The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

I have a set in selective yellow on my wife’s Subaru and they are unreal.

 

Forgive the mostly off topic post.

When I started this thread the notion of proper cut offs to not blind other drivers and provide appropriate pattern function seemed like a stretch for many. Certain companies continued to promote highly unsafe and illegal blinding lights without cut offs for road use. Looking across the interwebs there has definitely been a culture shift against those unsafe practices, supporting more performant and safer SAE lights for road use. These concepts are now bleeding into the cycling light industry:
https://www.outboundlighting.com/product/focal-series-road-edition/

It is great to see lighting companies from other industries follow suit.

 

That's pretty sweet!

Have you thought about throwing a single SS3 Max on your bike? only $70 more than the one you linked

 

Need a power supply too. If it is dark in the PNW, it is usually beyond reasonable ride time, so I don't currently run any lights on the bikes. I stumbled on those lights and was like Yes! Another industry actually gets it! So I thought I'd share.

 

I believe Germany has some fairly strict laws on bicycle lighting. Taillights must be constant instead of flashing and maximum headlight intensity is limited.

Given the love here for halogens and snow melting I thought I should mention that the Schmidt e6 halogen headlight was available for many decades (since discontinued due to the rise of more powerful LED options) and had a wonderful beam pattern, described as “rectangular” though I would call it oval. I ran one of those in 2003 for my commuter but the 200h bulb life and problems with flickering at low speed along with initial purchase price, size, and replacement bulb prices drove me to swap to a supernova e3 once they came to market.

There is one key upside to not having a cutoff, you can mount your light underneath a handlebar or bracket which is often preferable to an above bar position. Though my personal preference in bike headlight location is at the fork crown, right above the front wheel.

Great article covering the history of bicycle lighting.

 

Fun fact: the lead ME on the original @Diode Dynamics stage series is Matt Conte. He was the one that developed the TIR optics for their launch into off-road lighting, as explained in this video:


He left Diode Dynamics to start his own company for road and trail bikes: Outbound Lighting.

So it might be less coincidental than you think

 

Quick google fact checking confirms, LOL. That is just awesome. I wish him the best success in bringing better lighting discipline to that industry, their products look pretty sweet.

 

That looks like a great option for dirt bikes that don't have a dedicated battery and charging system for lighting. Some SSC2's would probably be better overall but having a fully built package like this makes it far easier for those that do not want to try make up their wiring, battery setup and charging.

When I fart around at night on my little xr100 I use a Milwaukee headlamp (2111-21) and it works awesome! Same one I use to work on my cars too, I love the color of the LED and it's accurate color rendering when doing wiring. I wished that LED chip would be used in some off road lighting. But I don't know their capability on the LED Milwaukee use.

 

Road going cyclist here!

Annoys the hell out of me to be blinded either on my bike or in my car by a cyclist "doing it for safety". Great. You blinded me and have saddle bags going into the lane that I couldn't see, or towing your kid in a cart that's 3' wider than you on a bike, or my favorite....have a side car 5' wider than your bike.....that I couldn't see until 4 feet away because you're blinding everyone.

 

We use the Milwaukee lanterns at work and they are fantastic- love the color temperature, I suspect it's around 3500-4000K like the Diode swapped lamps. I agree that these should be used in more applications.

Edit: confirmed 4000K and 85 CRI here:

Milwaukee’s TRUEVIEW LED lighting products have a color temperature of 4000K, which is not quite what would be considered daylight (~5600K). 4000K is nearly right smack between warm and cool ends of the white light spectrum, and is quite pleasing.

https://toolguyd.com/milwaukee-led-trueview/

 

Meanwhile, back at the original post subject of LED fog pattern pods ...

 

That's awesome!! I've been trying to find out what their CRI was. I would have believed it was better than 85 CRI. But thats comparing it to other flash/work lights that don't even consider CRI, many just consider lumen rating.

 

John at Diode provided these great links to data sheets for the SS3.

Take a look at the isocandela plots for the pro vs the max.

 

I had the Pros, then upgraded to the Max. The tighter and more intense beam pattern is very noticeable. Totally awesome lighting! Truth be told though, I kind of miss the small amount of up-light in the Pros for illuminating overhead signs well down the road. I didn't need that in my Tacoma with the Ultimate Headlight Upgrade, but the new 4Runner with the ridiculous hard cutoff LED projector low beams could use it.

 

Never fails, go Big & it Rubs.

 

Does anyone make a fog light the same or similar color temp as the KC ambers? Really like how they look but wish they were a little brighter

 

The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review | Tacoma World

 

Long overdue. Switching out my Pros to the Maxes.

 

Dibs on the Pro’s then.

 

Definitely not selling.