The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

Hey @TacoFergie, After talking to many riders who run our LP6 light on the road it is clear to me that there is a large community that does not care about the legality aspect of their lights as well as having cutoff zones to prevent oncoming traffic flashings. Most riders just want to be seen to prevent any preventable accidents caused by automotive drivers. With this being said when developing our light we did not design this light to be used on the road which is why it is labeled and classified as an off-road-only light. As you and others may know this has not stopped people from using our lights where they are not designed to be used which is why we are currently working on a solution for this market. The lean angle is a very important topic when developing a light that will be utilized in this space but as you mentioned with counteract the cutoff line drastically.
Best,
Brandon

 

Making cutoff to specific shape isn't a problem. No need of projector, it's matter of TIR exit surface diffusion distribution pattern adjustment, if I use reverse aspheric ( input is aspheric, assign distribution control at exist), that's also choice. If size allows, reflector can do too(like low beam reflector, but must be downshoot or upshoot emitter layout to utilize total ray better and better distribution control)
Per my research, motorcycle low beam requirement is essentially saying, don't have light above horizontal line. As long as peak of cutoff does not go over horizontal line ( same height as lamp optical center) the rest can be very easy going, just avoid 12500Cd max at foreground limitation.

I wanted to make additional comments about my last post reply about 4B NCS as low beam
I mentioned so, it's to show what regulation test points, and what kind of beam shape is required. But 4B NCS itself is pretty low in intensity. Not intended to advocate to use.

BTW, Subaru Ascent headlamp you mentioned, that's LB2V VOR aim headlamp. I mentioned this earlier in post, most of LB2V headlamp shall satisfy Motorcycle low beam requirement no problem

It's stepping away from J583 at this point, @crashnburn80 please migrate post as needed,
Anyways, if skipping lean angle subject, making applicaiton specific 6~8" bi-function lamp itself isn't hard to do, but many automotive low beam optics are well suitable for that purpose already, not motivated to make dedicated product is my assumption unless market suggest big chunk of opportunity.
Then, to make lean angle adoptable system, this become much more expensive project. Higher resolution ADB (matrix) either by micro LED array control, or Micro CMOS mirror array control kind is most modern solution. Angle sensor feedback actuator is classic solution.

 

Those JW Speaker headlights are awesome!! I'm planning on getting one this spring to replace my retrofit. It'll still dazzle other drivers in the event of even a small amount of lean angle, but its about the best solution.

@Baja Designs and @Yoshi I, I'm going to see if I can somehow quote the last few replies and continue this in the Lighting 101 thread. I think that's likely the best place for random lighting discussions.

I did want to mention you (Baja Designs) are absolutely right about many drivers and riders not caring about legality or what effects others on the road. There are many with the attitude of "being seen is safer" or "as long as I can see, who cares about everyone else on the road". There is nothing any of us enthusiasts can do and the manufacture can't control how people use their products. It's just pure ignorance on the customers end.

 

Hey all - I wanted to share this video to the thread because it basically explains the progress of SAE Fog development over the last few years, and why various brands have traded off the "best performance" title. It comes down to simple technology advancements. I made this video because it's very difficult to find concise information about this online.

To tell the story - previously, projector (JW Speaker) or hybrid (Rigid) optics were all the SAE Fogs that were available with the off-road style.

Some brands promoted simple forward-facing reflectors for use in fog applications, but forward reflector optics by definition cannot focus all of the light coming out, so they inherently have glare. It is impossible to make an SAE forward-facing reflector LED pod.

Some reflector pods like the KC G4 are half-bowl reflectors, to avoid that problem of glare. However, it's still difficult to control all of the light, and I believe that's why you haven't seen this style done with high-power (40W+) emitters.

Finally, TIR optics, as we at Diode Dynamics pioneered for SAE fog applications, allow for greater efficiency than projector optics, with good cutoffs and beam patterns. However, they are more difficult to design and produce. The pattern may also not be quite as "pretty" as a projector-based system, with super razor-sharp cutoffs and homogenous spread, although TIRs continue to improve in this regard.

Thanks for watching (or sharing), and happy to discuss or answer questions!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfRWoWJhcfM

 

Does that mean we can reach out to Amazon/EBay and request half our light back?

 

4 year update:

I have had my ortown fog pods installed for 4 years now, they continue to perform well for the price. They arn't the best lights out there but they are still $89 on Amazon. The switch sucks, it's cheap and the illumination in it didn't last a year; however it continues to function just fine. I have not had any problems with the included wiring, other than the illum for the switch. They have not come loose in their caliraised bracket. The pattern and intensity is acceptable for inclement weather. I clear-coat the lenses when I do my headlights, not sure it's needed, they have not fogged at all. The only problem i have run into is the same problem I generally have with LED's, the color of the light is too blue and reduces contrast in certain rain conditions. Overall I am very pleased with the price/performance ratio.

 

created an account just for this thread! mind-blowing! Thanks for all your work @crashnburn80 !!!!!!

I'm stuck trying to decide between the DD elites and SS3 Max's. Prefer the elites for cost and looks but considering the MAX's due to snow melting capabilities. I live int he DC area so not a huge concern but could be an issue down the road but is it worth 2.5x the cost.

