What are the differences between the types of light patterns?

We have 4 types of light beam patterns:  Spot (Long Range), Driving and Spread, Fog, and Flood. 

Spot Beam (Long Range): Spot or Long Range lights are able to penetrate deep into the night. KC Long Range Lights produce a tighter, more focused circular beam of light (pencil beam) to see way out ahead toward the horizon even at higher speeds. These lights create an extremely bright, hot center beam pattern. Spot beam lights are typically used for Off Highway, Commercial, Agricultural and Racing applications.

Driving and Spread Beam: Driving lights are designed to supplement your high beam headlights.  KC's Driving lights all comply to both SAE and ECE regulations and requirements and are street legal. KC Driving Lights produce a rectangular shaped beam pattern that can reach further and wider than your headlights.  Driving lights are very useful to create visibilty near the sides of roadways and out in front of the vehicle. They are great for all around trail riding as well.

Spread beam lights are similar to Driving but tend to be brighter, wider and possibly taller as they are not required to follow specific SAE or ECE safety standards.  Spread beam lights are great lights for multi-purpose off-road use.

Fog Beam: Fog lights are intended to be mounted below the headlights and project a beam pattern which is very wide horizontally and narrow vertically usually called a cut-off. This pattern lights up a pathway close to the ground but does not light the airborne particles in the line of sight while driving - this increases the visibility in harder to see conditions. KC Fog beams are very useful in Dust, Fog, Rain and Snow. They also work well as Cornering lights in clear conditions and are optically designed to increase visibility in tandem with your primary headlights.

Flood Beam: Flood beams create a large wide pattern of light that floods an area with an extremely tall vertical and wide horizontal light pattern. These lights are typically used as work lights and back-up lights to see a broader area at shorter distances.

Please visit our Lighting Technology page for more information about light sources and light measurement.