The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

The pictures look pretty darn impressive to me as they over power your headlights. The Max is currently the highest output intensity fog on the market, there is literally nothing brighter. Using a white lens instead of yellow will eliminate the color filtration losses for even higher output vs the yellow as mentioned before, and it sounds like that would be the best fit for you if you really don't like the yellow output or the cosmetics of the dark yellow optic. Fogs are a poor weather lamp though, and yellow is the best color for poor weather performance, but if you don't like it you don't like it. Fortunately it is just an optic swap on the Max, and not an entirely different lamp like the Sport and Pro. You might post some pics of the front of the truck to compare white vs yellow optics as well, even though it is just personal preference.

Awesome service!

 

@toledoupsguy, Try to beat that for customer service! That's why so many of us here buy from Colton and nobody else!

 

Go to sleep for 6 hours and look what happens. That is a great offer, didn't remember that from our conversation. If you haven't already sent them please hold off. It will be a real hassle to do the comparisons. Unlike DD's own installation video on the F150 kit you can get the factory fogs out without taking anything apart. BUT, you can't get these out without the bumper and then the factory fog buckets coming off. So to swap lenses to do comparison and then again to put both yellow or clear on is going to be a PITA. Maybe not something done at 5am when I get home and my family oblivious to what crazy stuff dad's doing to the truck now.

Do appreciate it greatly. Oh, too many pictures from the FNG

 

Sounds like you’d like the white better though. Comparison aside you should like the products you bought for your truck. An idea to stealthy install, you could always spend the day at a buddies house helping him “on his truck”, out of sight from the family.

 

Yea, I had a friend that did that once and my wife never found out.

 

At this point it is coming down to just the look of the amber (yellow) pod in the bumper. Screams aftermarket like putting on one piece of carbon fiber trim. I was (possibly still am) considering the KDF dual pod mount that replaces the stock single fog bucket. It would definitely scream (no, make that SCREAM) aftermarket too but in an acceptable way. Yep, I'm F'ing crazy.

I knew smidge was a technical term, I have it listed right next to SWAG The function is growing on me.

Definitely AWESOME service, much better than I deserve.
the pictures are looking impressive. I think my problem, and it is my problem being too anal, is the look when not in use.


clear lense would solve that issue but it will be a PITA to change.

couldn't agree more!!!!!

Funny you mention that. My buddy Jack just got the rough country dual grill light bar kit for his new Chevy trail boss. there is a reason the BD light bar for mine costs 3X as much as the RC. They put a flood pattern light in their front facing kit, heck even their "spot" beam is listed as a 30 degree spread light. OH well, we might be working on those together.

Have no idea of how many boxes I've brought home from work so the brown santa didn't deliver them to my house.

Seriously, this is a great forum and community. Might have to get a Toyota so I can stay.

 

Totally off topic but how does one start their reply with the @so and so?

 

Typing @ followed by a user name will tag that person so they will get a notification to look at the post.
Example: @crashnburn80

After typing the @ key and immediately following with starting a user name will pull up filtered users fitting what you have entered so far.

 

@crashnburn80 thank you!

 

I hear ya, I know a few people like this or they don't like the "ricer" look with white and yellow lights. But, next time you get some bad weather and have the time or curiosity to swap lenses you should give it a shot.

The yellow helps reduce the light reflecting back and distance vision immensely vs the clear lens!!

 

@memario1214 you don't find service like that much anymore

 

2020 Ford F150 OEM LED Fog comparison

The 2020 F150 LED fogs are a top mount multi-LED unit firing down into reflector optics similar to early Toyota LED fogs and the same way the Toyota's OEM Tacoma LED headlights are designed. Top down firing LEDs into reflector optics is designed to minimize glare output and un-reflected exposure to the LED.



One of the things that should be minimized in this design is the flat surfaces below the LED emitters, as these will reflect uncontrolled light. Ford didn't bother to extend the reflectors and optics to cover the lower portion of the lamp and instead tried to mitigate the design by painting the lower surface black to avoid reflection. Unfortunately this isn't entirely effective and does result in stray glare above the cut off. I'm not even sure these would actually pass an SAE compliance test.



Down facing emitters, surprisingly stacked in a front to back arrangement and not side-to-side.


Also interesting, these OEM LED fogs were void of any branding or manufacturing info other than Ford. Valeo makes Toyota's OEM fogs as well as many other manufactures, power consumption is sometimes stamped on the lights, but with these no information is provided other than this side of the lamp. The breather is obviously above the Ford logo.


Reflector lights are the most efficient light projection technology. Similar to how KC's Gravity series provide extreme performance for little power draw, or Toyota's OEM LED headlights have outstanding performance with minimal power input, Ford has also utilized reflector technology for their OEM LED fogs. After a stabilized runtime these consume about .6A, which translates to about 8.6w. For comparison the Max draws 2.66A, or about 37w, massively more than Fords OEM units.


Questions have been posed, how does the F150 OEM LED fogs compare to the DD Max?



For starters the Max has 1.5 vertical panels vs the F150s OEM LED at 1 panel height, so the Max will cover a larger vertical area. But of course what is most interesting is output intensity.



Max 560 lux vs OEM 167 Lux at 18', a performance increase of 3.35x while also utilizing a more poor weather effective selective yellow.

What about white?
White Max (top) vs F150 OEM LED fogs (bottom)


Again the Max covers a larger vertical area but OEM covers a slightly wider area. Max on top.



Output intensity difference is most interesting, as the pictures do not do it justice.



The white Max is 4.17x higher output intensity vs stock LED. FOUR X+. That is absurd for a lighting performance improvement in something like a fog light.

If you look at operating temps, the Max is 100+ degrees over 65 degree ambient, to the point the light will melt your skin and boil water.


At 76 degrees tonight, the Ford OEM LED fog runs just 15 degrees over ambient. As typical with the efficient reflector optics, the output and heat generation will be insufficient to self clear in slow conditions. These were barely warm to the touch, meaning these lights will be a poor choice for snow conditions, which is one of the purposes of a fog lamp.


Another interesting comparison is comparing Fords OEM LED output to Baja's SAE LEDs. The OEM Tacoma halogen H11 fogs outperform the Baja SAE's in peak output intensity, but how do the OEM Ford LED fogs compare?

Baja 105 lux for yellow and 121 lux for white.


So if you have F150 OEM LED fogs and swapped to Baja SAEs, you'd be paying to take a 28-37% loss in output intensity vs stock.

Thanks to @toledoupsguy for sending me the OEM Ford LED fog. Hopefully this information has helped you in your decision making. In the case of the selective yellow, the Max completely blows away the OEM Ford LED fogs to a ridiculously extreme extent, so I really think it is the yellow color you are struggling with. I'd encourage you to try it in poor weather, but if you don't like it the clear lens swap will result in even higher output. I'll get that OEM LED fog shipped back to you ASAP.

 

Wow, excellent work and thank you for doing it. Also wow that they are that poor. Ok this is a serious question not an argumentative one, I promise you. Is it just white will always overpower (maybe wrong term) a yellow light? In the front camera view picture the white was clearly covering the yellow as they fanned out from the housings and no matter how I adjusted the single yellow max it would never drowned out the left ford fog. I am confused but 100% believe what you have shared throughout this whole thread.

Thank you again, so appreciated. I'd be happy to PayPal you to cover the shipping back.

 

You might enjoy reading more about selective yellow here.

 

Interesting, the SAE "F 15TK" lens marking doesn't really seem to pull up any sort of published standard in a cursory search of SAE's site.

Great comparison Crash.

 

I now have that site bookmarked.

 

One of Us! One of Us!

 

From my point of view that is an honor