The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

You can swap to glass Subaru fogs. I did it here in post #392. The fogs have an integrated glare cap for far better glare control so even using an H9 produces less glare than the Tacoma H11 units. However the pattern is different, not as wide, and I didn't like them as much myself.

 

The width is my love for the DD ss3. Don't tempt me with glass lenses. I'll cook some damn bacon on glass lenses in the name of night vision.

 

@Baja Designs

Not uservicable? Is it because of a different lense design? Will I still be able to swap out the stainless screws for black stainless? I’ve done that on every BD light I have and that’s a lot of lights, lol.

 

The reason for this light not being Uservicable is the SAE compliancy. With the SAE rating on this light, it is deemed tamperproof. With this in mind, we are aware that it won't stop you curious people from opening it up and checking out what it has to offer but it may cause the optics to realign causing a discrepancy in the beam pattern. Switching out that bezel screws won't be an issue but any lens swaps will have to be done in-house to insure proper reassembly of the light.
Best,
Brandon

 

The other issue with even the Pro (I would imagine the Max would be similar) fog lights on another vehicle that I have ran into is that the fog light recess area may still get packed with snow. That's where Halogen comes in for the win. Sure the lens on the SS3 Pro gets plenty warm, but it does not create IR heat light Crash had mentioned. The IR heat will melt snow further in front of the lens, not just the lens surface. So if the fog light recess is packed with snow, it will melt pretty quickly depending on the conditions.

 

Exactly why I went back to halogen. I had considered HID, but $$ too, along with good luck finding an HID fog assembly, and one thats a direct fit. I'd seen the fogs get some snow pack during the day, this was just the first time I realized that a heavy snowfall will render them useless quickly when I actually need them.

 

HID would be cool and the only ones to my knowledge that would work well are the 2010-2014ish Ford Fusion H11 fog lights. They are fantastic and do very well with HID's. We had them on our 12 Fusion with H9's. They were really good, but the OEM H11 Tacoma foglights fit and are better suited for a truck IMO. But HID's won't necessarily melt snow either. They mainy create surface heat, but not IR. I have RX350 projectors in my Tacoma and they will melt very light snow/ice. But not much else. My 01 Outback with MH1's will melt more snow because it's a smaller housing, but still isn't great. HID retrofits for snow melting abilities are somewhat dependant on the size of the housing for that reason.

 

I'm okay with my DD sports getting snow packed in them 0.1 % of the time.

 

Just bumping the thread, hoping that @crashnburn80 got his hands on the new squadrons, looking forward to the review.

 

I think they’re only beginning to ship this week.

 

Not yet and unsure on timeline unfortunately.

 

Got the Max’s. Which spot? Or just plug em in and try it out?

Edit - plugged them in and it’s a bit too recessed

 

When you play around, can you check beam angle? I would like to learn some information about beam composition.

Here is convenient tool,
www.omnicalculator.com/math/right-triangle-side-angle

Type in distance to wall, and width on wall ( you can change unit by drop down) It will tell beam spread angle this way very easily.
" a" can be full width, or center to beam end, whichever convenient.

 

Another candidate for testing: https://visionxoffroad.com/products/3-7-round-cg2-sae-led-light-cannon?variant=40088662671469

 

Good find, I had not seen those. They look to use the same optic style as Baja's new SAEs, but with one large optic vs Baja's 4 smaller optics. It will be really interesting to see how that optic style performs. I do have shipping confirmation on the Baja SAE selective yellow lamps (no white yet) so I'll know soon enough.

 

Just showed up minutes ago. Looking forward to seeing how they perform.

 

Very interesting, can’t wait for the review

 

Majority of testing completed. Results will be posted within 24 hours.