The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

The upper candela limit is 12,000 candela, at 1.5 degrees down, at two different points. There is no overall limitation on the max candela in the entire pattern, it is only at those two points.

The F3 standard has a higher limit, but it is a much larger area. You can't have more than 14,400 candela anywhere from 1.5 to 3.5 degrees down. With an output of 18,000 candela, the Max is too bright to meet the F3 standard.

 

I just installed the Pros in for fog lights on my 2014 and the beam is pretty tall. I have it aimed all the way down but still a decent amount of glare. The Max seems to have the cleanest cut off line but will look into returning the Pros and getting the Sports with a little less output but better cut off line.

The lift on the truck also plays a huge role in how the light shines on the road. If your truck has a lean, rake, or leveled will have a big difference in how you lights shine since the pods adjustability isn't much for vertical movement.

 

My truck is not lifted and I'm thinking of not lifting it because I got flashed once with my "Pro" fogs that I forgot were on. I am going to try to angle them down more this weekend.

There are so many vehicles in my area running LED bulbs in halogen housings. I don't think they understand the amount of glare they are causing, and I don't want to do anything similar. That kind of thing will get me hated.

 

Follow the procedure, don't guess. Find a flat level piece of ground with a wall. Park 25 feet away. Aim the top of the cutoff 4 inches lower than the center of your fog light measured from the ground. So if your fog lamp center is 20 inches off the ground, aim for 16" on the wall. It's a bit tougher with the pro because the cutoff is less distinct.

 

Do you have an updated spec for the max yellow candela yet?

 

My imperfect numbers come back with about 16,850 candela. But as mentioned these numbers are not a true stable reading with the high power Max. I’d speculate based on the white Max candela spec and my filtration loss numbers the actual is pretty close to 14,500 candela.

 

Will there be a Diode Dynamic Lunar new year/Valentine weekend sale? =)

 

Today I returned my Pros and ordered the Sports. When I received the Pros and aligned it against a wall, everything looked fine with very little glare and no interference with my headlights but driving on the road was a different story. On Diode Dynamics website, the line for the Sport looks cleaner then the Pros but I still have my doubts. Aligning it against a wall 20-30ft away is nothing like actually driving it on the road and dealing with hundreds of feet.

I think it is like using a compass and only being a couple degrees off in the direction you are going. If you are 5 degrees off but only traveling a mile, you will still be decently close to your destination. Go 5 degrees off but traveling 300 miles will be even further from your destination. This concept can be applied to how good your head and fog lights look when aligning it against a wall. I see some people show how great the cut off line is but the truck is like 5 ft from a wall. I have tried the Morimito projector fogs too and they had an amazing cut off but I lacked in light out put.

If the Sports don't workout, I will probably end up using the Morimoto fogs. I have nothing against Diode Dynamics but it all depends on your application of when you use your fog lights. I like using my fog light all the time at night but if you only use them off road or with no one on the road, the cut off line doesn't matter. I might have to sacrifice light output for the sake of other drivers.

 

simple geometry really....

get smart guys. aim your fogs correctly.

 

I totally agree. I think a lot of people, including myself, are hyped about light output and often forget that our "amazing" light output will negatively affect other drivers on the road.

 

Which is why im going for sports like you did on the next sale =). Ive had experience with the rigid sae cubes and they almost drown out my d2s 5.0 retrofit (35w 4300k phillips). sports are already brighter on paper so i think ill be good. Anything brighter would kill my distance vision from my headlights

I think pros/max are overkill for daily driving imo.

 

Yeah but you can't have too much overkill.

 

That's pretty much how I did it except in metric. I was backing out of my driveway, swinging onto the road when I got flashed so the geometry was weird. But I want to reconfirm the alignment in case it's moved. And if it did not move, I will tip them down some more.

And yes, the cutoff is not distinct. It makes me think the Max is a bad idea even if it is technically compliant.

 

Not only that, what I find in snow whiteout and fog conditions is that more light works against you because it just gets reflected back into your eyes.

I only use my fogs when weather conditions dictate or in rural areas but sometimes I forget or my wife turns them on because she is not familiar with the controls.

Around here pickup truck drivers have a bad reputation as being uneducated and inconsiderate and I don't want to add to it. Also, there are a lot of elderly people with cataracts in my neighbourhood and glare affects them very strongly.

 

Well, fogs shouldn't be run for daily driving. They should only be run when conditions call for them in poor weather.

The Pros are difficult to align at distance due to their softer cut off. The Max (or Sport) on the other hand has a much more defined cut off making it easier. Keep in mind headlights have drastically higher candela values than even the Max fog, and headlight cut offs are much higher, meaning someone will be blinded by your headlights far more than even the most powerful Max fog could remotely achieve. Fogs are not an oncoming driver blinding risk when properly aimed.

For white 6000k light, definitely. If you utilize a selective yellow light source, the long wavelength light minimizes the reflected light and provides far better poor weather visibility without the reflection.

 

Yes, I was not totally happy with the Pro light pattern.

Fogs have much less directivity and they 100% cause glare to people, particularly old people with cataracts. They should never be on when there is oncoming traffic unless in fog or heavy snow.

DD used to sell an LED halogen-retrofit bulb that is under forced recall because of light pattern issues.

You are saying that mine might not be properly aimed but I actually got talked to by a passing cop for putting small chalk marks on the wall of the school. I tried pretty hard to do the job right but I think DD could have made the job way easier by having a better/sharper cutoff. I only got flashed one time, and I was swinging out of my driveway with my H9 headlights, maybe the oncoming driver thought they were high beams.

I paid a lot of attention to aiming them because glare gets pretty bad as you go beyond 1.5 degrees of mis-aim for a halogen light. This figure is from Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc. 2000-01-0434 Front Fog Lamp Performance W. R. Folks and D. Kreysar:

I have yellow emitters but clear lenses on my Pros, per your earlier recommendation. Maybe that is a factor.

 

Update:
I just installed the Sports and find that it is way better for daily driving without hindering other drivers. The shorter beam makes it easier to adjust the lights downward. The lights are still very bright, and I would compare them to the Morimoto's but with a better output. Little to no glare shows up above the cut-off from my headlights, so I am not worried about my fogs giving people a hard time. Sports should be the only light to consider using for daily driving. The Pros and Max should be for when no one else is on the road with you. If the Sports did not work out, I would have switched back to the Morimoto XB LED, but, thankfully everything came together.

I appreciate all the knowledge everyone has shared and hope that my experience will help others decided which ones to get for their application!

 

Mahalos for your input! def gunna grab me some sports

 

This is merely an isolated incident, but I was walking into the grocery store the other night and a modded 4Runner came pulling up with yellow fogs so bright and glaring that I had to look away. They far outpowered their headlights. Most likely these are probably grossly misaligned fogs, but it still shows to me that it's not really needed. All that is really needed is enough to light up the foreground and sidelines of the roadway and let the headlights do the rest. If I upgrade my fogs, I'll probably go with DD Sports as well, since I don't think the most power and highest light output is necessarily always the best option.