The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

I am sure this was answered or talked about in here but man this was almost overwhelming wrapping my head around this. Do any of you have recommendations for actual amber fogs? Not yellow but amber. Or is the amber pointless to get due to the yellow performing better? Trying to make sense of all this. So I apologize if im beating a dead horse by asking.

 

Maybe post 6861 (literally on the previous page). Not a lot of amber choices and Baja Designs makes a solid product.

 

This might help:

Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply

 

Welcome to the forum. Why do you want lower performing amber instead of selective yellow? Selective yellow offers better output intensity and contrast while still providing similar poor weather performance being a long wavelength frequency. Amber is intended to be for signals and running lights only, though some have utilized it for fogs. There are only drawbacks to amber vs selective yellow for fogs no benefits, definitely not recommended. Ironically KC and limited edition Morimoto products used to offer amber fogs, both manufactured moved away from amber to higher performing selective yellow. Later Rigid decided to launch an amber line, then Baja followed as well. Neither of these companies are producing the best in class SAE fog products, seems more like a reach at consumers that were lead to believe amber is somehow better when that isn’t the case.

 

Bit late to this discussion but as someone that went from Ss3 pros to the new bd sae it's been really interesting to actually look at the numbers after running the 2. As upto now everything was based on perception.

I will say the pros softer cut off made is a far better supplemental driving light than an actual fog light. Where as the new bd sae is a far better true fog light than a supplemental driving light. That wider spread of the ss3 helps alot with seeing well off into the ditch where as the bd really puts that light within a narrower but still very optimized zone for use in poor conditions. I found substantially less glare off the bd compared to the ss3 pro in fog/snow making it far superior in my eyes.

Having said all of that id be curious to see the sport and max in use as that much tighter cut off would remedy what I experienced. I'm not saying the pro is a bad fog light but id say there's much better to be had. Also the fact that diode can't colour match their light bar to the fog lights was enough for me to switch.

 

Maybe @crashnburn80 or @memario1214 or others can help me decide here. Wanting to pull the trigger on new fogs. I'm debating going to an SAE driving light instead of selective yellow fog. It's a daily driver in NJ so the odds of extreme weather is unlikely. And really looking to supplement the standard headlights at this point as compared to new cars, my headlights illuminate more like candles.

I guess I got the idea from my cayman which uses a white driving/fog(?) light below the headlights. I thought, maybe it's time to ditch the yellow on my oem fogs and go SS3 in white sae driving.

Of course I think I get the basic concept that driving or spot would be better suited to higher physical position on the car, but I'm not willing to put them in the lower corners of the windshield. I want to retain some stock looking appearances on the truck. Appreciate your thoughts!

 

ditch lights are not kosher to run on the street
driving light are High Beam pattern so not a good choice to run in town
you might want to look at Crash's H4 upgrade thread

 

Ohh so that kills that idea. Was hoping the sae driving fogs would be ok to run full time.

Thanks @CraigF ... I have a retrofit kit on the truck already. TBH, I don't feel like pulling it off. Ill probably refresh the bulbs at some point. They're original to the retrofit kit that I installed like 9 years ago lol So I'm sure they've dimmed.

 

Has anyone swapped from the BD next gen to the DD max fogs? Both in the the respective yellow lens. Thinking of doing the swap after i upgrade my headlights.

 

A driving light is a high beam pattern, there is no such thins as SAE driving fogs. Driving lights are only to be used when high beams are appropriate. At 9 years you probably need refreshed bulbs. Aftermarket retrofits typically use poor quality Chinese projectors unless you deliberately specified an OEM projector build. Cheap Chinese projectors produce poor output and lack uplight making the pattern worse than stock. Regardless if your problem is the headlights, then fix the headlights. Trying to add aux lights to address your poor headlight problem is not the right solution.

 

thanks! Yea I guess I combined the terms of sae driving since I was thinking to run them in the fog location. I’ll stick to a yellow fog for inclement weather and hope new bulbs increase normal headlight output..
I originally did Morimoto HID retrofit. Turns out those bulbs are closer to 13 years old after looking at the receipt lol. And yes, I did order new bulbs. thanks for the assistance and clarification

 

I have read thought pretty much all the pages, as well i have had all three iterations of the BD fogs. The original ones with to much glare upwards, the updated lens that helped glare but hurt width, currently have the next gens. Over all i like the lights, just wish they had more width out of them. I ordered a set of DD max should be here today. Also have a new set of headlights coming, considering my oem hid headlights are fading quick and I'm pretty sure the bulbs are also oem are diming. Went with Morimoto headlights, with oem housings roughly $500 each plus bulbs it was close in price, plus having the DRL on the Morimoto will look pretty sweet I'm hoping. I still like BD lights, have a set of Xl80s on my a pillars and Squadron sports beside my winch mount. Kind of hoping i can adapt the BD fogs to my other truck if its not much of a hassle making a bracket.

 

The DD Max fogs will be a huge improvement in output intensity and pattern width over your 3rd Gen BD units.

What vehicle are you running OEM HIDs in? And when you mention ordering Morimoto headlights, are you referring to complete replacement assemblies for your OEM HIDs?

BD makes some good lights for off-road patterns, it is their SAE compliant products that fall short compared to the competition.

 

I swapped my factory F150s hids to the full Morimoto led headlight assembly, major improvement. For my truck the oem headlights are fading more every month, plus im pretty sure the hid bulbs them self's are oem. Priced out new housings and bulbs, cost was close if not more than the Morimoto replacements, so far they look and perform amazing. Before that i swapped the BD fogs to the DD maxes, way brighter and much more width. With the factory headlights and bulbs the hids were no brighter than the DD max fogs, made me realize how dim my headlights actually were. I did notice however on the BD fogs after taking them out that the internals have a crack in the black plastic between the actual internal lens. The lights still work great, just noticed when i took them off. I plan on retro fitting them into my other truck when i get around to it.

 

Just in case Cali deletes their thread promoting non-SAE fog counterfeit products.

 

I looked at the posts yesterday (they also put up a light bar), realized they had no SAE designation, and thought to myself, “nah, I’d just get the basic SS3 before I’d buy that for about the same money.”

 

I decided to install the off road town fog light pods on my civic based off the review in this thread and really like them.
I am curious if anyone has found a good quality legit fog light lightbar, preferably that doesn't cost a arm and leg, I would like a lightbar for the tacoma but it would be used for poorly light highway/interstate driving at night so don't want to blind other drivers with a regular light bar.

 

There seems to be a lot of talk about snow melting performance. It seems like the 1banger or 2banger HXB would be good snow melting alternatives that cost quite a bit less the DD SS3 Pro (edit: meant to say Max). and still run hot enough to melt snow reliably. Frustrating that Morimoto doesn't seem to offer the range of fog brackets for them as the 4banger. Wish lens swapping options were available too. (edit: lenses are available).