foglights. a little information please!

joyriide1113

joyriide1113

There is no cure!
heres the thing. my car comes with hids and they're great. they illuminate the road really well. but, as we know, when it comes to rain, having hids really doesnt offer much illumination anymore.

so thats when foglights come in, right?!?

fog lgiht are designed to be used on this type of weather (snow, fog, rain, ect)

i think im right when i say retrofitting an hid kit into fogs is pointless, because the best lighting for fogs is a yellow amber color? i have many friends who put hid kits into their fogs and it looks dumb. they claim to see better but when driving in rain, its no better than the retro they did on their headlights. on toip of the fact some of them didnt even retrofit and blind the crap out of everyone.

so, what do u guys think of these bulbs to replace my stock fog light bulbs. would i lose visibilty because of the yellow coating, light u would with those cheapo blue wanna xenon bulbs?

http://automotivelightingusa.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=359

if not what would u guys sugegst. my fogs currently offer a light/white yellow color. but if theres something better, i want it!

remember, these are only for rain use and for the fog housing.
 
IMO (and I have nothing to back me up really) those bulbs are made for looks more than functionality. In your situation, I would guess that you are looking for function over form. I did the whole "super white" and colored lens thing with my headlights in my younger days, and I found out that colored headlights pretty much suck. That said...my Dad has a GS400 (HID) with factory yellow fogs and they cut through the fog pretty well. The kicker there is that the actual lens is where the color comes from...not the bulb itself. I think you're better off just going with higher wattage than worrying about color. Before you step up the wattage on any automotive lighting, make sure you scope out your wiring so you dont have any problems. Again, that is my opinion, and someone might proove me wrong.
 
Way2SSlow said:
Before you step up the wattage on any automotive lighting, make sure you scope out your wiring so you dont have any problems. Again, that is my opinion, and someone might proove me wrong.
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It might even be worth your while to check with someone that has used the higher wattage bulbs you have an interest in.
I have read of situations where the higher wattage caused damage to the actual light housing because of the increased heat.

Charles
 
Most of those coated bulbs actually lose light output, and as Charles said higher wattage might burn the wiring harness or the actual fog light lens. I think your best bet for a yellow look, although maybe not cosmetically desirable, would be to get some yellow film and put it on the fog light lens, similiar to the Lexus IS300 design. I've heard good things about Lamin-X, and when I get my generic fog lights for my car, I plan on ordering a couple sheets of Lamin-X (Clear) to protect my fogs from pitting and cracking.
http://www.lamin-x.com/
 
I had a cheap set of 'projector beam' for lights on my wife's Jeep...the ones where the vertical light is cut off by a combination of the lens design and a 'visor' inside the housing.

Nearly zero light went above horizontal, with the beam being cast in a "D" pattern, with the back (flat) part of the 'D' being the top edge. IMO, these lights were very effective. Unfortunately, lack of care allowed the powdercoating to devlop cracks, exposing the aluminum housing to salt and the lights literally rotted apart. I'm sure with proper care and a little silicone caulk applied prior to installation, these little lights would still be working properly.

The really nice thing about them was their compact size...they can be put nearly anywhere and even the cheap "BLAZER" brand lights available at Walmart have a light output quality very close to the much more expensive PIAA lights.

Mini projector beam lighting

mini_projector_fog_lights_1.gif
 
I'm fairly night blind and have routinely researched lighting for my cars over the years, so there's a little science behind my opinion but mainly real life experience.

whether hid or halogen, I find the blue end of the spectrum seems to disappear in weather, especially rain but ice as well. moisture appears to suck the illumination and any reflective qualities right out of the beam. white's better but amber is my choice for fog lights.

piaa is my recommendation for upgrading bulbs, and I'm running ion crystal h3 in my fog lights. they do a fine job of lighting the road from the front of the car to the bottom of the headlight beam. highly recommended, and they have really cool spectrum-like halos around the outside edges of the beams.

I've read quite a few threads about lighting on acura forums, and lots of folks have run nokya. could have a lot to do with installation, but from what I've read of nokya and less expensive bulbs, the lifespan's pretty short (like a year or less). all my external bulbs in my acura are piaa (five plus years and still going), and the only bulb I've ever replaced was a wedge bulb I crushed switching it from one housing to another. the only real criticism I've read of any piaa bulbs would be price, but in my experience longevity offsets replacement cost.

I'm also a big fan of protective film. I replaced my headlight, foglight, and bumper lense housings last year and covered all of them with stoneguard. I checked the website and didn't see anything other than paint protection, so maybe they dropped their pre-cut lense covers altogether. kind of a shame. regardless, I feel better having protection on those somewhat delicate pieces.
 
marko said:
I'm fairly night blind and have routinely researched lighting for my cars over the years, so there's a little science behind my opinion but mainly real life experience.

whether hid or halogen, I find the blue end of the spectrum seems to disappear in weather, especially rain but ice as well. moisture appears to suck the illumination and any reflective qualities right out of the beam. white's better but amber is my choice for fog lights.
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It's not just you...'blue' is a difficult color for the human eye. Read this exerpt from "Daniel Stern Lighting Consultance and Supply":

Blue and violet are very difficult for the human optical system to process correctly. They are the shortest visible wavelengths and tend to focus in front of our eyes' retinae, rather than upon it. To demonstrate this to yourself, find a dark blue store front sign or something else that's a dark, pure blue against a dark background in the absence of white light. From any appreciable distance, it's almost impossible for your eyes to see the blue lighted object as a sharply defined form...the edges blur significantly.) Blue also is a very difficult color of light to look at if it is at all intense...it stimulates the reaction we call "glare". So, culling the blue out of the spectrum lightens the optical workload and reduces glare. For more in-depth discussion of the matter, see Bullough & Rea's excellent study on the topic.
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