The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

Fun story. This is my old 88 Toyota pickup with Hella H4 E-code conversions using a 12 AWG HD relayed headlight harness running the highly exotic 85/80w Osram Hyper bulbs. And despite running one of the most extreme halogen setups possible, the headlights were still attempting to freeze over in crossing the Cascade passes at night in a bad snow storm. Never underestimate the mountains.

 

This is an interesting idea, I still have lower bumper brackets in the garage.

Would SSC2’s fit or just SSC1’s?

 

The SSC1s and SSC2s are both the same height vertically, which I believe is the limiting factor in the location. I think the SSC1s might look a little better cosmetically and give more freedom in turning to the side, plus they have a tighter pattern than the SSC2 Pros and higher output intensity than the SSC2 Sports. I haven't tried it, it's just an idea. But if a light bar fits, a single row pod should as well.

 

Sold!

I assume I could rotate the optics 90* because the mount appears to be on the bottom of the housing.

Just need to wait for the next sale

 

I went out and put a gauge on the truck earlier. Surprisingly, the off-forward angle of that ribbed section of the front grille is right at 30 degrees. DD quotes 98 degrees of beam pattern for their SSC1 fog. So that’s 49 + 30, or almost 80 degrees of side shoot. A small printed shim could push it to 90.

I might bite the bullet and order a single flush mount and see what I come up with.

To be thorough, I hit the BD and Rigid websites. Rigid has their tiny ignite series which are right sized. But no favorable patterns. BD has their S1 in a wide cornering and I got real interested until I saw their spec was 42 degrees. That’s no bueno unless I’m misinterpreting and that’s 42 degrees off of forward for a total of 84.

Is it possible that BD quotes half beam angles? Nah, probably not.

 

My flush mounts were trimmed top and bottom only to reach 2" height. With some trimming on the corner it should fit here. It's a little too tall to put in middle spot without plastic trimming.






Feel free to pm me if you need specific measurements so we don't bog this thread down.

 

Will do.

 

Appreciate the link. I tried, but am just not feelin’ it for that location.

 

Victoria is only 50 miles North of Seattle and, given its location on the island, tends to have a more mild climate compared to the Lower Mainland. That said, once you get off the island and over to/ past the Coquihalla, conditions definitely tend to be worse than Washington passes. Last December, it took me 19 hours to drive from Banff to Vancouver. It’s normally a 9 hour drive, but road closures due to accidents, avalanche control work, and previous washouts plus heavy snow fall and challenging driving conditions slowed us down quite a bit. SS3 Max selective yellow fogs and Nokian Hakkapeliittas were the only things that made the drive manageable.

 

I broke down and ordered a set of Hakkapeliittas for our minivan. I love them so much on our Tacoma. Need to find a spare set of wheels now. Honda wheels are more work to find than Toyota.

 

Exactly my point. I've also had a 3.5 hour pass crossing abruptly close only to be rerouted across multiple last resort alternative passes adding +9 hours to the drive. So while I made an effort to cross the pass mid-day in the most optimal weather, with the 9 hour re-route, I was again going at night in a massive snow storm on a remote highway with no cell service. The SS3 Maxes were life savers.

 

Well, after chatting with lots of people regarding fog choices, I've decided to go with Diode Dynamics SS3 max with the backlights. Currently waiting for them to arrive so I can install 'em. Can't wait to see what they will be like compared to my wimpy halogen ones...

 

Trust me. You will not be disappointed. Make sure to aim them carefully / properly though.

 

These showed up today. 2Banger HXBs.


Review coming soon.

 

Shouldn’t those be 2&2/3rds Bangers?

 

Anyone know when the next DD sale is?

 

Looked through their FB page a few weeks ago with the same question and it looked like March they had a 2 day flash sale and May was the first expected sale (Memorial Day)

 

Need a "Light up your Love" VD sale

 

Borescope?

 

Morimoto 2Bangers HXB



The 2bangers are Morimoto's 1x2 emitter fog based on the same architecture as the 3 emitter 4banger. This is the first 1x2 fog pod to use the same high performance HXB emitters found in the SS3 Max and the 4banger HXB.

The 2banger HXBs are also available in 6000k white and lower power 2banger NCS versions.

Interesting logo cut out in the top of the bezel.


Like the 3 emitter 4banger, the 2banger has good cut offs with the highly focused HXB emitters and TIR optics. The pattern has a gradient with higher intensity at the top and lower at the bottom.