Talked to DD the other day and Logan mentioned the Pro's would also melt snow but the review here seemed to indicate otherwise. Plus the cutoff and beem pattern of the pro is less than ideal.

In posting my dilemma to so local FB offroading/toyota/4runner groups someone mentioned these which I hadnt seen before and a quick search didnt come up with any hits.

Lasfit 3" LED Pod

SAE Fog ( Horizontal 36° & Vertical 6° ) : Tailored for Bad Weather Conditions

although oddly it also says...

Note: SAE Standard ONLY applies to Fog and Driving patterns in White color. Yellow fog/ driving pods have the same output standard with the white ones designed for on&off road use, with little possibility to blind others on the road.

https://www.lasfit.com/products/hp-...ood-hinge-pillar-mount?variant=43007783534839

and these

https://www.lasfit.com/collections/.../sport-3-led-pod-light?variant=42464600850679

Their thought was that the 36w ones would be a good alternative to the SS3 Max's for half the cost and would melt the snow.

With my new found knowledge of this thread I discussed that theoretical wattage doesnt necessarily translate to thermal stability which doesnt necessarily mean they would melt snow.

Either way...I know lasfit is pretty well respected except for their decision to sell led switch backs as halogen replacements.

So my reason for posting.

@crashnburn80 any near-term plans to review either of those in yellow. preferably the 36w. Or any chance I missed them in the 330+ mind melting pages of this thread?

 

You're definitely better off skipping Lasfit. They are definitely not near the quality of Diode Dynamics.

Regarding the Elite Series vs the Max, I went with the Max based on output. However, the Elite Series will provide more than enough proper light vs factory.

Just my two cents.

 

I'd certainly choose DD over Lasfit, but if those lasfit fogs get me 90+% of the DD's with the snow melting capabilities for half the cost, I'd be ok with that.

elites vs ss3 max - if money were no issue the max's would already be ordered but for now the only reason I haven't ordered the elites is the Max's ability for them to stay clear in bad weather. Just not sure whether that's worth $360 extra for the small percentage of time that may apply to my locale. That's a hard pill to swallow especially when it pushes out my purchase timeline.

most of my life I was uneducated on this topic and as such I always ran my fogs because it made my car look cooler from the front-end view.

They were always OEM fogs ie white. Passat, 528, A6, Equinox, and now the 4runner cover the last 20+ years.

With the 4runner it had the worst headlights I've ever had. So in addition to looking cool, I ran the fogs as I preferred the additional lighting up close. I now understand that under normal circumstances that's actually bad for you and hurts your overall night driving vision. Will see if I can break these old habits but it's highly likely I will still run the fogs quite a bit since that's what I'm used to.

Last fall I got a good deal on some slightly used GTR Carbide headlights and put those in. Sooooooo much better! However they don't have great coverage right off the corners, so I run the fogs. Also, I was a dummy when I tinted her (or maybe it's just my older eyes) and went too dark and now occasionally have challenges seeing out the front door windows next to the A-pillars. Hell, sometimes when it's raining I have to roll down the windows to see accurately to the left before turning. Will probably rectify and redo the tint on the front windows.

Then one day I noticed it looks like shite to have LED headlights with halogen fogs. So I started researching fogs.

And here I am an educated and changed man.

I don't experience fog frequently but occasionally. Same for snow in the DC suburbs. So my two primary, by which I mean most frequent use cases for the fogs will be lighting up the shoulders of dark roads at night (which is fairly frequent), and in the rain. I've always had challenges seeing lane markers on the road at night in the rain. I'm hoping this will help mitigate that.

So that took me down the path of yellow instead of white. Yellow also benefits me when I do encounter fog and snow.

That then took me to - well if they are covered in snow that benefit is negated.

Realistically that's probably less than 5% of the time. But it is one of the main points of having yellow fogs. And I'm a buy once cry once person...usually...so here I am....debating.

 

Lasfit blatantly plagiarized their product launch by literally copy and pasting Diode Dynamics website content and passed it off as their own. I do not support or promote IP thieves and have no intention of reviewing their products. I did a review on one of their SAE products just to see if it was really all that they promised and it was not. It seemed pretty obvious they did not understand the optics technology they were trying to mimic.

You can see the Lasfit SAE driving review in post #370.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-sae-j581-aux-high-beam-thread.696597/page-19#post-26351702

I wouldn't recommend their products and as a lighting enthusiast I wouldn't recommend supporting that company.

The SAE note about white is likely due to them not tuning the yellow fog lens color to meet the selective yellow chromaticity window like the Baja Designs Next Gen SAEs, which makes the light color too green to be SAE compliant. You can't just put a yellow lens over 6000k white LEDs, you need to tune the lens color to account for the emitter color to fall into the selective yellow chromaticity window. Their lens color is obviously way too yellow, it would need to be more amber in appearance (similar color to the selective yellow Max or HXB lenses) to get the color right. Their yellow fogs will be very green. For driving lights, their yellow will again be way too green, but driving lights are required to be white to be SAE compliant.

