LED Fog Light VS Halogen

[alfierenadhie]

 

[Desertnate]

A lot of these aftermarket LED solutions bother me. The optics of those lights were not designed to accomodate a light source as bright as an LED nor a light source emmiting from a different place in the housing. This creates a lot of glare for other drivers.

I think they also missed the point of fog lights. They aren`t supposed to be driving lights (big difference) and having a bulb which puts out light in a temperature on the yellow side of the spectrum actually cuts through fog rain better than something more towards the blue end of the spectrum. It doesn`t help that most cars these days don`t have the lamps aligned properly to function as actual fog lights and simply become cosmetic.

 

[Oneheadlite]

Sorry to be a Negative Nancy, but I just can`t click a Youtube link when the guy`s first whole page of forum posts (and most of his in general) are links to his videos. If you`re looking to generate ad revenue/hits/etc, I`d rather support a forum contributor that`s in more conversations.

Without watching the video, I`m in Desertnate`s camp though.

 

[The Driver]

A lot of these aftermarket LED solutions bother me. The optics of those lights were not designed to accomodate a light source as bright as an LED nor a light source emmiting from a different place in the housing. This creates a lot of glare for other drivers.

I think they also missed the point of fog lights. They aren`t supposed to be driving lights (big difference) and having a bulb which puts out light in a temperature on the yellow side of the spectrum actually cuts through fog rain better than something more towards the blue end of the spectrum. It doesn`t help that most cars these days don`t have the lamps aligned properly to function as actual fog lights and simply become cosmetic.

Spot on, that said there are LED bulbs that are designed for Halogen housings. Phillips uses a reverse firing design (Which I have in my tails) and Vleds makes a very $$$$ bulb called a triton series which uses "digital filament" to disperse light perfectly in a halogen/incandesent housing (which I also have in my turn signals). Both are VERY impressive.

 

[Stokdgs]

I watched the video.. It looks like even from the video that the - reflected glare - from those fog lights might be a problem to the driver`s eyes... Anyone that has driven in fog, extreme fog, or snowy conditions knows what I am talking about..

I always make those 4k mile round trips to Texas at night and really want the best lights available for getting way down the road..
Want to be able to see well in advance if possible, the big buck, etc., standing in the road or on the side of the road, about to launch..

Yellow fog lights or lights like that, have been the norm for fog lights since they were invented.. You really do want something to cut through that ground fog, without much glare, and help keep you on the road, between the lines...

Totally agree with Nate that these led bulbs for fog lights will never be driving lights..

Perhaps someone will actually do the engineering and come up with bulbs that really do work and are made to work with the reflector in the back of the fog lights, are aimed correctly on the road, etc..

Dan F

 

[The Driver]

The only two I`d use for fogs.

GTR lighting Ultra series
https://gtrlighting.com/gtr-lighting-ultra-series-led-headlight-bulbs-9004-hb1-3rd-generation/

Vleds Tritions (Which are focusable via the ring below the diode itself)
VLEDS

These are both very effective and the GTR`s actually have a cut-off built into the design (Hence the price).

 

[PPLd]

Hi,

I actually wrote a review on Philips X-treme Ultinon LED light before on another forum.
For those interested you can click the link down there but let me show you some photos here

Conclusion:
There is no glare and they provides a good amount of light.
But the greenish tint color render (pun intended) them less ideal as fog or general lighting.
No next time, Philips, particularly they are 50% more expensive than the major competitor but have lower wattage.


https://www.hkepc.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=2416277

 

[TheMeanGreen]

I watched the video.. It looks like even from the video that the - reflected glare - from those fog lights might be a problem to the driver`s eyes... Anyone that has driven in fog, extreme fog, or snowy conditions knows what I am talking about..

I always make those 4k mile round trips to Texas at night and really want the best lights available for getting way down the road..
Want to be able to see well in advance if possible, the big buck, etc., standing in the road or on the side of the road, about to launch..

Yellow fog lights or lights like that, have been the norm for fog lights since they were invented.. You really do want something to cut through that ground fog, without much glare, and help keep you on the road, between the lines...

Totally agree with Nate that these led bulbs for fog lights will never be driving lights..

Perhaps someone will actually do the engineering and come up with bulbs that really do work and are made to work with the reflector in the back of the fog lights, are aimed correctly on the road, etc..

