The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

@crashnburn80 my rigid sae fogs put out very tall beam pattern. They light up overhead signs on freeway. The pattern I get from them is also pretty narrow. Is that normal? And if not, could you guide me to correcting it somehow?

 

Do you have a picture of them installed?

 

Are you using these H9s in the OEM housing?
If yes do you have a Vendor for these?

 

Looks right, installed just like mine. Weird you have a tall beam and not a wide beam.

 

Looks similar enough to yours. Notice how headlight has more spread than fogs, which makes no sense.

These are both pics of just one headlight and one fog light, with and without cover.

 

Based upon that picture I would say the rigids are doing what they are supposed to. Your headlights however appear to have some light that angles up on each side. My bet is that what's causing the signs to light up. Stock headlights? Mine have that because they are crappy depo aftermarket lights that i had.

 

No, I am sure the fogs do the lighting up. I have checked with fogs on and off. The beam looks very tight up close, but if I back away from wall, it is actually very tall. They act like high beams.

The headlights are stock, with decent cutoff. They are aimed a little too low actually, so the fogs actually illuminate farther out.

 

Do you have the fogs aimed too high?

 

Understood. Maybe aimed too high

 

They are aimed as low as possible. To aim lower, I would have to grind down the surrounds.

 

Maybe @crashnburn80 can add something.

I have the Rigid mounts and I can't adjust them at all, i think they are pointed too low (on my truck). Going to get a set of Rago mounts, hopefully they allow at least some adjusting.

 

Adjusting is a royal pain in the butt. Have to take off the surrounds and loosen the bolts on the sides to swivel up and down, if I remember correctly.

 

The beam pattern looks correct on the fogs, so it is the aiming that must be off. Does the truck have stock suspension, or a leveling kit? It is surprising that aiming as low as possible would be higher than your headlights at distance, unless your headlights were way too low. The mounts look to be installed tight against the bumper, and even in the photos the fogs appear to be pointed down. You could also try to elongate the mount hole on the back upward to push the rear of the fog up, in addition to or instead of grind the front plate down. Could you provide a night shot at ~20-25'?

The Rigid LED fog pods have a side projection angle of 45 degrees, which seemed consistent with all the LED fogs. The OEM TRD 'wide angle' fogs have a side projection angle of 75 degrees, providing a much wider pattern. I prefer the OEM wide angle projection compared to the LEDs.

The Volsa's H9s I run are a specially modified H9 with a glare cap to run in open reflectors like fogs. They are over 2x more output than the highest LED fog, but the beam pattern also covers a much larger area so lux intensity is only moderately higher. Check out the update in the lower half of the original post here:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-foglight-upgrade-h11-not-led-or-hid.435419/

They are purchased through Daniel Stern, as he has them custom made. However, most people do not know how to use their fogs correctly and use them as driving lights, which is actually harmful so he is unwilling to sell them to just anyone.

GE's new H11 Megalight +130 measured higher than the Volsa H9s in a projector headlight housing, I haven't yet tried them in a fog housing to see the results. Ultra high efficiency headlights work by improving the beams concentration for greater output, being a fog the beam isn't concentrated it is widely distributed, so I am uncertain if the results would be similar.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/headlight-upgrade-2017-trd.575174/page-2#post-19035062

 

"specially modified H9 with a glare cap to run in open reflectors like fogs"

Thank you for for the Information.

Now my brain is trying to put it together.

 

It isn't as complicated as it sounds. Low beam bulbs and fog bulbs have a glare cap on the tip of the bulb to not provide glare from the high intensity filament to oncoming drivers. High beam bulbs do not have this feature, as glare isn't a concern in a high beam. An H9 is a very high output high beam bulb, so it has no glare cap. In a projector headlight there is a light shield to control the glare, and in most reflector low beam reflector headlights there is a bucket over the end of the bulb to control glare. A fog light is open without a bucket or any other method to cover the end of the bulb, relying on the blacktop glare cap coating on the end of the bulb to do so. An H9 being intended for high beam, does not have one. So I purchased some H9s that were modified with OEM style glare caps so the system operates like stock, but is massively brighter. The Rigid pods are just shy of 1000 actual lumens. My H9 fogs are 2100 lumens, I then push that output further by running a standalone 12 gauge wiring harness drawing power directly from the battery to increase voltage to the bulb for higher output.

 

I tried to buy a set of the Volsas but no soup for me. I was wondering if you could just cerakote the end of a regular H9 bulb?

 

Interesting, I've not heard of that product. What is important is adhesion and heat durability. I used high temp ceramic paint to put a cap on some 9011s. You can see my write-up here:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-h10-to-9011-hir-foglight-upgrade-better-than-led.528143/

Note that any spray type paint will off gas as it cures, and off gassing in a sealed headlight will put a thin coating on your reflector/lens which will reduce performance. From what I have read, generally 90%+ of off gassing is done in 2 weeks. So if attempting this, I would spray, wait 2 weeks then install. I've found a company that actually sells the bulb cap coating material, but they they sold commercial volumes and my request for a 'consumer batch' went unanswered.

 

Maybe Vandelay Industries can get a free sample

 

Hey folks, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it looks like the Amber G4s won't be available for @crashnburn80 to test for a couple more months. Long story short, our factory has been busy going full force on building stock of a different product. Therefore, the Gravity G4 production stalled out for the time being. We're trying to have it back in action ASAP, in huge part due to the overwhelming positive demand from you all on TW for these fog lights!