The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

Shoutout to @crashnburn80 for being featured in DD's recent email blast about the SS3 Max - too legit.

 

Seems kinda goofball to brag about having 80 watts of total power if the dynamic heat capacity of the chassis limits it to less than 40...

 

Don’t forget about us small guys

 

SS3 MAX
https://www.instagram.com/p/CHyP9LfH6qk/?igshid=103tqrx18pyob

 

Good question.

Rated power and rated lumens are useless numbers. We know that. You guys might know that.

But the fact is, most people don't understand. We have had people vehemently accuse us of "ripping off" consumers because our 14W LED pod is 5 times more expensive than the 100W, 5000 lumen pod on eBay.

We fought the battle for a very long time, but it's only worth being called scam artists so many times. We put the rated power and rated lumen figure so we can effectively compete with the general market who unfortunately is dead set on only using these useless "measurements."

We do provide the actual measured lumen value and candela, which is more information than most companies. If you think we are trying to mislead anyone with our rated values, I apologize. We have to provide the information our customers demand, and many of them still demand these "rated" values.

 

Paul, thank you for your clarification. I understand that these are indeed 20W chips and they are being underdriven in order to make your product more reliable and consistent. I also understand that part of selling a product means using a base level of terminology that competitors use. It just "feels" a bit off to call them 80 watt lights. And I say that as someone who is interested in a pair.

 

I agree. You probably won't see that terminology used again so prominently for these, wish I would have adjusted it in this clip.

Paul

 

Moving along... It's interesting to see that the Max improves every optic except for the flood, where the Pro edges it out. Yellow specs are not yet released.

 

That is interesting isn’t it. The key benefit of the Max is using a smaller emitter for improved focus, with slightly improved output over the Pro. Improved focus only helps in focused optics, aka Spot, Driving, Fog. Going to a distributed pattern like flood makes sense that output intensity wouldn’t play into the Max’s strength of increased focus. Still surprising to see the Pro come out on top for flood.

 

Now the question is, do I get Max fogs and sell or repurpose the pros? Or do I keep everything but add some laser beams up front? What these things really lighten up is my wallet.

 

Max fogs. If I have them, you must too. Shared pain forms a bond. If you need to drive down to see them, I'm game. We have family in RB too but we usually meet up in Palm Desert (just got here, drove the back roads and man oh man do I love the 9011 Toshiba HIR's crash pointed me to.) The H9 lows seem like a flashlight by comparison.

I'd leave your driving lights alone though, they are too perfect to mess with.

 

2x2 mounts with a Max spot next to each of your driving lamps for maximum reach.

 

What surprises me is to see the candela and lux numbers for the sport in the spot configuration. Are those number correct? Is the spot really better than the pros?

 

For Spot, in peak intensity yes. I think I have a post in here somewhere comparing the two. Because Spot is an extremely focused optic, and the Sport emitters are smaller and more highly focused than the Pro, the smaller light source works with the highly focused optic to produce a more focused spot beam, resulting in higher intensity output. However, the Sport spot is a smaller spot pattern than the Pros, so there is a trade off.

While this article by Philips talks about how shrinking the light source improves focus and therefore increases output intensity in focused halogens, as shown by the Tungsram products in the 3rd Gen headlight thread, the same concepts apply to smaller more focused LEDs:
https://www.philips.co.uk/c-e/au/ca...es/technology/improve-your-lights-easily.html

 

Which begs the question, 5-10 years down the road, what types of fun mods might we do with our sports (after we've rotated to the next great thing).
In other words, what are some of the best ways to utilize a natural spot pattern to maximize it's utility? Flood seems best for camping. Perhaps something nautical-related where you want to focus a beam on a specific target? So, this would be the tacoma duck boat conversion mod?

 

Ah, that makes sense of it. Thanks.

I can certainly see how it's easy to get caught up in the numbers and it can be confusing if the whole picture isn't also considered.

 

Also a good example though of how just looking at lumens doesn't make sense either. Candela will give you a far better idea of peak pattern performance, but it also isn't the full picture without the pattern comparison. Similar to how the Pros are only a little higher in peak intensity vs the Sports in fogs, but the pattern is also much larger on the Pro which isn't something noticeable in the performance specs unless looking at the beam pattern angles.

 

LOL. This might be my 9th set of fogs... in 5 years.

Continuously pursuing the best means I'm always changing out the lights on my truck for the latest and greatest. The only upgraded lighting product on my 2nd Gen Tacoma that withstood 5 years of ownership was the extremely exotic Osram Hyper H4s, which have long since been discontinued and yet no other H4 bulb on the market has come remotely close to superseding their performance.

 

There are merits to each! I don't live or travel in deer country, not sure if I'd need the spots as the driving lamps are plenty bright (and compliant). And I don't go offroad fast enough to need a half mile of light but man those spots are cool.

I seriously want to just hold one (with an oven mitt) and just point it at stuff out in the desert. I don't know why that sounds so fun.

 

When you use your devices to measure candela and lux, how do you choose where in the pattern to take the sample? Are you looking for the 'brightest' spot? Or does it not matter as the light is evenly distributed throughout the pattern?

Understood about the value of lumen numbers used by the marketers. It is awesome to finally see the light makers opening up to the fact that smart consumers want to know more.