian bush a particularly difficult task.

Lighting is something that has to be top notch if your job is to navigate the back roads of this vast brown land and anyone who has tried to do just that will tell you that good auxiliary lighting is an essential.

It came to our attention here at C&B that the nature of lighting has taken a major shift away from those legendary types of lights from the 1960s, when buzz terms like quartz iodine and quartz halogen were de rigeur. These days we have lights that have a far less romantic nomenclature but far more effective performance in the form of LED lights.

On the wane also are the big round ‘spotties’, being pushed aside by slim line, high performance LED light bars , which are more compact and streamlined, draw less power, run cooler and produce a whiter and more consistent light.

Then the fellas from a British company, called Lazer arrived on the Australian scene in a blaze of, well … bright lighting, with some very sexy looking high tech light bars.

Since it was founded in 2010, Lazer Lamps says it has aimed to be at the forefront of LED technology, and in the process set the standard in automotive auxiliary lighting solutions.

Following its success in Europe, Lazer has recently opened its own operation here in Australia and across the ‘dutch’ in NZ, with local warehousing based in Canberra, and sector specific sales support managers around the country, particularly including the bus and truck sectors.

Lazer boasts, that unlike may competitors, who have chosen cheaper manufacturing operations in Asia, it creates all its lighting products in its UK factory, under the

guidance of co-founder and director, Ben Russell-Smith. Russell-Smith’s background has seen him working at the forefront of vehicle lighting design since 2002, including managing exterior lighting projects at Nissan’s European Technical Centre, and also at Ford of Europe.

Lazer Lamps’ own UK manufacturing facility handles all aspects of the design, engineering, and product assembly, including final leak and photometric testing in accordance with UNECE Conformity of Production requirements.

The company says that particular attention is paid to things such as the integrity of the light’s circuit boards, as a means of ensuring ongoing reliability, performance and durability. Crucially, the surface mount of components onto the circuit boards, is carried out at a secondary site just 30 minutes away, allowing complete traceability and control of the end-toend manufacturing process. With both facilities accredited to ISO9001 and centrally positioned within a hub of high technology businesses from automotive all the way through to the defence and space industries. This Lazer says, helps ensure its supply chain remains at the forefront of emerging technologies and production methods, guaranteeing its products’ performance, quality and reliability.

Like a lot of automotive lighting companies, motor sport has played a key role in the development and marketing of the Lazer products and from the beginning the motor sport industry has been quick to adopt Lazer, with some of the biggest names in racing and rallying using the lights from an early stage. In the first year of production, the Lazer lights were nominated for three awards, including ‘Most Innovative New Motorsport product 2012’.

Since then more and more teams and drivers, have made the transition to Lazer. The reality is that when you are racing at the highest levels, nothing can be left to chance and you need the best possible lighting options. The bottom line is when you are travelling really fast at night in a race or rally car there really can be no compromise in performance or reliability, The clearest example of this is the high profile partnerships Lazer has forged with leaders in both the World Rally Championship with Ford’s factory M-Sport team, and in the World Endurance Championship with Toyota Motorsport and its hyper fast Le Mans prototype sports cars.

Lazer tells us that success isn’t just limited to the WRC and Le Mans, with Lazer also developing lighting solutions for gruelling off-road events such as the annual Dakar Rally marathon and the rugged King of the Hammers in the US deserts, both of which are a testament to not only the performance, but also the build quality and robustness of every light they produce.

Lazer says that success on the track has helped give it brand credibility, which has translated through to confidence for buyers looking to use them in a normal road environment. They have found that many buyers have chosen to fit Lazer as a result of the success in motor sport, but also because of the look and overall performance.

Recognising the suitability of Lazer products within the Commercial Vehicle sector, the company is now an approved supplier to a number of OE manufacturers.

Lazer’s regional manager for Australia and New Zealand, Kirk Marks reckons the company is far from resting on its laurels, and constant development work continues on both new lighting products, as well as technology advances. “Innovation isn’t just limited to our lighting solutions, increasingly we focus on how our products integrate onto different vehicles, meaning Lazer becomes known as much for its mounting solutions as its superior lighting,” said Marks.

“With continued product development a priority, and an expanding worldwide distribution network, Lazer Lamps is very much a company with big plans for the future,” he added.

Marks, himself a product of a motor sport background, has been working to develop relationships with OE brands in Australia and NZ.

After years of successful campaigning in rallies, including a Class win in the 1992 Australian Rally Championships and also in the 1995 Round Australia

Trial driving a Toyota - he certainly has first hand experience of what is needed in high performance lighting at the highest level.

