The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

Are the pods hot to the touch?

 

No.



Measurements in 69 degrees ambient.

 

How do they melt the ice?

 

Facepalm. Wrong fog. Yes, the SS3 Pro or Max are hot to the touch. The SS3 Sport or Elites are not.

 

I used to have my lightbar switch down under the HVAC knobs on the 2nd gen. It was hidden and hard to see when turned on. One time when traveling on the highway, I accidentally switched on the bar when I grabbed my wallet. I probably drove down the highway for 2h with my lightbar on and I had no idea because it was broad daylight. I only realized it was on when I pulled up to someone in traffic in the city. Obviously a mistake. I see this happen to people now and then on the highway. There is really no way in knowing unless you see the light switch on. If I "bright" the guy with the lightbar on during the day, they can't even see my brights, so I give them a little flash of my lightbar and they turn theirs off. They usually give me a wave.
Mistakes happen and some of us have been there. A lightbar turned on during the day has never blinded me but they definitely shouldn't have it on.

I am not sure how it is an ego thing to have recovery gear on your truck? Some people need this gear frequently. If someone goes off-roading every weekend, why would they take everything off during the week when they go to work or shopping? How do you know where they are going? Maybe they are hitting up Victoria's Secret before getting down and dirty in the mud...
If someone wants to have a mall-crawling build, let them look like a fool lol. Who cares!

 

My 21 TRD OR came with H16 fog lights. Any idea if I'll have issues running the SS3 Pro or Max with the existing wire harness? Those will draw roughly double the current of the H16 bulbs. I'm not worried about a little loss in output, just don't want to burn out anything that's not designed for that power.

Thanks for all the awesome posts!

 

No problem at all

 

2016-2019 3rd Gens had both H11 and H16 fogs depending on trim level. The wiring and harness was the same for both, just different lamps. 2020+ dropped the H11 lamps and went with the H16s only but continued without changes to the wiring. In other words your fog circuit is wired for the same 55w H11s as the earlier TRD trucks.

 

Excellent! That's what I was hoping

 

These SS3 fogs that run hot got me thinking, is there any kind of LED headlight like this? I hadn't considered LED lights before cause I want them to be able to de-ice themselves. I'm aware of the other threads here on different halogen upgrades but I'm not looking to change my headlights, just curious about the difference between these fogs and projector headlights. Is it the projector design that keeps the diodes too far from the front lens to heat it or are these SS3 lights just super inefficient (for LEDs)? They do offer a spot focus pattern option in addition to the fog pattern. How would that compare in down road performance to an actual projector headlight?

 

LEDs in and of them self don't produce enough heat
the SS3 Pro and Max in selective yellow trap enough visible light and that is what gets converted to heat that melts snow and ice (or that's my understanding)

 

That's definitely a contributing factor. The selective yellow lens is a fair bit hotter, but even the white SS3 Pro put out some good heat when Crash tested it
The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

 

LEDs don't radiate (much) heat from the light output end, but they conduct it directly to the chip junction. Since the SS3's board/heatsink mates directly to the diecast aluminum chassis and face bezel, the entire lamp gets warm as it works to shed heat from a relatively small footprint.

LED headlights with large lenses won't be able to do this the same way. Most heated LED lamps use tiny resistive heating wires embedded in the lens, the same way that window defrosters work.

Halogen lamps put out a ton of infrared radiation in addition to visible light, so they easily heat up headlight lenses (and anything blocking them).

 

Heated lenses are the path forward. Ideally tied to the mirror heat circuit. I’m hopeful we will see that with future generations of headlights.

In the meantime, I love my old trucks for bad weather.

 

I find this somewhat entertaining since we went to LED automotive lighting because generally speaking, LEDs draw far less power than incandescent lighting. This was deemed important because so many other things are vying for the limited amount of power available in modern vehicles. Now we're talking about adding heated lenses - which draw a significant amount of power - back in because the LEDs don't generate enough heat to melt snow. What goes round comes around.

 

Yes and no, right? Using power when needed and not wasting it when not needed. Summer/hot/heat/desert we want minimal heat, hence lens heaters off. Winter/cold/frozen/ice we want defrost but only when actually needed. The amount of power needed for this is minimal if properly directed. It's all about smart/efficient control systems. In fact, that's the most interesting part of LED headlights, the matrix/control options, yeah? The emitters themselves are rather dumb, just like a halogen bulb.

I actually find it enlightened more than backwards / circular.

Though, I do not mind my excessively hot halogens in the PNW. Now, down in San Diego where it's always warm and sometimes roasty toasty, I much preferred my LED headlights.

I don't think it's a massive amount of power to defrost the lens once in a great while when actually needed. Just like mirror heat, not a ton of power, very useful when needed, usually not necessary, possibly just a quick boot up from cold to clear them and good to go.

The next step is auto defrost based on sensors which detect moisture on the lens/mirror, no need to even push a button.

 

Don't forget emitter lifetimes compared to tungsten filaments!

 

As others mentioned LEDs will not work the same way in a modern headlight. The benefit in the pod is the relatively small aluminum body which doubles as the cooling heat sink and the relatively high power that causes that body to get hot, paired with the aluminum bezel on the face that attaches to the hot body which transfers heat to the outer edge of the face of the pod. Modern headlights are all plastic, which is an insulator that will not transfer heat, and have a large metal heat sink on the bottom or back of the headlight, so no heat makes it to the face. In the yellow fog pods, the yellow optic filters the light. Per the law of conservation of energy, energy can neither be created or destroyed. Light is energy, putting it through the yellow filter then removes a portion of that light/energy thereby turning it to heat and generating a heated lens. Legally headlights cannot be yellow, they must be white. So you cannot use color filtration to heat a headlight lens either.

The proper way to have heated LED headlights is with lens heaters, like the rear window defroster on a car. They are available, but so far only in standardized headlight sizes like 7" round or 4"x6". They are not available in any modern composite headlamp.

Here is the difference in a heated vs non-heated LED headlight in 28 degrees weather on my previous Gladiator using heated JW J3s. One heater was defective and this was discovered by that headlight icing up in the snow while the other did not.

Driver headlight at 107.4 degrees, defective passenger side at 29.5 degrees. A 77.9 degree difference.


In areas where snow is a concern for modern vehicles with composite headlamps, halogen is a better fit. It's also worth noting that the usual 6000k LED headlight color temp is very straining in the snow. You get significant reflection back at the driver off the snow fall, making the snow extremely bright and difficult to see beyond it. Very much a Star Wars light speed effect. You don't get that to the same effect with halogens.

JW specs 2A per heater. JWs also auto defrosts, no switches needed, they turn on automatically based on temperature.

 

Except that they don’t actually work. Minor detail. I’ll never trust them after your experiences. Just like me saying I can run a sub 5 minute mile. Sure, I did that once. But not gonna happen today in the cold.

 

One was defective out of the box, yes. The warranty replacement set worked. Very disappointing for such an expensive product from a well regarded brand.