The beam pattern is just slightly less tall than the 4bangers which have a 3rd emitter placed below the main 2. For a fog, the reduction in pattern height with the 2bangers is actually a good thing vs the 4bangers taller pattern. Again the lower gradient isn't carried across the entire pattern, it would be nice if it did.


When comparing to Diode Dynamics SSC2 Pro, you can see the Pros do a better job of carrying the pattern intensity further out to the sides with a wider pattern. I only have the SSC2 Pros in white and 2banger HXBs in yellow for the side-by-side comparison, which admittedly isn't the most ideal as comparison shots will visually favor the white light source.

SSC2 Pro in white on top vs 2banger HXB yellow on bottom. The 2banger HXBs do have a nice yellow.


The 2bangers start out pulling about 31.2w

After 40 minutes runtime in 64 ambient they stabilize around 21.4w. A bit less than the official 24w spec.


Selective yellow 2bangers vs white SSC2 Pros at 18'


Now a white vs yellow comparison across different products isn't really a fair way to look at the numbers, as yellow will take filtration losses whereas white does not. However based on testing the SS3 Pros in white and yellow, and testing the 4bangers HXBs in white and yellow, I know what those losses are and can calculate the approximate equivalent for each lamps other color. The Morimotos HXB have a 29% filtration loss for yellow, and Diode Dynamics Pros have an 8% filtration loss for yellow.

So based on knowing the filtration losses for the banger HXB architecture and the Pro architecture, it is easy to calculate approximate comparables. I'd rather have measured data, but only have one of each lamp, so this will have to do and should be pretty close.

Calculated output comparison at 18':
2banger HXB yellow: 373 lux
SSC2 Pro yellow: 243 lux* (265 lux x.92)
2banger HXB white: 525 lux* (373 lux /.71)
SSC2 Pro white: 265 lux
*Lux is calculated based on known filtration loss from the other color

The patterns of course are different as pointed about in the comparison earlier, most notably the Morimotos lose pattern intensity a lot more rapidly to the sides of the pattern than the Pros do. Morimoto has a gradient that focuses higher intensity up top and it isn't as wide with better cut offs/less light spill whereas the Pros have a wider pattern that is more uniform than the 2Bangers with more light spill. Morimoto uses a pretty heavy filter for the selective yellow on the HXBs with the 29% output loss, but it does provide a very rich yellow. The Diode Dynamics Max which is not available in a 1x2 configuration incurs a 19% filtration loss by comparison. The Pros fair substantially better on filtration loss due to their 4000k emitter color which requires less correction vs HXB lamps using 6000k emitters.



Falls nicely in the selective yellow chromaticity window


Tested in 64 degrees F ambient, the 2bangers run +105 degrees on the lens for selective yellow. So they should be sufficient to clear snow hitting that +100 degree benchmark.


Note that filtration loss is what generates a heated lens/optic. Since the Morimoto Banger HXB series lights use a darker optic that incurs high filtration losses and thus generates more heat, these lenses/optics get quite hot. The white optics would not run this hot.

Something unique that I have not seen in the pod space before, these lamps have mechanically attached breathers that thread on. Typically breathers are a membrane that is put on with an adhesive and can be a weaker point for water intrusion. On the Tacoma for example, the passenger side wheel well is vented directly to the back side of the passenger fog. This means that the back of the fog is going to take significant spray and debris from the passenger side front tire. This breather design should be stronger than an adhesive based one.


The 2bangers use multiple bolts to secure the lamps to the mounting bracket with a fixed range of adjustment vs the traditional 1 like most pod lamps. The bracket can be shifted to use the rear bolt hold as the pivot point and forward bolt as the range adjustment to allow the pod to point the same direction as the bracket vs the 90 degree orientation as shown in the photo. But this means to move the pod though a full 90 degrees of rotation will require taking off the bracket and remounting it using the different mount points. In theory 2 bolts provides more stability and could make it less likely to accidentally adjust the aim when tightening the bolts, though in practice this seems a bit more complicated than necessary.


There are not a lot of options in the 1x2 architecture compact SAE fog space. The 2banger HXBs do have the highest intensity fog pattern in the 1x2 platform on the market today, but again have done so partially with more focal point in the pattern and less width intensity in the pattern but also by being the first in this platform size to use the powerful HXB emitters. The 4bangers pattern was pretty tall compared to the width, these 2bangers do make an improvement with a slightly shorter pattern height. It is exciting to see new high performing SAE fog products come to market, especially in the lesser common smaller sizes.