The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

9011 HIRs are the peak in halogen output and ridiculously bright, none of the products here will compare in intensity to the 2500 lumens (actual) in the 9011 HIR upgrade. That said pods can offer a more uniform pattern than the reflectors. The OffRoadTown pods do have one of the higher intensities in the fog pod group, though their beam pattern is going to be narrower than that of Rigid or KC. If working on a budget, they are one of the best bangs for the buck.

I helped @Freeheelbillie design a setup just like the one you are talking about, but tie it all into the OEM switches so everything worked like it was stock. Fogs worked with the fog switch and spots were automatically activated with the high beam. It did require running the H4 headlight upgrade so that the OEM headlight high beam circuit could instead directly power the spots, but you benefit from 2x the headlight output and no additional switches in the cab.

I haven't comparison tested spot pods, and realistically there are so many out there that it would be difficult, time consuming, and expensive to do so, and not worth my time. I think you can draw some takeaways from the information in this thread though. Quality name brands produce great performing products while also publishing realistic specs. Rigid and KC's products were outstanding, their products produced double the light area output while also being some of the brightest options. And while Baja did not make an SAE product, they also build an excellent quality pod, which would be great for spot use. These manufactures advertise realistic numbers, instead of ones that claim 3000 lumens but are only 2/3s as bright as a reputable product that claims 1760 lumens and only illuminate half the area. There is so much garbage for LEDs on Amazon it can be really difficult to determine what you are buying, but you know how the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

 

I've fallen victim to the cheap Amazon pods. I wanted something now for my ditch lights and instead of just saving for a bit I just got some cheap Amazon lights. Though they work it's pretty much a flood patter with no more distance than my low beams but a lot more light. It does feel too bright too close so eye strain. I'd like something like a driving possibly a spot depending on the width of the beam. I'm using mine mostly on the back roads to keep an eye out for deer.

 

Wow! Thanks a ton for doing this test. Again, really understandable data. I still don't understand how Rigid can make claims without testing comparisons like these on output of the lights with and without their covers. A part of me regrets not going for the KC G4s, but then again, if I'm really feeling like I need more output, I can pop the amber covers off and double my light output. It sounds like if you want Amber fogs the G4s are probably the best option though.

Thanks again for all your work on this @crashnburn80 !!

 

I have the remaining lights used to make this thread for sale:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/led-fogs-led-pods-led-headlights-for-sale.547248/

 

Stunning work! Thank you for educating me on the wild world of LED fog lights.

 

In for this. Also how does selective yellow vs a simple yellow filter come into play here? Is it moot because LEDs have narrow wavelengths? I also thought selective yellow was better because it was all of the light just no blue.

 

Nice installation. I do have one question though. How do you aim them?

 

You don't. They're pretty flush, square and plumb in that portion of the valence. And I guess I got lucky a bit. Because when I turn these on they light up the road and sides of the roads incredibly well. Which is was I needed with these lights (backcountry/mountain/canyon roads). They also do really well on trails at night but I very rarely find myself wheeling in the dark.

 

Thank you @crashnburn80 !
This was probably one of the best threads I’ve read in a while !
I’ve been looking for new fogs, and was wanting to stay legal for on road if possible, but thought the only options were $$$$ Rigids and the KCs.
I think I’m sold on the Offroadtown ones with CaliRaised brackets!

 

Can confirm this is a sweet set up, I combined with the Anytime Fog mod... very happy. @crashnburn80 is the man!

 

This is some amazing . I want to put fog lights in my arb marker light locations, but don't know where to begin. They are a slimmer profile. Any advice?

 

I do not know of any fog pattern light that would fit in the marker location. Even if one did fit, I doubt the output would be very performant. There are brackets to replace the ARB driving light in the bumper (which is a high beam light) with LED pods, so you can convert it to a fog light. While these say they are for Baja, they should work with any pods.
https://www.paranoidfabrications.co...ights/products/arb-fog-light-mounting-bracket

The ARB documentation is very unclear on the lights use in the bumper, they call them "fog" or "fog/driving" but then specifically mentioned they are designed to shine further down road than the low beams so you can see stuff at high speed, which means they are a driving light (high beam), not a fog light.

