New KC-Gravity knock-off has cropped up.

[OFC Ranger]

You know me, always one to scrutinize warranted or not;

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B8ZJZP6...&colid=WRBB5ZVONC1H&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1

KC is 6" at 20w (each) @ $550 a pair

Knock-off is 7" at 40w (each) @ $160.00 a pair

So the two key differences;

First, Internal LED shield/director, products basically are the opposite of each other. However I am wondering if the factory worker in China tasked with taking the photo and doesn't even own a vehicle just accidentally installed the it in the wrong orientation. Dunno.

Second is reflector cup - KC having multiple directors and it appears the knock-off is a typical smooth bowl design with the directors in the glass/plastic lens.

I wonder what the actual light mechanics compare in the end, something truly worth of the extra $400?

It also appears by my guess (though they do not advertise it) the brackets appear to be linkable just like a KC Gravity setup.

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[Trigganometry]

Only way you would ever know is a side by side. My hunch the KC is more a focused light beam with little to no scatter and the knockoff is more of a flood light with tons of light scatter.

 

[Frenchy]

Knockoff brand lights(including the autoparts store lights) are usually not that great no matter what.

Understanding that KC is a well known brand I prefer to go with IPF. They make most the lights for ARB and are already proven. Even though you dont need it to get home i feel you shouldn't cheap out on lights.

 

[OFC Ranger]

Only way you would ever know is a side by side. My hunch the KC is more a focused light beam with little to no scatter and the knockoff is more of a flood light with tons of light scatter.

Yes, this is the first common debate. My questioning at this point goes to; more scattered light at what distance?

5 feet from my bumper? 50 feet down the road? 250 feet down the road?

I would also argue if my goal is to have a solid clarified lumen output at 100 yards, as long as that goal is met, I wouldn't imagine I would care about extra run off being tossed in all directions.

My little 4" array of cheap spots I have now scatter light, but what matters to me is I have a solid round focal point 100+ yards out, the remaining spillage is of no concern to me. (Well minus the hood, which is something I will be addressing in the next few months by modying my rack and shortening it from 10 foot to 8 foot, which will place those lights a little forward of my B pillar on the roof instead of directly over the top line of the windshield)

I understand high speed off-roaders may not want spillage, but what does it matter to everyone else outside this scope as long as the primary distance they want is achieved?

 

[OFC Ranger]

Well I ordered some to test out. I think I am going to temp install them on a work light stand or something and find a big open field. Maybe make a video to document what they can or cannot do, we will see.

I need to find/borrow some orange cones and a distance wheel thingy that surveyors use.

 

[OFC Ranger]

One set came in today. I am going to try and go out this evening to see what is up with them. Need to find a stand and rig up a temp harness to connect it to the battery.

Initial impressions is solid. I can find no machining marks or other obvious defects. The LED pedestal/stalk design looks like the same design many of us install in our headlights.

I was mistaken about the reflector cup, it is not smooth and it does in-fact have directionary design molded into it. Now that I have a hands-on look I think I get why they positioned the stalk in the way it is. Coupled with the cup design I think their intention was to project more of a rectangle type focus light and not a round one. Similar to fog lights, but far tighter. We will see.

Their cup design is basically (though not identical, fewer ridges) like this, but turn it sideways. Will be interesting to see what it looks like.

 

[OFC Ranger]

So no YT level testing with video yet, I just don't have time this evening to go out and find the proper distance. I will provide some initial redneck garage opinion though.

Before we start the disclaimer is this; the company did offer me a deal on 6 units after I discussed with them why I wanted to test these. There however was no discussion on favorable reviews, nor would I even consider it. At the end of the day it is one of the more established Chinese brand companies (kind of like Nilight) on Amazon and if they end up not meeting my needs I'll just send them back and get my money back through Amazon.

Anywho...

As suspected, while the stalk is orientated different than gucci brands, it appears to be designed that way on purpose. I will say this, while my current array of 4" spots puts light down range exactly where I want it, these new lights have considerably less spillage.

With that said, spillage only bothers me in one place, the hood. Spillage to the left or right of the vehicle is completely irrelevant to me as long as I am obtaining the light focus down the road that I want. Which the 4" spots do, but these 7" spots will do the same, but with 6 units, instead of 9 units of the small guys. The spillage is just icing on the cake. That and these 7" units are, as far as aesthetically, much nicer looking.

