The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

Hella 500 Comet (yellow)



Hella Comets are the yellow version of the 500 fog. These are the original German made lamp and no longer in production. I managed to find some rare new in box old stock.


Made in Germany, things you rarely see for Hella assemblies anymore.


These Hella lamps do not use a yellow lens, instead they use a yellow reflector. Also worth noting the internal bulb glare shield for excellent light control. Looking into the back of the lamp, you can see the lens is clear and a hint of yellow reflected onto the glare shield.


These are stamped SAE F 88, much older than the current Indian SAE F 03. The numbers are the SAE compliance code date.


Powered on the lights do look yellow


Its yellow. But not the same rich level of yellow we've come to expect from the LED SAE selective yellow fogs. This is more of a warm white/yellowish halogen color.


Vs clear 500s


Looking at the normalized spectrum comparison, the yellow comet lamps (green plot line) are very effective at removing the short wavelength light for better poor weather performance.


However, looking at the absolute value comparison, the yellow reflector appears to be much less efficient, taking losses across the entire spectrum.


Hella 500 yellow vs clear with Osram Nightbreaker Laser +150s


The yellow lamps take a surprising 23% loss in output intensity compared to the clear lamps. This places the Hella yellow lamps just slightly above the DD Sport 4000k fogs in peak intensity (393 vs 376 lux).

Hella 500 yellow vs clear with Osram Superbright 100w bulbs (90w actual)


The yellow Hella lamps take a 26% loss in output intensity compared to the clear lamps. This places the lamps above the DD Sport 4000k fogs, but still below the Pro in peak output intensity. (Hella yellow 437, Sport 4000k 376, Pro 4000k 502 lux).

The losses are out of line for converting halogen white to yellow. Diode Dynamics 4000k LED white conversion to a much richer yellow incurs losses roughly 1/3 of what we are seeing on the Hellas with a much smaller color shift.

There are 2 variables that changed here.
I'm comparing German Hella lamps certified in 1988 vs Indian made Hella lamps certified in 2003 and white to yellow. The white to yellow losses seem far greater than they should be with the small color shift. The lamps could have had optimization improvements in that 15 year span. Computer modeling improved a significant amount during that time frame. The patterns do appear just slightly different. With halogens minimal light output in the short wavelength spectrum, I'd expect a much smaller drop in output performance than was observed. Seeing significant performance losses across the entire spectrum leads me to think that the lamp reflector in general is just not as good as the more modern Indian made counterpart, beyond just using a yellow reflector.

Something to keep in mind for comparison purposes, halogens put out minimal short wavelength light unlike LED, so a yellow halogen lamp isn't as big of an advantage vs a standard halogen lamp as it is for yellow LED output vs standard 6000k LED output.

Spectrum comparison of the Hella clear fogs vs 6000k DD Sport fogs


You can see that high amplitude spike in LED output isn't present in halogen output. While there is some short wavelength light, is is a minority of the output.

After seeing the performance of the clear 500 fogs from India, I really had higher expectations for these lamps. The losses are much greater than expected. Now I'm curious about trying a set of the yellow Indian made 500 fogs, which seem only for sale out of India, unlike the clear 500s which are widely available.

For additional info on the Hella 500s including things like thermals, see the original Hella 500 review.

 

Selective yellow painting

I tried painting the clear Hella 500 fogs yellow, following the procedure on Stern's site using the

$16 Dupli-Color VHT-MC202 Mtl Cast Yellow Anodized Enamel, 11 Ounce

Duplicator metalcast yellow. This is a commonly accepted practice for converting halogen lamps to selective yellow, but insufficient for LEDs due to the LED high color temp needing greater correction.

I went very light on the coats, applying 5 light initial coats and let dry for 1 week. I was careful to initiate and end the spray not facing the lamps to avoid irregularities/splotches in the spray pattern.


After 5 coats painted Hella yellow 500s top vs Hella Comet 500s bottom.


The painted yellow 500s clearly didn't have the desired color correction, it wasn't yellow, more of a very warm yellow-ish-white. It also seemed to affect the sharpness of the cut off. I started to question whether this is a legitimate solution.

German Comet 500 left vs Indian painted (5-coats) 500 right.


I added 4 more coats, trying to make them still very light, but just slightly heavier than the initial ones.


Cameras play funny tricks with lighting and color, but this is next to the DD 4000k sports. The lights look much more yellow with the additional coats.


I’d expect the pre and post painting output spectrum to look something like this for absolute (this is normalized). Output loss below ~520nm-ish, the short wavelength spectrum. This is what a yellow filter should accomplish, reducing the short wavelength light without significant effect to the longer wavelengths.

Painted Hellas green vs clear Hellas purple, both running Philips +150s


But here are the absolute measurements. Significant losses across the spectrum, resulting in massive output loss.

Painted Hellas green vs clear Hellas purple, both running Philips +150s


While halogens produce little short wavelenth light they seem to be incurring losses across the entire output spectrum with a yellow filter. That doesn't make sense.

For perspective context, the original Rigid D2 selective yellow fogs had some of the highest output filtration losses in the industry for selective yellow at 20% (but also the first selective yellow LED fog to market). Diode Dynamics has highly optimized 4000k emitter based selective yellow fogs with excellent efficiency at 7-8% loss.

Painting the lenses of the Hella 500s resulted in a crazy 42% output intensity loss.

