The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

Baja Designs SAE Fog Pods



These lights are very different than anything we've seen before for in an LED fog light. Thus far all LED J583 fogs fall into two categories, 1) forward facing LED emitters with projectors for glare control or 2) rear/vertical facing LEDs bounced off reflectors for pattern and glare control. Baja Designs has built (to my knowledge) the first SAE LED fog light to break that mold, using a series of multiple optics without projectors to provide pattern and glare control for a forward facing LED emitter. Projectors are actually not that efficient as a projection technology since by nature they cut out some of the output. However nearly every manufacture uses projectors with a forward facing LED emitter fogs, including Toyota OEM LED fogs, Rigid (Toyota's OEM supplier for Pro) and Morimoto among countless others.

Also while these lights are listed by Baja as 'Amber' they are not an Amber light, they are Selective Yellow. So how does Baja's new innovative design stack up?

First off, these lights do not have clean cut offs like all the other SAE lights in this thread. These lights emit more glare than any other SAE LED fog light on the market that I am aware of. SAE compliance allows a glare gradient threshold in the pattern, it is as if these were designed to pin to that maximum glare threshold. I'll come back to this later but feel the understanding is necessary before reviewing the output photos.

It is a little hard to determine in the photos, but the heart of the beam pattern is 2.5 panels tall when projected from my standard 18'. However you can see that the cut offs above and below the 2.5 panels main pattern still is covered in a lot of light, meaning the pattern 'cut offs' are very weak and will provide significant glare.



To compare here is the competing Rigid Selective Yellow light pattern. ~1.25 panels with much stronger cut offs thanks to the projector optics. The main pattern area is roughly 1/2 that of the Baja Designs main pattern area.



Measured data for Selective Yellow Rigid vs Baja



Both Baja and Rigid spec 22w as the power consumption. Baja's ultra wide angle fog design has dispersed the light over a much larger area while Rigid's design focuses all the light into a more condensed fog pattern region. The horizontal width of the pattern projection is very similar.

While Baja has 2x+ the vertical area coverage by spreading light out more, Rigid has 2x+ the intensity over Baja by focusing all the light into the fog pattern region. Aka in the desired fog pattern region the Rigid lights are over 2x brighter, because their lights are more focused.

What I find particularly interesting: Baja has some of the best in class light color of 5000k, while Rigids 'white' light color is way too high of a color temp at 7000k+. Why is this important? Because Baja then should be able to use a lighter lens to achieve selective yellow compared to Rigid. The further you are from the correct color, the darker the lens will need to be to correct it, and the darker the lens the greater the output loss.



Note that Rigid lens looks more amber, vs Bajas that looks more yellow. Yet output color is extremely similar. Baja's yellow lens is more efficient for color correction to selective yellow compared to Rigid. However, there is one benifit to being less efficient. The Rigid lens will run a little hotter. Recall that light energy cannot be destroyed (law of conservation of energy), so if light is filtered it is converted to heat. Meaning the more filtering, the hotter the lens becomes. Hotter lenses are good to avoid freezing in snow conditions. Baja's yellow lenses still produce a good amount of filtered heat.

In 75 degree ambient temp, the Baja selective yellow lights ran about 137 F on the lens. The selective yellow Bajas are the second best LED fogs in resisting freeze over in snowy conditions. Rigid ran ~20 degrees hotter, because the filtration is less efficient with a darker filter and a higher color temp light source. The Baja and Rigid selective yellow LED fogs are the only two I would consider for those in snowy climates. Note that for the lens to get hot takes time, the lights may need to run for 20 minutes before getting up to peak temperature.



The Bajas pulled nearly exactly 22w as spec'd.



Baja's lights did come with impressively good instructions that other SAE lights lack, for how to properly aim the lights for SAE compliance. More brands should provide good instructions like these.



Back to that gradient glare issue.

A wider angle Rigid SAE fog output shot


vs a wider angle Baja SAE output shot


The Baja light does not have the strong cut offs as the other SAE lights, and light up nearly the entire garage. Personally I actually prefer soft cut offs, as the hard projector cut offs do not blend as well into the headlight pattern. KC's G4 reflectors have great soft cut offs that blend very well. Baja's lights really have minimal cut offs as they literally light the ceiling almost directly above their SAE fog lights. SAE standards do specify a legal level threshold of gradient glare, I'd speculate these lights were designed to nearly max out that legal SAE glare level.

Selective yellow glare is difficult to photograph. Here is a head on photo. Baja left vs Rigid Right. The orb of Baja glare is somewhat difficult to see in the photo.



But what about the SAE white Bajas?



Baja has one of the best color temps out there for their white LED lights. Pattern is identical to the selective yellow Bajas. 2.5 panels in height. Comparing the selective yellow Bajas to the white Bajas:



While Baja uses 5000k LEDs, my readings were slightly less at 4800k. It could be the multi-optic caused a small loss in color temp. Looking at the comparison between the white SAE Bajas vs the selective yellow Bajas, the selective yellows have less than a 15% filtration loss with the colored lens, compared to Rigids 20%+ loss. Which makes sense, as the Baja light source and lens are closer together in color temp than Rigid's color temps. The small filtration loss is worth the color temp optimization IMO. And while both lights produce glare, yellow glare is much easier on the eyes than white glare.

