The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

There's a ton of doublespeak in this response. A J583 F/F3 fog beam pattern with a cutoff isn't an outdated notion, it's literally a requirement of the spec. You can't create a fog light with a huge glare outside the cutoff, add a hastily-retrofitted shield that blocks half of the light output, and then claim your lights are "next generation".



You're also talking about fog lamps as if people use them in a vacuum, when they are actually always used (from a legal and practical perspective) in conjunction with headlights. This means that their beam patterns will always be used and blend with the main headlight patterns, making your assertions about oversaturation and how it leads to driver misdirection and confusion for oncoming traffic... well, complete bunk.

Fog lights have a specific purpose: to illuminate the sides of the road UNDER the fog or adverse weather, at low speed. From your response and picture analysis, it seems like your goal was to create another offroad light (but this time, you won't get pulled over for them). If your goal was to create a street-legal flood light, I guess you've succeeded. But I feel bad for anyone trying to use these in actual poor weather (along with your other sport and pro fog bucket offerings, which many to this day still think are "fog lights").

Your legacy is in lighting for offroad racing and it is a fantastic legacy, but let's face it: the bulk of your business is selling instagram jewelry to people with too much credit card debt. These are the consumers to whom you are most responsible for creating and marketing to ethically, because they are driving on the streets by the thousands. Call a spade a spade and get on with it.

 

still have to aim them down, weather has been wet lately.

 

Give it a rest already. Those sign are reflective, any little spill over will light them up. Enough with your BS.. nobody wants to hear it again.

 

He's got a point...none of these lights are truly plug and play. They all require adjusting, even stock. Any fog is only as good as the smartass installing it. Also, any fog is only as good as the smartass packaging the box. My DD Pros came in the other day with two little baggies of hardware, 2 nuts, 2 washers, and 2 bolts for each light, until I went about installing them today and found one baggy short the bolts. So I'm currently running one DD fog and one BD...should give for some comparison at least lol

 

Your statement calling sharp cut offs as "an outdated notion" is an interesting take on automotive lighting, being the entire automotive industry directly counters your claim. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and the automotive lighting industry has moved in the opposite direction, requiring sharper cut offs for modern fogs by creating the modern J583 F3 spec. Your fogs are attempting to meet the ancient J583 F spec, aka the "outdated" spec. It is really unclear on what you are trying to convey saying that SAE regulations have progressed, yet you are trying to meet the archaic version of the regulation and not the modern progressed one. At the same time you are saying the gradient requirement is somehow 'outdated', while the only SAE pattern that requires a gradient spec is J583 fog.

Baja's lights do have the smoothest pattern, by combining lowest output intensity with maximum spill above the horizon (aka highest peak glare). You are also correct that over saturation of near field light will negatively affect the ability to see distance at night. And this is where I think you have deviated from an ideal fog light. A fog light is supposed to be for when conditions are so bad you need help finding the edge of the roadway at low speed and headlights are rendered near useless. You need maximum performance oversaturated near field visibility with sharp cut offs to keep the light low to find the edge of the road. If you are worried about blending with the headlights and being "better able to focus on signs, wildlife, and other objects off in the distance" as you advertise for your fogs, then you don't need a fog light, and are using the wrong light for the purpose. Sounds a lot like trying to make a street legal Squadron Wide Cornering light than making a fog light.

I also think you may fail to test these products in appropriate real world environments that fog lights were designed for, experienced by consumers. Ever tried the Baja fogs in a white out blizzard on a super sketchy remote mountain highway? I think not as uplight is your enemy and maximum near field intensity is literally everything to finding the roadway. Have you ever had your testers not be able to find the roadway because conditions are so poor? I have, and at the time the Rigid SAE D-series selective yellow fogs were literally lifesavers. It would appear that you are testing your fogs in ideal California clear weather conditions, and testing your fogs offroad?!, which isn't the purpose of a fog at all.

