Hella Marine X-Treme XT-3S LED Spot Beam Cube Light, Set of 2

These are Hella Marine's X-Treme XT-3S spot beam cube lights, and they ship as a matched set of two. Each one is a compact 3.3 by 3.58 inch cube packed with 28 LEDs pushing 5700 lumens, so a pair throws a serious wall of light down the water or the trail. Hella built the X-Treme line to be mounted and forgotten, and that's exactly how these behave once they're wired in right.

The XT-3S runs a spot beam pattern. That means tight, focused throw. If you're trying to pick out a channel marker, a crab pot, or a dock piling at distance, this is the pattern you want. Spot beams reach far but they don't spread wide, so don't expect these to flood the whole cockpit with soft light. A lot of owners run a pair of spots up high for distance and add a wider flood down low for close work on deck. If you only run the spots, aim them slightly apart so the two beams overlap out ahead of the bow instead of stacking into one hot column.

Build quality is where the X-Treme name earns its keep. The housing is black aluminum, which sheds heat and stands up to salt spray far better than a plastic-bodied light. The lens is clear polycarbonate, tough enough to take a knock without shattering. Each light comes with a smoked stone shield cover, and those are worth understanding. The shields snap over the lens to protect it from stone chips, canvas rub, and UV while the light isn't in use. They also knock down output noticeably, so pull them off before a night run. Left on, they'll haze over time and cut your throw.

Power is flexible. Each light accepts 12 to 24 volt DC, so it drops onto a standard 12V boat or a 24V system without a converter. At 12 volts each light pulls right around 5 amps, so budget about 10 amps for the pair and fuse them accordingly. On any run longer than a few feet, step up to 10 gauge tinned marine wire to keep voltage drop from dimming them. Tinned wire matters out here. Bare copper corrodes green inside the jacket within a season or two of salt air.

Mounting is upright bracket style, and the set includes two brackets with hardware plus a sheet of instructions. On a hardtop, T-top, or radar arch the brackets bolt straight up. If you're going through fiberglass, back the bolts with a plate or a big fender washer so vibration doesn't crack the gelcoat over time. And if you're bolting the aluminum housing to an aluminum rail, put a little dielectric grease at the contact points to stop the two metals from corroding against each other. Small step, saves you a seized bracket down the road.

Where do these shine? Offshore boats running home after dark, center consoles that need reach past the bow, sportfishers lighting a spread, and hardtops that want clean distance lighting without a big bulky bar. Because they take 12 to 24 volts and carry a sealed aluminum body, plenty of folks also run them on trucks, UTVs, and utility rigs as driving or work lights. Same light, same mount, just a different vehicle. What they're not is a soft area flood. If you want gentle, even cockpit light for cleaning fish or rigging lines, pair these spots with a dedicated flood rather than leaning on them alone.

You're getting two complete lights, two brackets and hardware, two smoked stone shields, and the mounting instructions in the box. Wire them up, aim them, and they'll do their job for a long time. That's the whole point of the X-Treme line.