Comparing white Bajas to white Rigids.



Pretty similar match up to the selective yellow Bajas vs selective yellow Rigids. However in white, the Bajas have a far better color temperature at 4800k, than Rigid which is a bit blue at over 7000k color temp. Baja's white color temperature is the best white LED fog color yet, with KC close behind with their 5000k white G4 fogs.

Mounts
One of the advantages to the Bajas slim design lights is they fit better in the round 4" fog mount than square pods, which creates a cleaner look that many prefer. Here are the Tacoma mounts to put the Baja lights in the OEM fog location.
2012+ Tacoma Baja fog mounts (also fit 4runner & Tundra)
2005-2011 Tacoma Baja fog mounts (also fit Tundra)
H11/H16 connectors for 2012+ fog location plug and play


The Baja SAE pods produce best in class pattern area coverage, but also worst in class glare. While they produce 2x the area coverage of the competing Rigid fogs, they are also less than 1/2 the output intensity (since their light is spread over 2x+ the area). Meaning Rigid is twice as bright in the fog pattern region with 2x the measured lux output.

While I appreciate what Baja was trying to achieve with their unique approach, I think people expected better cut offs from such a major name brand lighting corporation. Rather than trying to produce near the legal maximum glare level, most other companies have tried to go beyond to create much brighter lights while producing far less glare than legal limits regulate to manufacture more street friendly high performance lights. Rigid's SAE lights pack far more punch in a much more street friendly beam pattern with strong cut offs compared to the Baja SAE lights, though the Baja lights do cover a larger area. I may use the selective yellow Bajas in an upcoming project as additional aux fogs that can be turned on/off independently from my primary fogs depending on traffic for their wider area coverage.

Update: 3rd party testing indicates the Baja SAE fogs fail the SAE J583 compliance standard. "Those Baja lamps aren't even close to SAE J583 compliant. Failed on photometry and gradient."

After looking at the raw data, Baja's SAE lights put out over 1.5x the legal SAE limit for light above the cut off (glare). I do not recommend this product as a street used foglight.

Here is the latest update from Baja's CEO:

Baja's SAE lights are currently listed as 'On backorder with no estimated ship date'. It appears they have stopped selling them to address the issue.

Update from 12/5/19
Note the following press statement is inaccurate. It claims 1.19 candles at 10 meters but that should actually be 1.19 lux, aka 119 candles.



Update from 12/19/19
New optics shipped.


Update 4/9/20 (post #3031 here)
Baja SAE 'fixed' optic comparison
Recall that when Baja launched their Squadron SAE fogs, they were not actually SAE compliant as advertised as they had too much spill above the horizon and the cut offs were not sharp enough. You can see my original review calling out this flaw with updates in post #964 here. Baja claimed the error was a result of only simulating the pattern output without actually running the product through a compliance test. They issued a fix kit to correct the pattern to their customers free of charge. This covers the difference between the original optic, and the updated 'fixed' optic.

Left is the original SAE lens vs right is the updated SAE lens, designed to reduce light spill above the cut off


These are the instructions included with the fix kit.


The aluminum block out plate insert already comes pressed into a new lens, so it seems odd they have the instructions showing installation of the block out plate into the lens. The fix kit does come with the new lens including the preinstalled block out plate, a new gasket and new mounting screw hardware.

Installed it may not be super apparent when not in direct light. But under direct light it is easy to see the block out plate behind the lens, even moreso on the white optic.


So how well does it work?
Photographing two wide angle patterns in the same shot side-by-side is challenging.
Left is the revised fixed optic vs right is the original optic.


There is a divider between the lights to minimize pattern overlap, even though it looks like one continuous pattern. If you look carefully, you can see the upper and lower panels outside of the main beam pattern have less light spill with the revised optic. So the new optic block out plates do reduce the light above and below the cut offs.

However, when measuring the output of the new revised optic, the main part of the pattern has also suffered significant losses. Based on my measurements, the new optic takes a 30-33% peak intensity loss, for white and yellow respectively. This places the revised Baja SAE optic output intensity as the lowest performing product in this thread. The next lowest was the dated PIAA LED fogs were 160 lux and for comparison OEM stock H11 halogen fogs were 203 lux. And compared to the best in class Diode Dynamic SS3 Pros, the SS3s are 4.5x higher intensity than the revised Baja.



What I was really interested in doing was quantifying the change in a way that was far more in-depth than peak intensity, as a peak intensity metric is a bit overly simplistic. I was able to obtain some compliance raw test data for both optics, allowing me to run my own analysis on the results. Engineers love raw data.

Below are my plots for the original optic output, the revised optic output and then using the computational plotting powers of Tecplot 360 I programmatically created a delta plot to demonstrate the losses sustained by the revised optic. I kept the contour scale consistent, so the plots are all relative to one another in contour intensity. Peak Cd values are all calculated programatically. The plots are fully interactive on my end to interrogate data at any point in the field.