Your comments about light spill and danger to pedestrians is bizarre, and BS for a fog. By law the vehicles headlights would be on, fogs should never be used to judge a vehicles distance.

As to your knock off the lies campaign, I am extremely hostile to intellectual property theft. I've helped submit offenders directly to Baja for legal recourse to support Baja Designs as well as other other lighting manufactures that have had their IP stolen. IP thieves are scum, and I will always help crush them. But don't confuse IP theft with actual competition.

"Crashnburn80’s tests have claimed that our peak output intensity has been reduced"
??? There is no 'claim' here, this is fact. I have measured the loss as have independent lab results. Frankly as I have mentioned before, the optic redesign sucks. You have caused substantial losses within the heart of the beam pattern as shown by my delta loss plot. As I have mentioned before, this optic requires a redesign.

What seems unfortunate is hobbyist lighting guy seems to do a more thorough delta analysis than major lighting cooperations engineers. At least I would not have signed off on such significant losses on the redesign from an engineering perspective.

This delta plot shows the losses from the revised Baja optic expressed in positive values.


According to these lab results, the peak intensity output loss is about 25% with the new optic.

EDIT: I think a big disconnect here is it feels like you are really trying to make a street legal off road light but then justify it as a good fog light. The qualities you promote do have value as an aux light off road, but they don't make for a good fog light for use on the street in poor weather.

 

The Diode Dynamic Pros are within 20% legal max uplight. Baja is with 10% of legal max uplight.

To phrase that differently, the brightest fogs on the market (by far) have less uplight than the lowest output intensity fogs on the market.

 

And there’s plenty of Baja butt kissing to go around for years

Folks are a fan of a better option.
What is your dilemma with a product that has been tested to outperform another?

 

This is why I'll never give my money to Baja Designs, not that they need it.

 

Weren't you banned?

 

You never asked a question.

 

I loved my Baja Designs Squadron Pro wide cornering. However when I used them on the street, even aimed WAY down... flashed on average by every 4th car. I really only used them in bad weather on road. But man, Off road, they were fucking awesome. I still have them, haven't mounted them to my GX yet as I need new mounting brackets (I got mine with the tacoma kit) but they'll probably go as ditch mount lights with the combo lenses.
I did buy the SS3 Pro's in Amber Fog, but haven't really used them (tried to mount them in my factory spots on the GX, but quickly found I couldn't aim them, so got some cutting to do)
Also got some flush mount SS3 Pro's in flood for backup lights...

I love my Baja lights off road. as fog lights... not so much.
I do have high hopes for the SS3 Pros.

 

remember, those BD lights are only a offroad light. should never be used on road. You should like the DD lights, but like you i had major issues getting them to fit, but a custom bracket later and seems to work fine

 

I've only heard positive comments on the DD SS3's. Has anyone had a negative experience with the SS3's?

 

The only complaint has been some have had difficulty aiming. It is very do-able though, if you follow the instructions in my review post, it should be pretty straight forward. Don’t mount them too far forward or too far back in the mount, which will restrict vertical aiming. And for 2nd Gens only use only the one upper mount screw, not both, to keep them level.

 

Awesome, that was really the only negative that I've read about them. Sounds like overall people have only good things to say about the SS3's.

 

for me, light output is amazing. I love the integrated Deutsch connector, and like the non threaded holes.
my dislikes are how large the bezels are, and that caused me issues trying to get them to fit in my bumper. I ended up making custom brackets to get them to sit lower and be more centered in the opening.

 

Do you have a picture of the fitment? Before and after the custom bracket?

Sounds like I'm on the fence with these. More bored than anything cuz of this damned virus.

 

Note that he isn't talking about running them in the stock bumper, it is for an aftermarket bumper. And it appears he has the larger round bezel face, vs the smaller standard one or the OEM style one used for the OEM mounts.

 

Ahhh make sense. I thought they looked off. I was wondering why it didnt have the angled bezel.