The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

#illegalmilspecpurplebezleoffroadchamps

 

They don’t dare post that crap here.. lol.

 

Baja Designs:

Also Baja Designs when refuting a product:

So which is it?

This I will agree with. Baja Designs undoubtedly makes some of the nicest, most durable and effective lights I've had the pleasure to see and use- off road. I myself have a pair of S2s as ditch lights and they are fantastic, especially for their small footprint. In my opinion, I would not call BD products inferior- I would instead say that Diode Dynamics is punching far above their weight for the price they charge for their Stage Series lights.

In regards to price and whether BD is worth the premium, that's up to the buyer- and what a wonderful thing to have the choices we have available! I would venture to say there are two things that strike me: the first is that the SS3 pods probably have a much lower parts count and easier assembly processes than the Squadron series. The one-piece optics are an obvious advantage over extra lenses, from a simplicity standpoint. I bet there are more.

Here's another, from Baja's own website:

It sounds great at first, until you realize that they're still paying their vendors for all of those reflectors even with a high incoming scrap rate. Baja is passing a cost along to their customers that has ZERO value add for them. This isn't great quality control, it's abysmal supply chain control. A strange thing to brag about.

This is muddying the waters- a lot. There's no doubt that Baja and Diode operate in different spaces when it comes to lighting. The Stage Series has come a long way in the short time it's been available (less than 3 years, the SS3 a little more than 1 year) and they've got quite a lot of penetration in the American Rally circuit. Certainly not the pedigree that Baja has built but still impressive in their own right.

None of this, however, has much relevance to the 90+ percent of people who are actually buying the lights. The vast majority of us are not navigating whoops on the Baja peninsula at triple digit speeds, or linking hairpins through old growth forests. Most of us are driving to Costco twice a month, or trying to look like the "adventurous parents" when picking up the kids. Most of us are parking in the Alabama Hills for the weekend with our lights turned on during the day so we can take pictures for instagram. Seriously, go look at instagram and try not to laugh at how seriously some of us take ourselves. I'm psyched Baja makes infrared lights for the military, but I'm sure as shit not going to buy surplus Russian night vision goggles so I can play soldier. Oh, and no racer born would make room for the SAE Squadron on their trophy truck. Apples to oranges indeed.

The point is, most of us just need lights that will serve their use case. I myself like getting up before dawn to try getting first chair on a powder day, which often means navigating mountain roads in inclement weather. Without a doubt, the SS3 fogs are the superior choice for these conditions- because they're built from the ground up for their intended purpose. These, without a doubt, are not.

I am genuinely interested to see the revised fog light, though it sounds as if you're still determined to make "street legal off-road lights" rather than true fogs. I look forward to what's coming up. Bring the A-game because you clearly can't continue to rely on discounting your competition.

 

Baja Designs seems more focused on Bros than average joes.

 

Has anyone with a 2.5 Gen thrown a Lamin-X yellow lens cover on their fog lights? Since DD SS3's are backordered for several weeks, I was thinking about trying some lens covers to see how I like the yellow instead of the white.

 

With the term being thrown around, I think it's important to understand what "effective lumens" means, and "Raw lumens" and "measured lumens" for that matter. Generally, this is a value that comes from reverse-calculating after a full light tunnel (goniometer) beam pattern test. People who demand lumen measurements love it, and it can be helpful if you want to compare raw lumens (what's coming out of the LEDs) to what you actually get shining out of the lamp.

Raw lumens are a calculated value from the LED manufacturers. This is just the theoretical maximum lumens you can get out of each chip. You don't have to measure anything. You just look at the datasheet, do your calculation, and you've got a lumen value. However, this is not how much light comes out of the lamp.

This is because every LED optical system ever invented will only get 30-70% of the lumens from the LEDs, on to the target. When you bounce off a reflector you may lose 5% of the output - reflectors aren't perfect. When you go through a thick TIR optic you may lose 20% of the output - plastic isn't perfectly optically clear. And then a single outer lens will cut output by 10% alone. Optical efficiency is a big deal. (If you want to increase the output of your headlights, just take the lens off of them!)

If you stick the whole lamp in an integrating sphere and measure all of the light coming out of it, that would be considered measured lumens. The problem with this value is that it includes light shining everywhere... into the sky, directly onto the ground... all those little amounts of light add up, especially if the optic doesn't focus all of the light. So, measured lumens tells you how much light is lost internally in the lamp, but it still doesn't tell you how much light ends up where you're trying to shine it.