The Pros will melt snow, though the Max will do it better. But as you mention the Pros have much more light spill, it's worth stepping up to the Max for the better cut off, higher intensity output and even better snow melting ability over the Pro. All that said the Elites are great too, they have even better cut offs with a proper modern F3 fog pattern vs the F pattern on the Max. Between the two, it really comes down to how important that snow melting capability is to you and if it is worth the premium in price.

 

Thanks for the quick response. I too despise IP theft and my opinion of lasfit now joins them in the depths of their character. They are off the list...for anything. I thought it was quite odd when I selected their yellow fog and the lens was completely clear without the diffuser ridges when every other non-reflector style has them in some form or fashion.

Not sure how I missed that post you linked to. I read the first 40ish pages before skipping to the last 30. While I understand your desire to not give these companies any additional publicity, given the thread is 300+ pages, it might be worth putting a "Junk" section at the bottom of the original post and linking to the individual review posts much like you did for the top contenders at the top of the post.

still leaning towards the elites but contemplating the max's.

 

Any company that promotes a PnP multi-color replacement LEDs should be viewed as not credible. That is just not optically possible with a multi-emitter design to support multiple colors, meaning either they know and are trying to sell it to you anyway or they don't know and don't understand the optics of their own products. Neither are good. You can see some of my posts on one of the first ones here.

Lasfit's current fogs use aspherical optics, like the latest Baja Designs fogs, not TIR optics like Diode Dynamics and Morimoto. That style optic does not require the horizontal spreading ridges, though as demonstrated with Baja they can sometimes still be helpful. Rigid stacks aspherical optics with a second horizontal spreading optic to achieve their fog beam patterns. A few of the fogs in the original post like those from Super Bright LEDs and the others that purchased the same white labeled overseas design all do so using the aspherical optics only with no spreader.

The post I linked was in the SAE J581 (aux high beam) thread, not to be confused with this SAE J583 (fog) thread.

I receive a lot of requests to test junk lighting products. Most all the vehicle lighting stuff on Amazon is absolute garbage, which is where many requests stem from. Someone thinks they found some great deal on a product that promises equal/better performance to reputable name brands at a fraction of the price, but that doesn't pan out to be even close to true. Truth is there are not that many reputable quality SAE lighting manufactures. I would 1000x rather spend my limited time showing/reviewing products that continue to push the automotive lighting technology envelope forward and supporting companies that invest in the R&D in this SAE space rather than showcase why some lighting product is the 1,875,263th to be total garbage. I have many lighting threads for nearly every purpose, and all of them focus on best in class products for the purpose. There are too many garbage lighting products out there to try and label the junk.

 

Not to mention if the Amazon seller gets bad reviews the exact same product pops up the next day under a completely different name.

It would be an endless cycle chasing every single one down.

 

I totally understand all of that. I was thinking of just the primary manufacturers, not all of the Amazon ones. I would think anyone truly interested in reading this thread would inherently stay away from the generic Amazon ones.

If the goal of the thread is to educate the community, it would be helpful to have a general disclaimer stating some to the effect of

"Lasfit - While lasfit has a significant market adoption, they engage in IP theft and their products are subpar knockoffs of DD, do not adhere to the SAE standards and not worth your investment. Therefore I won't be testing, nor can I recommend any of their products."

"Amazon - The vast majority of lights sold on amazon are knockoffs and/or have little engineering and testing behind them and therefore should not be considered for your vehicle as they will not perform well even though they may appear on the surface to do so."

 

I appreciate the comments above, but I did also want to point out specifically- while Lasfit intentionally attempted to mimic our styling and technology, their pods will not melt snow, because they still use a traditional outer lens (which also cuts down on efficiency).

The snow-melting capability is thanks to Diode's patented single-lens design, where the lens itself conducts heat to melt away snow, without an extra airgap from an outer lens.

 

There are other counterfeiters as well. iJDMToy blatantly ripped off Baja Designs 1st gen SAE fogs, though they of course never bothered to fix the optic to reduce spill like Baja did, so while advertised as SAE, they are not. I have had requests to test their product too as a cheaper alternative to Baja's SAEs, but for the same reason will not include them. Long and short of it is that there is a lot of info in the lighting threads and lots of products, I try to keep that info focused on covering good lighting products rather than recommendations on what people should avoid.

 

sadly I missed out on an open box set of ss3 pros this morning that went on ebay for $203. Kicking myself for binging a tv show till the middle of the night last night. <---dummy

 

seeee...thats good info to have on the main post

 

You do realize it’s ok for you to make your own info thread as a summary of relevant data and keep it updated in real time?

 

I'd highly recommend pinging @memario1214 (aka Hotshot Offroad) for the best forum prices.

To be black and white, these threads will review and promote manufactures that look to advance the discipline of SAE automotive lighting. These threads will not cover knock-off/counterfeit brands. The goal here is to review, support and promote the development and advancement of SAE compliant lighting products, and if you look at where things have evolved since the original post, it has come a long way. These threads will not devolve into a blacklist of lighting products/companies. End of story. Discussion of all products is of course always welcome.