They are built like tanks as far as I can tell. Not glass, but standard polycarbonate material that most high end manufacturers use. Some lights on Amazon advertise this material, but its clear upon arrival its some lower cost variation of the formula. The easiest test is to just drag your fingernail across it without pressing in. The really cheap shit will leave a hair line scratch. These you can thump on them and they are solid.

Also these are powder coated and the quality seems on par with anyone else on the market. Again some lights advertise they are powder coated (and they really are), but again - it is some low cost mixture. I can usually tell when they show up either with a gloss finish or a matte finish. In most cases the glossy finish is a solid top coat, but has no texture, and one compromised chink in that finish usually results with more to come as the bottom surface was not prepped with any care and no adhesion occurred. These lights have that standard matte sheen and textured surface of real powder coat. The coat is uniform with no obvious defects. Cheaper stuff will have tiny clumps in some spots or uneven thickness.

Screw, nuts, bolts - all look industry standard.

The reflector cup shows no sign of low quality plating. It is a a mirror-like finish. The really really cheap crap you can see the underlying paint where they did not plate the entire cup piece properly.

Ingress of the wiring is similar to my old light bar with a nut and cap design. I have no doubt it is waterproof.

They come with light covers and the design is simple and they lock in place firmly. You are not going to have them fly off. I will give them credit, their method of installing the cover is far more low profile and subtle than being vinyl bagged or over-sized full housing covers (aka hella, kc, etc etc). This may sacrifice strength however, but the only time I run covers is in warmer months, and that is for just keeping bug guts off them, not for anything else. Georgia has no law to cover them when not off-roading.

Edit: Photos added to reference spillage (red indicators). Spillage will grow in size as it goes out, but the intensity will also die in equal phases.

The first photo shows one of my 4" spot lights. Very focused center beam, but as you can see the spillage creates another ring with a radius that is larger than the camera can capture. The second photo is the 7" spot light and the spillage are four distinct directions with very subtle ambient spillage. If the 4" spot lights rated spillage at 10, I'd say the 7" is a rated spillage of 3 as a direct comparison of the two. I'd rate the KC as a 1.

As you can see it created an oblong/rectangle pattern instead of being round. You can see by the color the intensity differences, but we are talking 25W vs 40W, so almost double the juice flowing behind the 7". The 4" is a single outward aim'd diode, the 7" is a dual cup facing diodes.



Edit: Found a video and screen capped it. Keep in mind the distance to the wall in this video is probably about 3x from my hood to the garage door. But clearly spillage is less on the KC and its a square shape pattern. I wanted to include a picture of the KC gravity pattern, but not surpringly all I can find on Google images are either instagram photos from KC or their consumers and KC's "data" graph sheets on their own product. If anyone is able to locate a screen shot from a video or a photo of a beam pattern showcase (against a wall like a lot of other companies do...) let me know please. If I can manage to find something I will come back and add it, but they aren't making it easy.

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So initial impressions of spending $160 vs $550; Is reducing some spillage really worth another $400 dollars? Also keep in mind the price compounds as the number of them you add grows. It is not looking good for KC in my opinion, but we won't be able to make an informed decision until I get a moment to actually stretch the lights out at reasonable distance.

 

[Msfitoy]

Well...are they worth the price?

 

[OFC Ranger]

Well...are they worth the price?

I updated my post a few minutes ago after finding a video to screen cap of the KC's.

Initial impression? They are too similar to warrant spending an extra $400 per set on KC's - however I will reserve ultimate judgement till I can go out and document with facts what the new ones do when stretched at some reasonable distance.

I doubt having video proof would even matter and some people will always be dismissive based on price tag and price tag alone. Which, in my shitty opinion as usual, is a sad state of affairs because this bolsters the companies, not the consumer.

 

[Msfitoy]

I updated my post a few minutes ago after finding a video to screen cap of the KC's.

Initial impression? They are too similar to warrant spending an extra $400 per set on KC's - however I will reserve ultimate judgement till I can go out and document with facts what the new ones do when stretched at some reasonable distance.

I doubt having video proof would even matter and some people will always be dismissive based on price tag and price tag alone. Which, in my shitty opinion as usual, is a sad state of affairs because this bolsters the companies, not the consumer.

If they turn out to have decent optics (where most Chinese knocks offs fail), it would be worth the price even if you have to replace them 3 times....

