Fog Lights - Match the Headlights?

I'm going to switch my fog lights over to hid. The headlights are already done in 35w 5000k. So, jut like it says, I'm not sure if I should try to match the headlights or if I should go with a 3200k so they're actually useful. What has everybody else done?

My major concern is this; I already have ballasts, but not bulbs. But the bulbs that go with the ballast are a different brand than the headlights, so I may not be able to match the 5000k in the headlights perfectly. I'm not sure how annoyed I'd be if they were just a little off.

 

You should do 3000k so you have a usable fog light.

 

I have to say I like the brighter lights better. Nothing more bitchin than seeing a truck lighting up the freeway like the day is coming haha I have 6000K headlights and 5000K fogs and I have no complaints.

 

Have you driven in the rain or fog yet?

 

hahah honestly only with the head lights... just got the fogs and it hasnt rained yet...

 

but then again SO Cal hardly ever has weather bad enough to desperately need good fogs

 

It still has bad weather tho. It's horrible driving in rain or fog with white HIDs. I drove from my house in Huntington beach to Barstow last weekend with nothing but my yellow fog lights on in the pouring rain and really bad fog. I could see perfectly. IMO from personal experience, yellow fogs are best due to the usability

 

Fog lights aren't very useful if you're going faster than about 30MPH. Mostly they are cosmetic additions on modern factory designs.

 

I've always thought it was total bullshit about yellow being better than white for fogs. A very quick Google search will yield many results to back up my thoughts. This (below) is just a sample of the results of that search.



"So the question becomes, to yellow or not to yellow? There's a lot of debate about this, but the research says that yellow lights are no better than white lights at penetrating fog. The theory bandied about was that yellow light has a longer wavelength and is therefore less likely to be reflected by the fog particles. Turns out, this is complete poppycock.

Apparently, the fog particles themselves are so big that they reflect all colors of light. Basically, all light bounces off of them, so using yellow light instead of white light gives you no advantage.

Plus, in order to get yellow light, what fog-light manufacturers do is put a yellow lens over a white light. That cuts your light output by 20 percent to 30 percent, which is counterproductive."

 

t4daddy, you are right except for a caveat. The light "penetrating/bouncing back" theory was based on Rayleigh scattering, where light bounces off water molecules. It's apparently what makes the sky blue. Unfortunately, in the application of fog/fog lights, the Rayleigh scattering doesn't happen--so as you say it's bull.

There are two reasons however it might help some people. First of all, yellow headlights/foglights are going to have slightly less light output due to the color filtering. Less light output means less glare to bounce back at you, so it can provide a perceived advantage.

Second, yellow is an easier color for the brain to process, so it can help some people see a little better. For a better effect though, you should wear something like yellow shooting glasses. I think the light absorption spectrum goes something like red-orange-yellow-green-blue. The brain processes (color-wise) green best, then red, followed kind of distantly by blue. By that it's kind of complicated, but red/orange are the easiest for the light receptors I believe, which is why it's used to maintain night vision (like the instrument lighting in our trucks). In daylight conditions, you'll be able to respond possibly to green slightly faster than red. It has to do with how the cones and rods in the eye work. I can't remember which, but one is responsive to color, and one is responsive to brightness/intensity and both react differently based on color.

Blue is by far the hardest color range for the brain to process. I've seen example pictures with blue where you can't even read text and so forth because of the colors.

Anyway, there's WAY more information than you probably wanted to know about it, but like t4daddy says there's tons of info out there about it.

 

I can certainly see and agree on your point about reflective light from brighter light (my 55 watt HID Hellas will damn near blind you reflecting of off traffic signs). I've just always laughed at the statement, "Oh, yellow fogs are so much better than white fogs".

 

They are very bright, but they don't have very much "throw" I'm thinking the design of the reflector, just my guess. I have mine aimed as low as they will go, and they give a good curtain of light around the front on the truck.

 

It's not the throw, it's the point source of the lights. Just look at the headlights, or the factory bulbs. Our factory headlights have that center "glare shield" to protect others from the glare coming directly from the bulb itself.

The factory halogen fog bulbs have a blackened tip to act as this glare shield. Some other headlight bulbs have this as well.

HID bulbs of any sort don't have that glare protection build into them, and that's where the problem lies.

I would imagine they do throw a lot of light around the front of the truck, but that's mostly going to be useful on 10MPH night time trail runs and the like, not really highway speeds.

 

Zackly!!!

 

Yea. I had HID's in normal reflector housings on my previous vehicle. Never again.

 

I have a set. I installed them, drove around the block, pulled back into the garage and ripped them out. The beam hit an interior rear-view mirror on a car in front of me (as the flipped it up to get the light out of their eyes) and the reflection almost blinded me.

I still have them, but they are collecting dust. I was thinking of trying to make them into a hand-held spotlight like those hunting lights or something.

 

The first ones I ever fooled with, I installed into my wifes Accord on high beam only, (four bulb system) left the factory ones in place for the lows. I couldn't get over how awesome the beam was on high beam, simply perfect. Then, I dropped for a set of the high/low crapola ones for my truck, I was sick at my stomach, bright, but zero pattern, and a shit load of scatter, low actually shone better/farther than the high beam. This also goes back to a statement I made above, the depth/shape of the reflector bowl has to have some bearing on pattern. When I converted my Hellas I played with depth at which the bulb sat in the bowl, it makes a huge difference, think of how a Mag-light adjusts it's beam. Any way back to my yarn, snatched them out pretty quickly (the time it took TRS to get me some MiniMoros projectors) and went that route.

 

I loved my hid's until I leveled my truck. Now I can't seem to aim them low enough. I've only spent about 5 minutes on it though, so I'm not really concerned about that yet.

The fog lights though, just for starters this is the first vehicle I've ever owned that's had them. I've never needed fog lights in my life. It's just not an issue in my area. So it would be nice to have fog lights that work in fog, but overall the purpose for me at least is just for more light than the headlights provid. Not necessarily fog. As it is now I only turn them on driving on the beach. I ordered 4300k bulbs. If they suck ill use them in some Hellas behind a grillcraft.

 

Too low? So I should higher? Like 12,000k? Is that one what you mean? I'm a little buzzed watching this fight.

 

The higher the number the bluer and the less light output there is.