Dan F

Dan, you want the best lights for driving, what type of vehicle are you making these trips in and how mechanically inclined are you?

 

[TheMeanGreen]

This is what I want my LED swap to look like.

Just kidding, I`ll stay with HID

 

[Stokdgs]

The Mean Green -------------

Thanks for your reply !

I have a 2009 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 4x4 with the last of the large reflector Low Beam HID lights.. And a separate High-Beam housing that is an upgraded Piaa bulb, halogen.. The Jeep line started into those tiny long HID`s from 2010 on..

My other vehicle is a 2007 Acura TL Type-S, which also had HID`s but they are much smaller and narrower than the Jeep`s HID`s..

Have always felt that the more light one has going down the road, the better.. More equals to me, bigger housing for reflection, to start, and of course, bigger, focused beams..
The trends to brighter and brighter is going like crazy; yet I see so many people with Purple lights (very inefficient, worse than stock lights), I just can`t believe they are not getting it..

I suppose if you upgrade your lights with whatever, and you drive on well lit roads and freeways in the city, you will never know what it is like driving at high speeds at night in total darkness except for your vehicle lights in front of you.. Way big difference in my experiences..

The roads I drive between Northern CA and Texas are a lot of very dark, no lighting, etc., period, roads with lots of wildlife, getting whacked along them sometimes..
I don`t want to be one of those guys that hit those things.. And these are Interstates..

Of all the vehicles I have owned in my life, the BMW`s I was so lucky to own all had the best Halogens, and then HID lights, I had ever seen, driving these same dark roads, and I have been driving these roads since 1969.. Yeah, a long....time...

Not sure if there is anything that could improve these vehicle`s lights but if there is, I am all about learning...

Tks,
Dan F

 

[TheMeanGreen]

The Mean Green -------------

Tks,
Dan F

To all, please forgive me for thread jacking.

Dan,

There is always room for improvement.

Checkout HIDplanet.com, The Retrofit Source, and LightWerkz Global, as good resource. Right now, with my quick google search of the Jeep, it looks like it utilizes the 9005 halogen high beam, I have excellent news for you, there is an upgrade to this bulb, better than what you have now and it is the 9011. This bulb is not a true HIR, but the current 9011 Philips bulb does produce 300 more lumens than a 9005, 9011= 2000 lumens/bulb, 9005 = 1700 lumens/bulb. The only modification to make the bulb fit is trimming the ears of the mount to 9005 shape, this is much cheaper than LED bulb upgrades. I too have a lot of night driving experience where I am the only one on the road at speed, its nice, you know how it is. With my 9011`s (GS300 in my previous photo above, high beam is the smaller reflector) I get about 1.3 miles (flat road) of reflector pickup, perfect for catching retina reflections. For your HID low beam, I think it was HID D2S, the OSRAM Nightbreaker Laser is the brightest HID bulb currently on the market and could be of benefit, however to take full advantage of its potential, it needs to be in a projector, but is an upgrade nonetheless.

In regards to HID projectors, the RX350 AFS projector is about as good as it gets (only thing better is an LS460 projector, super $$$$), for the money. Pictured above is an RX350 with AFS projector, also has clear lens swap and OSRAM Nightbreaker Laser, good for about 3500 lumens per bulb. That combo (from the middle highway lane) gives coverage of 8 total lanes with me in the middle, and the distance is something that one just needs to see because it`s so ridiculous. I plan on wiring a circuit to utilize the DRL (massive) RX350 9005 housing so that I can use it as distance lights and convert the 9005 to a 9011 for a grand total of ~11000 Lumens w/o fogs....... Yeah, the BMW`s have pretty good lighting and the current LED is impressive, but retrofitting with the right parts will put anything the modern OEM offers to shame, except Laser Lighting as far as output is concerned. Needless to say, there is more capability for your TL projectors in the form of a clear lens swap, upgraded bulbs, and projector tuning, if you don`t want to retrofit to RX350 projectors. For the Jeep, it depends on your budget, there is a lot of space in those headlights and one could utilize all of it, haha.

For simple auxiliary lighting that is plug and play/ bolt on, Baja Designs makes the best lighting. After being on the Rigid bandwagon, and then doing research about Baja Designs, I jumped the wagon. Baja Designs takes a modular approach where you can buy the different lenses for their lights and the lights are more lumen dense per comparable size, to other companies.

For possible LED bulb upgrades, VLED`s, Morimoto, GTR Lighting, and Diode Dynamics have pretty good products.