“Operating in the commercial vehicle realm is tough, long miles, a lot of them at night, often on pretty ordinary roads with lots of vibration, a wide variety of temperatures and urgent deadlines to meet, so there is a lot that is just like the demands of rallying,” he laughs.

“But seriously, Lazer has forged strong relationships with European truck makers such as Scania, Volvo and other leading brands, and while I am the first to acknowledge that Australian conditions are harder than in Europe, the reality is that these brands have found Lazer Lamps work exceedingly well.”

“As a result they have incorporated Lazer into their accessories programs and we have developed integrated packages as well,” said Marks.

While the primary commercial vehicle success has been with heavy trucks, Lazer does have a strong focus on gaining more business in the bus sector where it believes its LED light technology will really improve the lot of coach drivers all over the country. Apart from anything else, better lighting on your vehicle has been show to dramatically reduce fatigue with drivers and to also greatly reduce eye-strain.

“Well if you think about it there is no more valuable cargo than human beings, so it goes to figure that ensuring you have the best lighting and visibility at night in a coach is an absolute priority,” Kirk Marks added.

SO HOW DO THEY PERFORM?

Coach & Bus has had the opportunity to try a Lazer Lamps Triple R 1250 LED light bar, which we have had fitted to our Volkswagen Amarok work ute.

The first impression when you switch the Lazer on is that the spread, length and immersion of light takes the entire auxiliary lighting business to a whole new level.

We sought out some particularly dark and quiet rural roads on the fringes of Sydney before all the lock downs started, to do some testing of just how effective the Lazer would be.

The truth was, these are simply the best auxiliary vehicle lighting we have ever used. Not only does it flood the road ahead

with a strong and consistent white light, but the spread of light into the peripheral areas off the edges of the blacktop are like no other light we have ever experienced.

The Lazer technical blurb tells us that it delivers one Lux of light output out to 518m. We can believe it because on a long straight road the light penetration seemed to go on for ever.

To give some background our history is also from a rally and motor sport background, so we have experienced the lows and highs of auxiliary lighting with rally cars for more than 40 years, so we know what works and what doesn’t.

The particular model that we tested featured what Lazer calls a Positioning light, which means the integrated position lights are designed to operate with your standard parking or side lights, delivering a low level of light throwing only about a metre, offering better visibility and awareness for your vehicle with other road users, in the same way as a daylight running lights. Lazer offers the feature most of its other products in the Triple R Range and also in its Linear range.

Lazer tells us that the Triple R 1250 uses what it says is highly efficient 11W LED technology which was upgraded earlier this year. The lights feature 5000K LED colour temperature, which means 5000 degrees kelvin and 80CRI which it reckons maximises the sharpness and definition of the road ahead.

We thought Kelvin was the bloke in the cardigan in accounts, and struggle to know what kelvin as a temperature of light reading actually means. It is something that refers to the thermodynamic scale and as it suggest is apparently the temperature of the colour. Whatever it means, the fact is that 5000 kelvin means that the Lazer bar puts out a real flood of illumination, that is really exceptional.

It pumps out 12500 Lumens, which is a unit of light, that again we struggle to understand, save for the fact that it is in real life bloody impressive.

Part of the secret they reckon is the ‘ultra-reflective vacuum-metallised optics’ which deliver a spot beam pattern. Apart from that the design and execution borders on industrial art with a very advanced contemporary lamp design. The aluminium body features anodised pre-treatment and is finished with automotive grade, powder top-coat for better corrosion and chemical protection

The design includes a versatile ‘Centre Mount’ mounting system, or you can use the integral features to enable side mounting which can be achieved by purchasing the appropriate brackets which are sold separately. This has special appeal for coach operators who may need a custom way of fitting the Triple R 1250 light bar.

The Triple R 1250 is 530 mm wide and sits not much more than 100mm high while weighing barely 2.4kg, when compared with old style driving lights and even other light bars that really redefines compact and lightweight

The tech specs tell us that the Lazer bar features an electronic thermal management system that optimises light output to preserve longevity of the LEDs while there is also a CAE optimised heatsink for improved thermal dynamics

Built into the light bar is over voltage protection as well as reverse polarity protection, while Lazer claims it has an ‘unbreakable’ polycarbonate lens with a hard coat lacquer to prevent it crazing and fogging as can occur with mere mortal polycarbonates.

They also tell us that the light bar complies with the European Union’s UNECE Regulation 112 for Class B Driving Lights approved for on-road high beam with E-Boost technology, as well as with Regulation 7 position/side light function and is IP67 watertight compliant and come equipped with pre-wired male/ female three-pin Superseal connectors and feature a full five-year warranty.