This past winter saw a lot of changes to our Toyota Tundra Overland rig. Changes to the suspension for more clearance, rock sliders for protection, additional battery, fridge and more lights. And you can never have too many lights. While the majority of my lighting upgrades focused on forward facing illumination for driving, one addition was made for non driving use. Lights that will illuminate the area around the truck. Used for anything from vehicle repairs to cooking or anything while camping. For this application, I chose the LightFORCE ROK20 Utility Lights.
These compact aluminum lights are available in both flood and spot beams. For my application, the flood beam was most appropriate. My plan was to integrate a total of six ROK20’s into the MAX Modular bed rack mounted on my Toyota Tundra. I figured two on each side and a pair of rear facing lights would give me the coverage I wanted. Mounting them to pre-existing holes in the bed rack made the installation pretty easy. Making a wiring harness was next.
Night Demonstration Video:
I ordered a roll of “paired” marine grade wire with a protective sheath. This makes routing wire through the cross members of the rack easier as the positive and negative wires were already bundled in a sheath. Once the wire was routed to all six light locations, I spliced and soldered the included Deutch fly leads. A nice feature should you ever need to replace a damaged light. Simply unplug the Deutch connector and swap it for a new unit.
I then routed the wire into the stake pocket of the truck and under the cab along the frame rail to the engine compartment. From here, I simply connected the positive and negative wires to the corresponding poles in the S-Pod. The Switch Pod provides six switched circuits inside the cab and is one of the best products on the market. I have all six lights connected and turning on together to provide a halo of light around the rear of the truck.
While traveling through Colorado and Utah, the ROK20’s were the most used lights of all the upgrades. We were blessed with long days of sunlight so we did minimal night driving. But when the sun did finally go down, dinner still needed cooking. And that’s where the ROK20’s were clutch. With 770 lumens of light for each unit, we were flooded with 4620 lumens around the perimeter of the truck. Making food prep, cleaning, equipment maintenance and showering as if it were daytime. Ensuring all tasks were thoroughly completed and everything put away before retreating to the rooftop tent for the night.
LightFORCE ROK20 FEATURES:
- High pressure cast aluminium body
- Hard coated, scratch and high impact resistant polycarbonate lens
- Custom fabricated dual injected molded strain relief connector, fitted to military specification grade cable*
- Waterproof rating: IP69K
- Military specification waterproof membrane with mechanical seal
- Over, under and reverse voltage protection
- No anti-glare shielding required
- Pulse width modulation thermal management circuitry
- Mounting system included
- Deutsch waterproof connector*
- RoHS certified
- 3 year warranty
- Available in ‘spot’ or ‘flood’ configurations
- Instant on
- MSRP $64.00 each
“Perfect for a wide range of applications, the ROK lights from Lightforce are a unique solution to a range of lighting needs – use them as a reversing light, a motorbike handlebar light or even as a work light while camping! Available in a range of beam patterns, the new ROK10 and ROK20 work lights from Lightforce are a handy addition to address multiple lighting needs.” -LightFORCE
If your vehicle has a roof rack or a bed rack, I’d highly recommend taking a look at LightFORCE and their ROK20 utility lights. It’s been one of the most practical and useful modifications I’ve made to the Tundra. I’ve found many additional uses for the lights outside of Overlanding. Backing up at night is much safer as the surrounding area is clearly illuminated. Now that the sun sets at 4:30, I find myself switching on the ROK20’s anytime I’m loading or unloading the bed of the truck. You can see from the video that night driving on trails with all the lights on is impressive. My son likened it to a commercial fishing troller.
ROK20 Specifications:
- Distance: 1 lux at 110m
- Distance: 0.25 lux at 220m
- Lumens Effective: 770
- Raw Lumens: 1700
- Colour Temperature: 5000K
- Current Draw: 0.9Amps @ 13.2V
- Voltage Range: 9V – 36V DC
- Wattage: 20W
- Ingress Protection Rating: IP69K
- Weight: 0.27kg
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Stay tuned to The Gear Bunker and be a part of this all veteran-owned website. And be sure to subscribe to our Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube channels. Sign up to be notified on YouTube ensuring you’ll know immediately when new content is uploaded.
Check out our new Affiliate Partner Page.
Visit our Amazon Storefront for more related items.
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