The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

I'm looking at swapping my SS3 Pro Yellow Fogs to the Yellow Max Fog. What would be the best use of the Pros? I was thinking about tossing a flood lens on them and using them as backup lights, but i think they might wash out my backup camera. Combo lens maybe for ditch lights? I don't really have a place to mount them for Driving light without hacking up my grill.

 

Sweet thanks for the link too!

 

Correct, all i've got for additional lighting is the fogs. My normal drive is 8 miles of narrow wooded county roads till I get to a highway for another 30 miles. My guess would be I'd get the most use during those first 8 miles due to traffic on the highways after that.

 

Personally I'd sell the pros (easy sell) and put the $ into OEM LED unless you already have them or you truly desire snow melting capability based on what you're describing of your normal drive.

 

Depending on your Gen and grill you could mount them on a BAMF behind the grill light mount in driving pattern, and tie them to automatically come on with your highs.

 

This is what I'm doing with mine. I could sell the Pros as a blank kit, but not as direct fog light replacements because I kept the fog bezels, harness adapters, and mounting brackets so the Max lights were a direct swap in.

I've changed the optics to clear combo and intend to use them as cornering/ditch lights (already have pro 4000K driving lights).



My vote is hacking up the grill and using them as driving lights

 

Stay away from this man unless you hate money.

 

At least he's selling real Diode Dynamics product instead of cheap Lasfit reverse engineered Chinese knock-offs from that trench coat!

 

Is there a legit light bar comparison thread?
I have a Caliraised 30" duel row combo and I love it.
When I move to a new bumper it will most likely have a 20" single row slot. I've been looking at the DD bars.

I just want to see how they all compare... lol

 

The J581 Aux Light thread is the closest to a lightbar thread. On page 14 I have a pic posted of a diode dynamics SS12 bar with the driving beam optic. I would not be unhappy with that bar on the front of any vehicle. ~~The~~ A (Singular) DD SS3 max pod with the driving light optic should basically match the SS12s performance with a slightly narrower beam (18* spread, versus 20*).

Edited to reflect the performance of a Single SS3 Max pod vs the SS12 bar.

 

thanks! Looks like they will perform great.

 

Our resident lighting expert @crashnburn80 has been asked this question before and his answer has basically been that there are just too many light bars and too many optic combinations to test. (This, even though there are many, many cheap Chinese bars that various companies have their own name attached to.) So no, there isn't a comparison test yet.

I can comment on your 30" CaliRaised dual row bar though. I had one and was sort of happy with it - until I replaced it with a single row Diode Dynamics bar. The difference was night and day. Half the LEDs put out much more - and better defined - light.

 

I have limited experience with light bars, with only a sample size of 2 brands on my truck. One was an ExtremeLED (knockoff of the Baja Designs OnX6 dual control bar) and the other was the Diode Dynamics SS30. You can check my post here to see which one I kept.

I'll say this: it's easy enough to make a bright light bar. The Chinese bars imported by Cali-raised and other resellers have proven that it's easy to solder lots of chips into a board and let er rip.

What's harder to do is make a useful light bar or set of pods. This is where things are a bit more intangible- color temperature and accuracy, resistance to dust and moisture ingression, durability and long term reliability, serviceability and modularity (changing optics when applications change). Most importantly of all, the optics and pattern control are what separate the cheapos from the real deals. If you're not controlling your light, it's leaking all over the place. Putting light where you don't need it is useless.

This is especially true when it comes to lights that advertise themselves as SAE compliant for use on the road (there is a published set of standards for manufacturers to adhere to, which is why it's easier for Crash to make direct head-to-head comparisons).

 

What is best for you will really depend on your designated purpose for the light bar. If you love your Cali bar as is, there likely isn't need to buy anything more expensive. But those cheap China light bars like Cali and AuxBeam don't hold a candle to a name brand bar.

The low quality bar optics are extremely poor, there is no light focus to drive high candela values and as a result they don't project any distance at all compared to a name brand bar, they end up being a short range flood bar. Looks impressive looking at the truck due to the high color temp glare, or from the standpoint they typically illuminate a wide area, but they usually don't do well projecting light over distance, which is often the desired purpose of a light bar.

Here was a fun comparison between an AuxBeam combo bar vs a several years old 2nd hand used Rigid combo bar.
Output intensity is measured as lux.


The owner of this AuxBeam bar used to think it was great, till we did a little light shoot out between trucks, and a single one of my headlight low beams on my truck was over 3x the output intensity of this 30" auxbeam combo light bar. But if you are looking for very short range trail use, with no distance projection, or wanting the light bar for the looks on a budget, the cheap bar may suit the needs fine. But if you want to project light over distance, that old used Rigid 30" como bar was 26x+ the output intensity of the AuxBeam bar. And that wasn't the latest generation Rigid light bar product. Those cheap China light bars are like toys compared to name brands.

But as mentioned before, if looking for help in distance lighting, SAE or not, the best place to post will be The SAE J581 Aux High Beam Thread.

 

Thanks for the info! So crazy lol
I have definitely seen the difference between Rigid and Chinese, and wow what a difference!
For me, especially at 18 back then, I couldn't justify the price difference for using the lightbar 1-2 times per month.

I actually don't mind the output of my Caliraised. For me, I can see hella far.
Here it is:




Also, here are the DD SS3 Sports:

 

Every morning there's a taco driving near me on a back road with the worlds brightest yellow/amber fog lights. I've been trying to figure out what he's using. I have the DD SS3 Pro yellows. It's def not them the tint of yellow is different, and it's brighter with a wider pattern. I've had the morimoto's and the KC gravities. it's def neither of those either. I don't think it's a rigid pod either the yellow is different