The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

I have those fog lights on my 01 Outback. They are not impressive at all. Even when using a 9012 they don't provide much useful light. They are more of a fill light than anything. The width isn't good and there isn't any usable distance added , there is no redeeming factor other than style. It was common to use PIAA 520's or 510's and Hella 500's for better fog lights back in the day. I haven't bothered trying to improve mine since I did a retrofit on the headlights and it's my beater car that I don't really take far from town.

You can definitely see the way the Morimotos have less width compared to the DD's in the picture with the car in the right lane. It hardly even reaches the ditch on the side of the road by the looks of it. Great pictures by the way!!

 

Interesting news this morning, VisionX has acquired Denali Electronics. While VisionX made headlights, they did not make any fog lights and specialize primarily in off-road lighting. Denali makes headlights as well, but specializes in lighting for street use, including their SAE fogs.





And it looks like Denali finally got their fog pods in stock.
https://denalielectronics.com/colle...th-datadim™-technology?variant=41152610304184

 

@Too Stroked would be cool if Crash could test those out and show some numbers. I need to find a set fo sho.

Interesting that visionX is aquiring denali... hopefully not much changes. The fog pod may be in stock (finally), but it appears the driving/spot lamps are still listed only as available on backorder. They still show a selective yellow lens color, but it appears to be quite a bit less amber in appearance than I would have expected. The cree xp-p doesn't appear to be available below 5000k color temp, so I would have expected a bit more filtration. Perhaps its just at the upper(greenish) edge of "selective yellow?"

 

I thought it was interesting that VisionX manufactures the Denali lights. Supply chain issues have been a real problem, but these have been on back order seemingly forever.

 

If he wants, I'll ship them out to him for testing.

 

Im not sure what the value would be. There are no other SAE J582 products to compare to, nor will there ever be since that compliance standard has been discontinued. I could compare to the latest Morimotos as likely the closest modern lamp, but that isn’t the Morimoto design intention either.

 

Only 4 banger Combo NCS is equivalent to J581. HXB has too high E-max, But ok as R112
NSC combo also satisfy UB2 as high beam stand alone, but didn't bother advertise that way. If someone want to build full headlamp and send to test, NSC Combo can be well adopted as high beam optics component. I labeled as mid-distance coverage lamp. Not as peaky as spot, not as foreground heavy as wide beam, just in between coverage.

 

Right, but what was being asked about is J582, Aux low beam. The compliance standard was discontinued in 2005 and hasn’t been made for some time even before that, certainly nothing LED based. The Morimotos combined focused hot spot based pattern with cut offs good enough to meet J583 F is likely one of the closest modern products to SAE J582. Not saying it would be compliant, but if I was to evaluate an older Hella J582 aux low beam lamp against something readily available today, I’d likely pick the Morimotos as the next closest thing.

 

Which ones do I need to try?

 

ah,, my bad J582, then no, wide beam does not have 0.5D 1L-L cutoff For that needs, RetroBright 5.75" Round perhaps,it's kind of OK if aim around. More like J579. but it really isn't a pod lamp. It's classic sealed beam looking LED sealed beam. If this getting off topic, move to appropriate place please.

 

@crashnburn80 I think Denali makes great quality lights and they DataDim is pretty cool even though I don't really find it practical in the real world. What bothers me is the price!! Also many motorcycle riders assume that they can run those dang lights on the street and blind the crap out of people! I know it's not Denali's fault and getting people educated is likely never going to happen, but it is annoying. I do think there is a huge disconnect between what lighting manufactures call "driving lights" and the way customers interpret that word as being OK to use on the road. Again that comes down to peoples lack of education or lack of give a sh!t for other people on the road.

I am curious about lights that fit into the SAE J582 compliance standards even though J582 has been gone for quite some time. For motorcycles, custom cars or lifted trucks to mount in the lower section of the bumper they would be great! Is there an SAE standard for Auxillary low/high beam lamp?