Hella painted yellow lens vs clear 500 fogs w/ Philips +150 bulbs


Any light color change is achieved through a filter and filters reduce output. But in this case the color correction of a halogen to yellow shouldn't be greater than a higher color temp LED correction to yellow in a well executed scenario, since the halogens will require less color correction (aka filtration) than a typical 6000k LED, meaning the should incur lower losses.

Back to this picture.


My working theory is that the micro-fine surface texturing of the lens caused by the repetitive light coat painting has caused the outer lens to act as a diffusing surface, reducing the focused peak output intensity and diffusing the cut off. You can see the micro-texturizing in the reflection on the lens. The lens paint is smooth to the touch and the fluting of the lens is internal.

Very disappointing results. Evaluating repeating the experiment as I cannot believe this is the expected result.

 

Have you considered a "cut and buff" (wet sand then polish) process to level the outer surface? If I was a little closer to you, I'd do it for you.

 

Having done this exact thing several times- sometimes its the inital tack coat that gets hazy, and it is difficult to tell until all the following coats have been applied and dried. I've done headlamps on 2 vehicles, and various odds and ends lamps as well, I learned the hard way to watch the tack coat.

A double edged sword with this paint is that it adheres very well. The paint applied to the glass lenses on my 4runner were still largely intact besides a few chips from rock impacts after 2 year. But it can be a bear to remove. The first time I did I used brakleen to strip the paint. It worked well for that, but it was a huge PITA to get the lens completely clean of the brakleen, and I think I ended up having to repaint/strip/repaint/strip the same headlamp like 3-4 times before I realized what was causing it to film over when spraying the light tack coat.

If the orange peel like texture can be felt on the surface I would try to wet sand it with like 5k grit paper and see what the result is. If its the later coats that bubbled, that may restore the cutoff.

 

I’ll cross post this here, because it was shared here first that this product was in the works with much interest. But direct comments over in the headlight thread.

 

Anyone have a spare set of ss3 universal brackets they don’t plan to ever need? I can buy them myself but figured I’d ask in case anyone might benefit from some sort of trade for harness stuff.

 

Did you all see DD did a comparison of the SS3 and BD fogs on the gram?

edit: had a heck of a time tracking down the post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzXNLNPPu27/

 

Dead link for me, but it may be my browser

 

Might be more accessible via youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQVKtj_VJY8

 

Has anyone here tried the kapton tape on the lens method? I'd think you'd only have filtration losses doing it that way, no chance of mucking up the reflector. You'd also get a stronger yellow I'd think.

 

for what light? I know i did some laminx on my pro and max lights and after a while they got a nice burn mark in the middle lol

 

It wasn't the reflector that was affected, I think it added diffusion on the lens. But yes, tapes would not have that issue to the same extent in theory. However tapes also don't have the same level color correction ability. I haven't tried them to offer any supporting data though.

 

I tried going through this massive thread.. thanks for extensive work of testing and posting results but too much info for my brain. I would like to know if $300 for KC Hilites G4 is a best bang for the money or if some other fog(s) would be a stronger recommendations for the money?

 

I might be able to help you there since I once had the G4's. (They're still in my basement stash as a matter of fact.) The reason they're in the basement and not in any of my vehicles is that there are better (newer) options out there. The Diode Dynamics SS3 Sport and Elite are much better and right in the ball park on price. The Pro is a nice step up from them. There is another model - the Max - above them, but they're pretty pricey. Hope that helps.

 

Thanks...really appreciate it. I am actually reading about the DD Elites as you responded. I'll do some more research on them.

 

The G4s were among the best when this thread started, but lights have continued to progress. I'd look at the Diode Dynamics Elites or Sports in selective yellow if snow is not a concern, if the ability to melt snow is a concern then I'd recommend the SS3 Max in selective yellow.

 

I highly recommend the DD Elites , simple install, adjustable as if they were from factory and outstanding light. I have amber

 

This has got to be one of the greatest lighting reviews I've ever read. Don't even own a Taco but had to create an account just for this thread. One light I didn't see in there and am kind of interested in is the Rigid D-Series SAE Fog Yellow/White Model #30482. I tried searching and came up with nothing. Did I miss it in there somewhere?

 

Welcome to the forum! Plenty of others in the lighting threads that don't own Tacomas as well, as the lights are modular the vehicle is really irrelevant.

I have not reviewed the D-Series yellow/white fog model. However if you look at the 360 yellow/white dual color model that rolled out at the same time, the product was very flawed. Rigid apparently lacked testing on thermal roll-back, meaning their latest gen of Pro lights actually has lower output than the standard model. Major disappointment. The D-series is supposed to be slightly better than the 360s, but I'd expect the same product flaws as they were part of the same product update.
Review: Rigid 360 dual color

I brought this up with Rigid in advanced product testing. Rigid proceeded with production anyway. I later purchased production units used in the linked review and all the same flaws I called out remained unchanged. Not recommended.

Dual color is also not helpful. If poor weather demands the use of fog lights, selective yellow is the best performing by far. In what situation would you choose a lower performing color of LED white? In a situation where you don't need your fogs? Then they shouldn't be on. In a situation where you need them to see the edges of the roadway in poor weather? Then you want selective yellow for best performance. If you are in bad poor weather you want 100% of your fog output to be in selective yellow for best visibility. The idea to switch between colors for a fog light is gimmicky at best.

If someone would like to lend the D-series dual color fogs, I'll gladly include them, but being part of the same architecture update as the dual color 360s I wouldn't expect much better.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. That's some great insight. Looks like I'll be sticking with yellow.