With regards to "purple lights", if the purple light is being emitted from a projector you are most likely seeing the top of the projector cutoff called the color band and observing the OEM`s shift towards using ~5500K bulbs, whereas they used to use ~4300K HID bulbs. There are many factors that go into lighting and could keep this post going on forever, so I`ll now stop. ha.

 

[Stokdgs]

The Mean Green -------------

Whoa - Thanks for the awesome, detailed, info !!!
I am mechanically inclined and have even worked on multilayer pc boards at the assembly/rework/modifications level, so wiring, de-soldering, soldering, etc., using a dmm is easy..

You have obviously, done much research and I DID notice the huge light output in your Lexus lights in the picture - I just knew that was NOT stock.. Looks great, performs outstanding I am sure, and that pic you took was in the rain..

Both my vehicles have self-leveling lights, so whatever I do will not be blinding to others driving the opposite direction, so that is one good thing already..

I will for sure, check out all your info and see what I can do to improve the lighting...
This will be fun !!!

The Acura, since the lights are much smaller and narrow could really use the help the most.. The stock HID`s are fine for around town, etc., but as we both know, on the dark, dark, highway at night, not so great..

And yes, the Jeep has huge lights in the last of the typical squarish design; the low beam HID reflector is around 8" in diameter alone, the high beam reflector is around 6" in diameter..

Great, great, help, Amigo !!!!!

Thanks so much !!!
Dan F

 

[Accumulator]

Guess I don`t need to waste bandwidth on a Rant about people running their fogs all the time because "all those lights look cool" or whyever they do it

All ours except the Crown Vic have fogs, and I could probably count on my fingers the number of times I`ve used them this century; just not that much fog in my area I guess.

 

[Desertnate]

Spot on, that said there are LED bulbs that are designed for Halogen housings. Phillips uses a reverse firing design (Which I have in my tails) and Vleds makes a very $$$$ bulb called a triton series which uses "digital filament" to disperse light perfectly in a halogen/incandesent housing (which I also have in my turn signals). Both are VERY impressive.

For either set of the bulbs mentioned are they "plug and play"? I`ve toyed with the idea of LED tails and blinkers in the past, but the bad optics and a need to add other electronic components which allow them to blink correctly and not throw codes due to voltage differences always held me back. I`m not thrilled with my tail lights. I feel both the brake lights and the blinkers are a bit dim during daylight/full sun scenarios.

Hi,

I actually wrote a review on Philips X-treme Ultinon LED light before on another forum.
For those interested you can click the link down there but let me show you some photos here

Conclusion:
There is no glare and they provides a good amount of light.
But the greenish tint color render (pun intended) them less ideal as fog or general lighting.
No next time, Philips, particularly they are 50% more expensive than the major competitor but have lower wattage.

https://www.hkepc.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=2416277

6500K lights are way too blue for me. I prefer the OEM 4500~5500 which are more in the daylight/white lite part of the spectrum. I like the idea though. They look like less of a hassle than a high quality HID kit. As long as you have a good projector housing for them....

Guess I don`t need to waste bandwidth on a Rant about people running their fogs all the time because "all those lights look cool" or whyever they do it

No real need, but you robbed us all of a post to "like". It drives me up the wall too.

All ours except the Crown Vic have fogs, and I could probably count on my fingers the number of times I`ve used them this century; just not that much fog in my area I guess.

Most of my cars have them too. I`m not sure my wife and daughter even know how to turn them on! I`ve noticed most non-European cars in the US with fog lamps aren`t even designed to work as such. They aren`t even pointed in the right direction, i.e. down and to the side. I`ve lived all over and never had to use them in the US. However, when I lived in the UK, the only way I made it home from work several nights were my front fog lamps lighting up the stripes on the road to either side of my car and my rear fog lamp keeping someone from running me down from behind. At least once I remember driving with my wife and kids on the Motorway and all you could do was follow the rear fogs of the car in front of you. Fog too thick to see the tail lights or much else around you.

And speaking of rear fog lamps! I really doubt many Americans know what they are or the fact their European cars have them! It seems Volvo`s, Audi`s, Jags, and Range Rovers all them and they come on with the front fogs. When not in foggy/rainy/snowy conditions they are blinding to people behind them!

Too bad its not illegal and a ticketable offence to use fogs in clear weather like it is in the UK.