So what is effective lumens? To measure the output pattern a lamp, you use a light tunnel and measure the intensity values for each point of light where it's shining in the distance. To do this test, I have to decide how large of a pattern to measure. The goniometer will swing back and forth, and up and down, to whatever degree I want. In this case, here is a test for our C2 Sport combo optic at 80 degrees wide by 40 degrees tall:



This beam pattern is made up of thousands of individual measurements of light intensity (in candela) at each point. Next, in the goniometer software, I can click a button to get the "effective lumens" that were measured from this beam pattern. Basically, I am asking the software to calculate how many lumens had to be shining down the tunnel to make up this light pattern.

The problem with this is that the effective lumens can change drastically, depending on how big of an area you're including in the pattern. If the effective lumens are at a 180 degree tall by 180 degree wide pattern, it should be the exact same as the measured lumen value. But on the test above, I would only want to check the effective lumens for about 50 wide by 22 tall, because that's the beam pattern I care about. That is what is truly effective.

If you do see an "effective lumen" value, it should be accompanied by the beam pattern area it was collected in - for example, 1000 effective lumens in a 50x22 beam pattern. If I take the effective lumens for the entire test area above (80 x 40) then I'm going to include a lot of light that's going into the sky which I don't care about... those lumens aren't too effective. Anyone saying they have better "effective lumens" than Diode is probably just including a much larger measurement area, and including lumens that are not on target at all.

My point is that "effective lumen" values, while useful in design work, are still far inferior to an isocandela plot. Isocandela plots tell you everything you need to know. They show you exactly how much light is shining in every direction. And that is why candela is the only measurement used in every automotive, emergency, and aviation lamp regulation and law, worldwide.

Thank you to anyone who made it to the end of this post!

Paul

 

Patiently waits for an SS3 Combo lens

 

Personally, I think the bigger issue is how BD compares the output of the DD SS3 SAE light to their non-SAE light. Yet the rest of their wording leads one to believe they are comparing apples to apples (road legal to road legal). I really like the quality of BD products, but this kind of sleazy explanation leaves a really, really bad taste in my mouth. I expected more from a supposedly reputable company like BD.

 

Heh, this is a response to the statement that our lights are inferior... which came from a totally different forum. Most of these comments were from a thread comparing our Squadron Sport (OHV) to SAE compliant lights. Interestingly enough, only small excerpts of that thread were posted here, and seem to be taken out of context...


Our heritage, past and current are meaningful to us and many enthusiasts. Many want to buy the best of the best, regardless of if they are driving 15mph through the mall or a fire road or going on hazardous multiple day expeditions with very specific goals. We always aim to build the best products possible. Even if mall crawlers with 35" tires, quadruple resi 3.0" shocks, fiberglass, aluminum bumpers and diamond encrusted shift levers want to buy from us. Plenty of people want or require the best they can get and will continue to offer it for anyone that wants it. Also, if you find a product that is sufficient for your needs, at a cheaper price, we won't ever tell you that you're wrong to buy it.


Call it BD energy or whatever you'd like, but nothing proves the heritage and real-world performance of our products like some of these examples. A Navy SEAL telling us that our lights are the best they have ever used, and that they demand the same performance for overseas operations (the true-story origin of our early ventures into special operations contracts). Or taking the win at almost every major class in every Baja 1000 for the past decade - with less lights on the front of the vehicle than anyone else.

As mentioned in the other thread, we acknowledge our SAE Squadron has plenty of room to improve. You will see those improvements very soon.

We appreciate the intent of cross posting these responses. However, they are regarding totally different topics.


SCRAP:
Sounds like this was taken out of context. We are happy to provide some clarification. Our entire company operates off Lean Six Sigma principles so I can assure you there is minimal waste throughout the entire product line. For the rare occurrence of actual waste, I can reassure this is handled between BD and our proprietary vendors, not passed onto the customer. While it may sound crazy to have our engineering team review every single flawed component we receive, to those that require a high performing product, this type of process is invaluable.


Intended Design Purpose:


Regardless if we are designing an OHV or SAE specific product, they are both designed with a very specific purpose. That purpose is to exceed all expectations in the selected category. As stated earlier on, our SAE Squadron has room for improvement, and we look forward to releasing a new version.


Nobody is telling you to buy Russian surplus NVGs, LOL. Our friends hunting hogs in Texas are happy to buy gen 3 NVGs and we are extremely proud to offer enthusiasts the same off the shelf product many elite divisions rely on.

TIMELINE OF NEW SAE DESIGN:


We have prototypes arriving next week. They will feature brand new optics, higher output and a sharper cutoff than our previous generation. We will extensively test them in the field and 3rd party lab. Once we determine that they are within compliance and still perform at a high level we desire, we will have a timeline for release.