This delta plot shows the losses from the revised optic expressed in positive values


According to these lab results, the peak intensity output loss is about 25% with the new revised optic. Within 5-8% of my readings.

What is interesting is based on my delta loss plot above, the largest losses occur within the heart of the beam pattern, not above the cut off as was intended with the revised optic. Spill above the horizon was reduced as intended, but the revised optic caused significantly greater collateral losses within the pattern. By my definition that would classify as a poorly engineered fix. Ideally you'd want to reduce the spill above the horizon while minimizing the harm to the output intensity of the main beam pattern. Hopefully they reconsider redesigning this product's optics with a more performant solution.

 

Funny thing is tall patterns for fogs are useless =(. properly aimed fogs and the tall beam will fall right below the bumper where the driver doesn't benefit from the light. From my experience Rigid nailed the flat beam for great performance where its needed.

Thank you for the run down! Very informative.

 

Do you think lack of lumens is one way they were able to be SAE certified?

 

What's really going to suck for people are the bleed through from the Baja selective yellow fogs overlapping their expensive retros and killing the nice color, changing it from white to yellow. Cause we all know some are going to run the fogs all the time.

 

@crashnburn80 thanks again for all your hard work, stellar review!

 

I run my KC G4's in yellow 99% of the time day and night. They look badass, and give people a better shot to see me.
As far as driving with them, I have 5000k hid's. I should have dropped down 1 level but the yellow fogs and headlights pair together great.

 

I'd feel much more comfortable running the Rigid sae fogs vs the Bajas, I leave my trucks headlights in Auto so they turn on when needed. Still looking forward to so "real world tests" to see how bad the glare is. Also wondering if aiming the Bajas lower per say could cut down the glare some. Still would feel more comfortable running the Rudgids daily.

 

With Baja’s minimal soft cut off design the lumen output would definitely have to be tuned down, otherwise the glare would exceed the legal maximum levels for SAE compliance.

 

The gree you mentioned is from the white Rigid sae with the amber covers?

 

No, it wasn't from the amber covers. I originally had Rigid clear covers and wrapped it with yellow vinyl but the vinyl wasn't dark enough to give the selective yellow look but im very sure the amber would be much much better for yellow output.

ill update the previous post so others dont get confused.

 

Right, with Rigid’s high color temperature the light is a bit blue. Blue light + yellow filter = green light, which is why Rigid’s selective yellow pods use amber filters and not yellow. Halogens use yellow filters for yellow light as they are closer to the correct color temp with minimal blue light to filter out to achieve selective yellow.

 

Finally got them installed. Love the amber color they put off. Need to aim my headlights up a little bit I think.

 

Headlights up or fogs down.

 

Fogs are set 4” lower at 25’

 

yours look jussst about how mine look to be honest have to fix the pass side

 

Hi, the lumen output is maximized for the SAE compliance rating. This light complies with ALL of the standard guidelines for J583. Our SAE Squadron actually boasts higher lumen values than some of the other products covered in this thread. Like mentioned earlier in the post, the light’s output is spread over 2x the surface area which gives the user a smoother and far more usable pattern to drive with. The light utilizes a double convex lens and passes through a final diffusing lens to achieve this spread and gives the end user illumination that most J583 lights lack.

 

This light is significantly different from the standard Wide Cornering pattern. While the external design visually appears the same, the internal design is completely different. Circuitry has been redesigned from scratch to achieve the highest possible lumens while still maintaining the compliance standard. This light utilizes double convex lenses internally and has the maximum allowable spill light allowed by SAE standards to produce a safe light, but far more enjoyable to drive off of. We designed it this way intentionally. To produce a light that could illuminate street signs and unexpected obstacles, give the user a smoother pattern, and have an all around better driving experience at night.

 

We’re very sorry to hear that you’re disappointed in the light and price point. We attempted to keep the cost as low as possible while creating a performance oriented J583 light. The reasoning for a $65 dollar increase over the Sport is the type of lenses, circuitry inside and additional processes these lights have to go through to make them SAE compliant. The internals of a Squadron SAE Wide Cornering and Squadron Sport are completely different. The SAE light uses three different lenses. While the light does produce a significantly taller pattern than other J583 products, the main intensity of the beam has a hard cut off with a less intense spill. This was completely intentional to give the customer a light the has the HIGHEST possible performance while staying within the thresholds of the standard.

 

(Quote 1 Response)
Hi, that’s exactly what we were intending to do with this light. We wanted a light that would essentially break the mold of traditional J583 lights that leave a lot to be desired. With our convex lens, we have a main beam intensity similar to those displayed previously, while projecting a less intense beam spilling upwards – yet still within the safe range of SAE guidelines. This gives the end user a light that blends nicely with headlights, and projects well onto street signs, hazards, or other obstacles.

(Quote 2 Response)
We feel that might be a subjective answer. If you wanted to focus your light completely in one area yes that makes sense. However, as the mounting point of the light increases in height (lifted trucks, SUVs, etc) the larger your spread of light will need to be to give you optimal coverage. When lights are really low to the ground is when they need to be more concentrated since the area of projection is far less. After testing many different revisions of our light, we found this to be the optimal blend between intensity and beam pattern to create the optimal driving experience.