@Yoshi I, would the NCS Combo beam pattern be acceptable for an auxiliary low beam on a motorcycles lower section, maybe low custom cars or in the bumper of lowered cars? Basically about 12-24" off the ground. Based off the NCS Combo data in post 5990, it looks like there wouldn't be much of an issue with glare and could potentially add a considerable amount of light fill further down the road. I know this isn't what it's meant for but just thinking out of the box here.

All of these lighting threads get off topic often, I'm sure it annoys some people sometimes. But there aren't really any other threads that have such a wealth of knowledge in them and often a new thread won't get the attention to get a proper answer from educated people.

 

There's plenty of vehicles that have poor performing lowbeams, even with upgrade bulbs and proper aim. With more and more OEMs going to non-upgradeable LED, I see the market for high performing lamps capable of operating as auxiliary low beams growing. I would be curious to see results of a test of those hellas just to have a data point, but you are completely right about not being able to offer any sort of apples to apples comparisons to like products, as the market was so small for those type of lamps.

I would also be curious to your thought about the NCS 4bangers usefulness as aux low beam.

 

I can't say using combo as J582 lower beam substitute is acceptable. Combo beam is very much like high performance high beam, therefore, glare will be very severe if aimed straight angle. If aimed low to prevent glare, then way too strong hotpot too close to driver view.

NCS wide covers similar to weak low beam, but without distance illumination capability and very heavy foreground. At -3 degree aim, it will not cause glare at mount height of 24" ish.




So as low beam, I don't like it. No distance throw capability. To prevent glare, must aimed properly at -3 degree.



However, if you want to make great HIGH beam, you can combine NCS wide+Combo to create very much desired high beam pattern like this.
(NCS wide -3 degree aim + NSC Combo +1 degree aim)

 

Regrading the NCS Wide, what would the approximate distance you would likely achieve? My buddy is building a Rat Rod/Hot Rod and is looking for lighting options that are discrete and different, the mounting height would likely be around that 24" height from the ground. I know the Wide pattern wouldn't be ideal as a low beam, but I know those or DD SS3's would be better and safer than the cheap Amazon ones he was thinking of using prior to taking with me. Plus it doesn't see a lot of high speed long distance driving at night.

 

That's a great visual!! Thank you!

He is looking for more of a low beam. I was actually thinking the SS3 Pro may work well since it does have some light bleed which would illuminate signs and critters yet may not be bad enough to bother oncoming traffic. He really wants a light bar that can run vertically to run along the inner edge of the radiator shroud, but to my knowledge there isn't a light bar that is vertical with a beam pattern that would be acceptable for low beam use.

 

A better option round would be something like JW Speaker 93 in low beam, I'm sure there are other motorcycle options out there as well.

 

Fog pattern cannot substitute low beam like distance, check below image,
This is simulation of

From the top
LED Low beam projector ( LB2V)
4 Banger HXB
SS3 Pro mock up

4 Banger and SS3 Pro mock up is aimed at angle which does not cause glare ( evaluated by LB2V table = low beam table)
Fog pattern will pull view impression unsafely too close to driver, unless intend to drive very slow, it is not safe to drive by using fog beam pattern substitute as low beam.

All lamp are set at 0.61m (=24") from ground, driver view height 1.12m in driver view image.


I feel responsible to make sure to mention, 4 Banger NCS or HXB wide does NOT substitute low beam. Feel free to enjoy as off-road wide beam, or aim properly to use as fog lamp.
But as low beam, it just cannot have enough down road illumination capability and foreground point ( 4D,4R) point score way too high = what generally called, too much foreground

Visual impression shall explain why it's not good to have too much foreground
it will greatly reduce mid-distance detection capability.

 

For a bolt on low beam, I think one of the best options is to look at low profile snow plow lights. Plenty of options exist for LED and they will have an SAE compliant low beam and often offer an aux SAE high beam and be completely bolt-on. Downside is they are typically bulkier than a pod light. Alternatively, as mentioned earlier, there are plenty of round bucket mount low beams available as well such as 7” or 5.75”, but then you’d need to come up with a mounting bracket solution for the lights as well.