Anyone with a previous generation SAE light will have the option to exchange for the newest model, completely free of charge.

 

Diode Dynamics is correct to an extent on the definition of Raw lumens but saying it is just the theoretical maximum coming out of a chip is not a widely accepted way of calculating raw lumens. Raw lumens is calculated based off of the forward current going through the LED and the relative luminous flux. Companies choose to run an LED between 0-100% and in some cases over 100%, although this is not recommended by most of the manufacturers or they decline to comment. Based on the potential of the LED and the current they decide to run the LED at will determine the amount of Raw lumens a company can expect theoretically from their Lighting fixture. Also Diode dynamics claims some of their LEDs are ran at 125% which would contradict their statement of Raw Lumens always being calculated at theoretical maximums (100%).


In regards to Measured Lumens, Diode Dynamics is spot on (no pun intended) with losses through thick TIR lens and off of reflective surfaces. Those are all ideal numbers and situations so design plays an important role to make sure additional lumens are not lost just due to the geometric design, material or coating of the optic.


Effective Lumens, similar to Raw lumens depends on how its measured and calculated. Unfortunately most companies use effective and measure lumens interchangeably. Like Diode stated, Effective lumens can be narrowed down to a particular angle to access the amount of lumens in a given area. This helps collect more useful data for the end user and show what light is truly going forward into your line of sight and not being wasted (going upward or somewhere you don’t want it to). Comparing apples to apples since both of these lights use the same CREE XPL- High intensity and drawing the same wattage, here is the third party data on a Squadron Racer spot and DD Pro spot (both of these lights use CREE XPL- High intensity series). This really shows where the lumens get projected (0-10°, 10-20°, etc) and the efficiency difference between the two optical designs. As you can see the DD pattern focuses nearly all of the light in the center versus the BD pattern that has a little larger spot but maintains an overall smoother pattern all the way out to 30° which is what our 25 years of experience in off-road has been determined to be the most usable for a variety of terrain. Yes I know this is comparing OHV lights but we do not have enough data on our new SAE light to make this similar comparison. I promise once we have it we will share it!


Edit: Correctly scaled plot added.

 

I had a chuckle at the BD energy. i like that haha

 

No no, please note the original thread. We identified in that thread that this is an odd comparison, and did our best to shed light on it anyway.

Unfortunately, people posting information in this thread are choosing to pick and choose what they are crossposting. Pretty unfortunate, but we'll continue to try to keep this particular discussion on track

 

Thanks for chiming in here, and appreciate what you've shared. So far the only thing we've posted in its entirety is your response from another thread, which I did review on Tundras.com. The reason it was posted over here is because so far it's the only place you've announced the new product.

Also, thanks for sharing some information on spot products. I will agree that your spot lights have more general usability than a tight spot pattern with no leaks at all.

If the lights show improvement and you follow through on this, it will be an excellent example of taking care of your customers. Looking forward to it.

 

My bad, I should've linked the post from the Tundra forum! I follow closely to what crash says for lights and usually go off his recommendations. I pulled the trigger on BD before hopping on this thread.

My main purpose for fogs were to have additional wide angle lighting for the driver and passenger side for drives at night around the neighborhoods (5% tint so it's a little harder to see in poorly lit neighborhoods) and better lighting for occasional off road and camping trips.
BD definitely improved that but I wanted to double check if I got the best bang for my buck (why I started to search forums and came across this thread and the Tundra forum).

@Baja Designs appreciate the response. Side note, if I bought the fog kit off Amazon, will an exchange be honored still since it's from a 3rd party vendor? Was just thinking about returning before the window closes.

 

Since some people probably saw it - I posted some information regarding spot lights, but I realized this isn't the right thread for it. I'll chime in again once we have a Spot thread going!

 

The closest thing so far is the J581 thread. Maybe there?

 

That is an outstanding way to stand by and take care of your customers.

These plot comparisons are misleading. You have a 50% larger axis range on each axis for the SS3, meaning the SS3 plot is showing 2.25x more area than the Squadron plot. Aka 1600sqft plotted for the Squadron vs 3600sqft plotted for the SS3. The 0.1fc contour line looks to reach about 12.5ft above the beam center on the Squadron, while the SS3 0.1fc contour line looks to reach above 15ft above beam center, but due to the differing scales the squadron looks larger on the plot though that isn't the case. As with any measured comparison the scales should be the same, as using differing scales is misleading.

Edit: It is great to see you guys getting into measured output data!

 

I spoke with DD a couple of weeks ago and a larger SS pod is in the works. No specifics related to size or ETA, but it's nice to know they're working on a larger light.