 

[Accumulator]

Desertnate- Yes indeed, the Rear Fogs are good to have. Especially with so many drivers being, uhm....the way they are.

 

[Coleroad]

I agree the rear fog lights are great. I wish they would make it mandatory here like in the EU. All cares should have side repeaters too.

 

[mobiledynamics]

Have not read this thread in whole. Depending on chassis you may also find OE fitment of Fog Projectors from overseas (seems to be ebay sellers from Latavia) that fits into the tungsten/halogen spots. Have done this in past model

 

[TheMeanGreen]

For either set of the bulbs mentioned are they "plug and play"? I`ve toyed with the idea of LED tails and blinkers in the past, but the bad optics and a need to add other electronic components which allow them to blink correctly and not throw codes due to voltage differences always held me back. I`m not thrilled with my tail lights. I feel both the brake lights and the blinkers are a bit dim during daylight/full sun scenarios.


6500K lights are way too blue for me. I prefer the OEM 4500~5500 which are more in the daylight/white lite part of the spectrum. I like the idea though. They look like less of a hassle than a high quality HID kit. As long as you have a good projector housing for them....

I have upgraded to LED bulbs in my tails, turn signals, and reverse lights. Depending on your vehicle, you can buy an LED specific relay for the turn signals (Diode Dynamics or TapTurn, I have TapTurn). For taillights, you can either buy canbus specific bulbs or you can make a mini wiring harness to go between the oem harness and the bulb socket, you can add a resistor to the mini harness. For tail lights, I live with my tail light warning light because it isn`t a good idea to add resistors to tail lights, the resistors slow down their activation. I have had the JDM Astar bulbs specific to my vehicle for almost two years without any problems, they are affordable, not the most expensive and not the cheapest. The light output is great for a three sided LED bulb, nice and even and bright, relative to the bulb. Of course the shape of the housing is important, mine are circular and find the output acceptable. The importance of optics really only becomes a concern with regards to a vehicles driving lights. With the brightness of the bulbs in my tail lamps, the tail lamps pretty much act as functional fog lights. Since I installed the bulbs, I have never had a problem with someone tailgating me during inclement weather.

 

[TheMeanGreen]

Here are some photos to aid in research:
All bulbs are JDM Astar, 7440 turn signals F/R, 7443 Tail/stop lights, and 921 Reverse lights
Photo process: Today, 9:50pm, iPhone 6s camera, little to no moon light, no flash, no editing, let the phone focus itself.

Notice the light striations on the fence, they are all consistent and do not make any weird shapes relative to the shape of the bulb.

Lit ground for rear tail lights is within legal limit of the State of Texas

OEM GS300 Tail light housing for reference

I know the quality of the photos isn`t the best, the tail lights and reverse are 90% accurate representation and the turn signals are about 80% accurate representation of brightness.

 

[Oneheadlite]

For either set of the bulbs mentioned are they "plug and play"? I`ve toyed with the idea of LED tails and blinkers in the past, but the bad optics and a need to add other electronic components which allow them to blink correctly and not throw codes due to voltage differences always held me back. I`m not thrilled with my tail lights. I feel both the brake lights and the blinkers are a bit dim during daylight/full sun scenarios.

Don’t forget to take into consideration if your car has bulb monitoring- it’s not just defeating the warning in the dash, it’s quelling the bulb check flicker. In my experience the “CAN bus” LEDs are able to fool the bulb check into not tripping the warning, but due to the low power required to light the LED they end up “wig wagging” the light during the bulb check cycle if the lights are off.
Was going to put in LED reverse light bulbs to aid nighttime reversing with tinted windows, but found out they’d rapidly blink a few times at a regular interval. I’m sure with enough effort I could find a capacitor to absorb the little voltage applied during the bulb check, I just elected to leave them alone. A friend of mine with another avant did LED foglights, his fogs wig wag unless they’re switched on. (Making him one of those guys...)

+1 for the benefits of rear fog lights. I use mine when conditions require, as well as a 2 stage brake light of sorts to try and keep people off my back bumper during big braking events. (Guess I should rethink the effectiveness though, since I still collected a teenager who was looking over her shoulder when the rest of us were stopping).

Another perk is that during big snowfalls, the back of the avant collects a lot of snow. With (factory) LED taillights, there’s no heat in the housing to keep the lens clear. Except where the incandescent rear fog bulbs live.