 

[OFC Ranger]

If they turn out to have decent optics (where most Chinese knocks offs fail), it would be worth the price even if you have to replace them 3 times....

Well 6 of KC gravity pro's is what $1600? $1800?

6 of these is about $480. (but a little secret, you can get an amazon warranty for 3 years for like $15 on them - they will either replace with same product or give you amazon credit for the same value to buy something else if the original product is no longer available)

So yes, buying the cheaper versions would very much be worth it. However this is also assuming 3 failures are going to occur. In all the years I have been tinkering with these cheap lights, I've had one failure spring up and the Amazon seller promptly had a replacement in my hands a few days later.

Everything else I still have has no problems after some time, some of which are multiple years.

The quality on the Chinese lights grows quite a bit from year to year. I have no doubt they are taking the knowledge from US company orders that require tighter tolerances and are migrating it into their own brands.

 

[OFC Ranger]

No major updates yet as the other sets were delayed in delivery, so it will probably be next week before we get to see some actual performance tests.

However, I was tinkering with them today and my assumption was right. Not sure if it was intended or not, but you most certainly can hard link these together. More so if you wanted to, the bolts have enough length you could also hard link them with the brackets still installed. So really you could do that, or buy some heavy duty L Brackets (or fab something else up) and just have brackets on the ends.

 

[AdamHarris]

These are looking like another possible example of Med-Hi Quality Chinese products that can be found within some markets if you look.

I'm just waiting for all the "That Chinese co. ripped off R&D from a good American Co. etc" that always seems to come up when looking at products like this. Way I see it, none of these companies are paying my bills, or even know who I am, so go sit on it...

 

[OFC Ranger]

These are looking like another possible example of Med-Hi Quality Chinese products that can be found within some markets if you look.

I'm just waiting for all the "That Chinese co. ripped off R&D from a good American Co. etc" that always seems to come up when looking at products like this. Way I see it, none of these companies are paying my bills, or even know who I am, so go sit on it...

I understand what IP theft is. However two major problems I take issue with the system:

1. Innovation around the globe and over the history of time at is core is nothing but a bunch of IP theft. Some cave man saw another cave man carrying a spear hat was 4 feet long, studied its construction, then made a spear that was 6 feet long. Innovation for the most part is taking someone else's idea and altering it into something a bit different, or finding a way to make the same thing, but more efficiently and for less money. Innovation involving the creation of something completely from scratch that no one has seen before is uncommon. Almost everything else is some alteration of something that existed before it.

2. Some of the things granted patents are so broad and generic its like someone would patent the shape of a square if they could. Patents are a double edge sword, they protect and stifle all at the same time.

I would consider a very specific mixture of a formula a legitimate thing to patent. I do not think a patent should be granted because someone figured out a device that has 4 basic shapes made from common materials that interact with each other to produce a specific result.


If a Chinese company gets orders from a US company to produce a spot light and during that process a reasonable human being would look at the finished product and say "Hey they designed this bracket this way, it is much more robust than our design" I could give two shits.

It is different if they made an identical clone and also in conjunction tried to deceive as another product (basically counterfeit).

Them seeing something and realizing its better and wanting to create their own does not send up red flags for me. Like I said, that is what all of historical innovation is. Seeing something done better and learning from it.

Capitalism dictates if a Chinese company makes a very similar light to an American company, but uses cheaper components and said light does not last as long, then the consumer market will ultimately adjust the market accordingly (ie; people will stop buying the product).

Also I think people believe all R&D is some super expensive event in too generic of a spectrum. R&D could involve $1,000 for a $100 product or it could involve $10,000,000 for a product that is also $100. Its a bit more complex than "but muh R&D cost!"

Sometimes another company building off someone else's product is just as simple as the price of life in the game. Again, this goes back to history and time. Cause if we just give it a black and white label, then some inventor way down the line back in the day is owed a shit ton of money.

If you don't want to be copied, then make your shit in-house and keep your formulas a closely guarded secret. If you ship your stuff off to be made somewhere else, you can't control human eyeballs and imagination.

 

[AdamHarris]

Yea so much of the "Chinese rip-off" issues originated from an American, Australian, German etc. company outsourcing the actual manufacturing of the product to China (as we all know). They, of course, have to turn over the plans and schematics to these companies and risk them getting "Stolen." Well, you wanted to produce them cheap so that's just the price you pay and the risk you take Mr. Big Company.

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