The SAE J581 Aux High Beam Thread

That was my thought too. TBD I guess on how the actual details on the frames shake out. Streamlining production of their future trucks on ‘common vehicle architecture’ as a cost savings and reducing manufacturing complexity technique.

 

Sure makes it tempting to buy a v8 3rd gen doesn’t it? Insurance against a potential “new Coke” scenario?

First step for me is 6 car garage…

 

Not frame, but platform. I think that it means general production architecture and assembly practices, not necessarily frames or components. Though it is nice to see the Tundra on 6-lug wheels again.

 

So I took some photos tonight of my new DD 12" sae driving light pattern bar, and the SS3 sport 4000k pods with a spot optic (don't have a SAE driving optic on hand, I need to remedy that). I'm really not much of a photographer, and had to fiddle with the camera settings on my S8 Active for quite a while before I had something that was remotely close to what I was seeing (and I understand this will still appear differently on differemt screens/devices) in person, so I apologize for these pics being over exposed with funky saturation...

I had planned to do this with my 4runner, so I'd be able to compare my Cibie Super Oscars to each of these DD lamps, but Im mounting the lightbar on my civic. So this kind of works put anyhow. The vehicle is an '08 Civic, original lamps, which I had to buff and clearcoat (but there's internal lens hazing which is a bummer) after I purchased the car. The low beams are new (about 30 hrs burn time) sylvania 9012/HIR2s, the high beams are very old sylvania 9005's, with the envelope hazed by long term DRL use (drl function is fortunately easy to disable) so the high beams are... poor performers at the moment.

I took photos at two locations near by, unfortunately there isn't a stretch of road I can really park on to show the full reach of any of the lamps, but this should give a relative performance/beam pattern image compared to the old/damaged headlamps on the car.

Order of photos:
Location 1
-Low beam only
-Low beam and High beam
-Low beam with DDS3 Sport 4000k with spot optic
-Low beam with DD 12" SAE driving light bar

Camera settings locked to: aperture F1.7, white balance set to 3300k (for typical halogen), ISO 800, Exposure Time 1/4s






Edit- Because I don't currently have a mount at grille height, these two lamps were placed on the cowl, so the aim and height would obviously change how it appears, but this was "quick'n dirty" so bear with me.

 

Location #2
-Low beam
-Low beam and High beam
-Low beam with DDSS3 Sport 4000k with Spot optic
-Low beam and High beam with DDS3 Sport 4000k with Spot optic
*Edit 6/29* My pace count put the 6th illuminated telephone pole in this and the following picture at appriximately 290 meters from the front bumper of my vehicle. The road curves to the right and down slightly at this point.
-Low beam and High beam with DD 12" SAE driving light bar







Edit- 4th photo would not upload, had to take a screenshot of it, sorry for the drop in quality.

 

Those spot beams are lasers! Between the spots and the SS12, which did you find yourself preferring?

 

And those are only the Sport model. One can only wonder what the Pro or Max would look like.

 

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

Soon enough would have been like 5 minutes ago.

 

Somehow I'm sure that whatever you post will be well worth the wait!

 

I really find the civics highbeams to be a very broad/tall flood. Its incorrect of me to say that they "don't reach much further than the lowbeams." Clearly they do, however they dont have the strong central spot that I'm used to from other vehicles. And these bulbs are old with lots of DRL time on them, behind somewhat hazed lenses. Lots of marks against them.

I think the SS12 is fantastic. However I really, really like the significantly lower 4000k of the SS3 pods. While it is not high CRI, it is much closer in color temp to the halogens, so it visually seems to blend better, and colors appear much less washed out.

It'd be awesome if DD or other manufacturers would begin to primarily use lower color temp LEDs, however, they are less efficient in terms of lumen/watt even at standard 70ish CRI ratings than their higher color temperature brethren, and theh are produced in smaller quantities/more expensive per emitter.

The SS12 is quite a punchy little lamp, and the horizontal spread is much appreciated on twisty back roads like where I took the first set of photos.

I really need to pick up a set of SS3 driving beam lenses to better compare. The SS12 has a 20*×8* beam, whereas the SS3 driving pattern is 18*×8*, so slightly narrower overall. This beam width is also why I *really* like my Cibies. They have a Very wide beam that still projects very far down the road, which is very useful. But they're also 9" in diameter, and more than 10" tall with the mount, so in terms of tradeoffs, much more compact pods or a small bar offering similar width reach are definitely a plus.

I'll try to repeat pics with my 4runner, Cibies, SS3 and SS12 asap.

 

Remember that in Spot, the hyper focused TIR optic actually provides greater output intensity due to focus of the smaller emitter base using the sport emitter vs the larger and less focused Pro emitter. AKA in Spot the Sports outperform the Pros in peak intensity, though smaller pattern. The small emitters of the Max with their extreme efficiency in a TIR optic drastically outperform the Sports.

 

Knowing all of that I could only imagine what the Spot Max is like. Wouldn't want to get caught on the receiving end of that!!!

 

Edited my 2nd post above with a pace count I took this afternoon. Approximately 290 meters from the front bumper of my vehicle to the 6th illuminated telephone pole on the left. The road begins to curve to the right and downward at this point, my spot parked on the shoulder and angled towards the roadway slightly gives about the straightest forward shot possible.

Edited for spelling. I'm going to blame my inability to string together a cogent thought on this heatwave.

 

@crashnburn80 and company, I'm in the process of planning out my lighting on my truck and would like your opinion on an option. I've got a 2019 Taco OR w/ H9 low beam upgrades, I plan on adding 7" halogen aux driving lights behind the grill. I am happy with the halogen color temp, it works well for my 56 year old eyes, so I'm not looking to do any LED swaps except for DD SS3 Pro fogs in selective yellow (can you tell I follow all your lighting threads? LOL). I don't plan on a lot of night driving so I'm not looking for the "ultimate get to camp in the dark" or high speed desert night driving type lighting. I'm thinking it will be more for trail illumination in dusk situations under tree canopy or in shadowed canyons/washes out west.

My question is I'm adding a slimline winch bumper that has an option for a 20' BD S8 light bar (combo beam pattern). Would this have any significant benefit for low speed driving and spread for corners vs. some dedicated lights mounted at the front corners of my topper rack and angled out at about 45* specifically to illuminate cornering areas? This would be for strictly off road use. I really don't want to add the cost of the light bar if it's not going to really provide a good benefit.

 

I will let crash opine, but in my opinion, the light bar wouldn’t cover near as much area as the topper mounted pods.

Since you already plan on 7” halogens in the grill (hopefully in a driving pattern) I would think the topper mounted pods would fill in the rest of the space nicely. You just have to be mindful of the pattern and cutoff, the last thing you want is the topper pods destroying your eyes night vision by glaring off your hood.