 

@crashnburn80 off subject but I'm looking into different pods to replace my Amazon specials in my ditch light brackets. On Rigids website their grid shows driving pattern to be a very wide short distance and then flood to be a narrower more high beam style spread. This doesn't make much sense to me. Also any recommendations on lights for this position would help I'd like something to illuminate down the road a decent distance.

 

does anyone know of any companies or members on here that make a oem spec bracket or harness for the rigid 3x3 pods? I have a body armor 4x4 aftermarket front bumper, but it has oem spec fog light holes, and I want to put the dot approved rigid pods in there.

 

Great attention to detail! The schematic is wrong.

Driving is narrower and longer range than flood, which is a shorter and wider pattern.

Rigid's site has a really cool comparison feature, 'Viewpoint' at the top of their site. It allows you to compare side by side various pattern optics from inside and outside a vehicle. While not real, it gives you an idea. Using the feature you can see that flood is wider and shorter than driving. Here is a comparison link:
https://viewpoint.rigidindustries.c...r-type=multi&hud=off&demo=false&driving=false

 

@ovrlndkull I forgot about the light recommendation. If using ditch lights, and facing them forward, I would use spot beams or hyper spots. I would be concerned that using a wider pattern while facing forward would cause significant hood glare, which with bright foreground light will restrict pupils and cause a loss of night distance vision.

 

The CaliRaised adapters are all you need to plug them into your OEM fog connectors:
https://caliraisedled.com/collectio...s/05-11-toyota-tacoma-fog-light-pod-connector

The KC lights would be a better fit if the bumper is specifically designed for mounting the OEM fogs. Most adapter brackets are designed for OEM bumpers.

There is this adapter bracket for an ARB bumper:
https://www.paranoidfabrications.co...ights/products/arb-fog-light-mounting-bracket

 

In my original writeup I did miss the OEM Lexus LED fogs that are a bolt in replacement for the Tacoma. (Lexus is made by Toyota for those that did not know). @Mtn Mike was generous enough to send me the fogs out of his truck for comparison testing.






Measurements:
Color: 6148k
Power: 10.1w
Lux @ 18ft: 196.2

These lights use 2 top down firing LEDs with reflectors to reflect the light forward. They are made in Japan and being OEM Lexus I'd expect them to be high build quality. The 2 LEDs have a unique offset cut off, so the driver side of the beam is a little lower than the passenger side, there is a step up in the center of the pattern to a slightly higher passenger side beam, similar to projector headlights to reduce light and glare for oncoming drivers. The pattern is vertically narrow like the majority of the fogs in this thread, to where KC and Rigid provide roughly 2x the light area coverage compared to the OEM Lexus product. The cut offs are not super clean, so there is some glare emitted from the fogs, which is likely caused by the flat spots in the reflector at the base of the fog light reflector assembly. Compared to the other drop in replacement LED fog lights, these are a little brighter than the Morimotos (170 vs 196 lux), but also higher in color temp (5500k vs 6148k). The KC G4s are significantly brighter (296 vs 196 lux) with 2x area pattern coverage and much lower color temp (5062k vs 6148k).

It is currently raining (thankfully with all the fires and smoke) so outdoor pattern shots will have to wait for tomorrow. I'll add these to the original post when I have some more time.

Thanks to @Mtn Mike for the addition to the thread!

 

@crashnburn80 - you're always killing it with adding more depth to this thread, and it's great to see unbiased comparisons like this. I love that you keep adding more and more lights to the testing. Just wanted to give out a major props to you, and to everyone that has provided you with lights!

This is why I love TW, it's a huge community of people that are helping one another out.

 

Just trying to build the most complete LED fog review on the internet, bar none.