The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

Kinda like the Folks that did the early Calorimeter readings. Imagine stirring that stupid cup until the temp. raised one degree.

 

Nothing. Just experimenting with plotting light output in 3 dimensions.

 

Thanks Crash. We respectfully agree to disagree.

 

Teaser photo from KC today, looks like they are expanding their Flex pods to be a standard 4 LED square pod like everyone else vs their current triangular 3 LED unit. These haven’t yet been offered in an SAE pattern though.

 

Baja just mad they have the worst sae lights.

 

From tripod to quadpod. I can't really see an advantage of the Flex 3... They advertised it as "the power of 4 LEDs with the footprint of 2 LEDs" but it's not really either of those things. It just seemed like a gimmick to differentiate.

 

Yeah, certainly an odd shape to work with without a clear functional advantage. The industry standard quad-pod style certainly packages better, and an addition emitter should be that much better in output.

 

I suppose the 3 reflectors could each be larger than 4 for a given footprint. That's about it.

 

ETA on Max selective yellow optics is the 20th.

 

Idk about the worst, but they’re offensively expensive for what the competition is putting out. Diode dynamics is top dog IMO, I’ve bought way too much stuff from them and it’s always top notch quality for reasonable prices. Of course the max’s are $$$$ though.

 

Technically Rigids are much more expensive and if the BD is comparable to SS3 Pro it’s price is in the right ballpark for a premium SAE fog.

Price-wise I’m still more confused by the rock lights at $65 and the explanation given that small costs money. But I’m mostly hyper curious to see how that product niche evolves with any new competition. Trying to sort out my bed lighting and patiently waiting to see what DD might introduce this year. KC cyclones are an option as is strip lighting. Or maybe I’ll take the maxes off of the minivan and use them for rear facing bed lights mounted to a roof rack?

 

I will definitely agree that "small costs money." Whether you have a rock light or an SS3 Pro, you still have one housing, one driver circuit, one circuit board, one wire harness, one box for packaging, one person putting it together, etc. Yes they are smaller but that might mean 20% less cost in materials, not 50% less cost.

 

Hello DD from a former St. Louis resident (Glendale).

I’m a little confused by your post. You say you agree that small costs money, but then you basically say smaller “might” have a lower cost in materials.

So should smaller cost more due to a more complex design requirement, or should it cost less due to a reduction in materials requirements?

 

I think what DD was trying to say is that just because a light could be, say 50% smaller doesn’t mean it costs 50% less to produce. Yes, there could be a lower total cost of materials because smaller should mean less materials, but the the labor to process those materials and the steps required to manufacture a light do not decrease or lessen just because the light is smaller.

So basically a smaller light could be cheaper, but usually it won’t be cheaper by much if the same quality is maintained.

 

Thanks, but that's my confusion. Whether smaller costs slightly less or the same, it's not more expensive which was the premise DD initially agreed with.

 

@crashnburn80 , Have you tested the Rigid SAE SR Series 6" fogs (906703 in white or 906704 in yellow) yet?

They fit perfectly in the lower grill and should be a solid competitor (or addition to) to all of the options listed in this thread.

I'm thinking they should have a decent amount more output than the 360s and D series because they have a more LEDs each.

 

For rock lights, here is the rock light thread. Baja does have the smallest light of all the lights tested in the thread. It is worth noting that the Rigid rock lights are actually more expensive, though larger and higher output.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-led-rock-light-showdown.612253/

I have not. See my posts below, they do package nicely in the lower grill for 3rd Gen.

And the quote missing from within my quote: