The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

This may have been skipped over, but no, you should not expect to bother oncoming traffic with any of the Diode Dynamics fog offerings as long as they are aimed correctly. The beam control is very good. Although bright and with a very wide pattern, even the Max's maximum intensity is not quite as bright as the hotspot on a factory halogen headlight.

 

Ha! No worries. Thanks for clarifying.

 

Am I able to use my current SS3 PRO’s as ditch lights if I switch out the lens?

 

maybe i missed it, but i havent been able to find a thread similar to this... is there a light bar review thread someone could suggest?

 

No, so far there has not been one. A big issue is the sheer number of folks selling them (lots of them are the same Chinese junk bars with different names on them), the number of different sizes and the number of different lighting patterns offered. One thing I can tell you for sure is that you definitely get what you pay for. The cheap eBay and Amazon bars are nowhere near as good as Rigid, Diode Dynamics and Baja Designs bars.

 

I have not done one. Light bars are difficult to compare because of the significant pattern differences available, differing sizes and no pattern standardization to set any kind of baseline. I have started an SAE Aux high beam thread, to discuss auxiliary distance lighting, which may include some SAE light bar testing at some point:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-sae-j581-aux-high-beam-thread.696597/

 

Hey @crashnburn80 did you ever for shits n giggles swap a yellow lens on to the white 6000k emmiters? Just curious what that would look like is all. Ha

 

I haven’t. It will be too green and won’t be recommended. I could for amusement though! Maybe if I have a little free time later tonight.

 

LOL! I knew you were going to do that! But where does that fall in the chromaticity window?

 

I kind of like it hahahaha

 

Looking at the selection for the SS3 Max, the yellow is only available in the fog pattern (at least at this time). No selection for other patterns on Max yellow.

 

Right. Yellow is only compliant in SAE fog. Less of a business case to make additional special optics just for this lamp for compliant color with higher losses when it isn’t compliant in any other pattern.

 

Speaking of compliance... where can the specs for J581/J583 be viewed (without SAE membership) online? I've been rattling off J583/J581 compliance but havent seen listed standards in cfr49, just circular language incorporating these standards.

ECE auxiliary lamps are stamped with a reference #, which when added up (iirc max of 75?) are supposed to be a quick reference for the maximum additional intensity that can be added to a vehicles lighting. But I haven't heen able to come up with a hard and fast number of cd under federal code. And lots of states have Extremely outdated driving light standards, which makes it even more of a mess.

 

Exactly haha

 

SS3 6000k Max with the 4000k yellow Pro/Sport selective yellow fog optic. This combo is not supplied by Diode Dynamics and not recommended.

The result of a 6000k blue light with too light of a yellow correction filter is green. Which is why the Max requires a unique optic color for selective yellow.



CIE1931 Chromaticity plot


Checking the output color against the selective yellow chromaticity window, it fails hard as way outside the legal chromaticity box. Obviously Diode Dynamics knew this which is why they developed a unique optic to the Max to correct it back to the legal color of yellow and get it within the chromaticity window.