Ok, I will give you my secret recipe for fog lights, don't tell anybody........ requires some glue and a bit of sandpaper... order a pair of these in the 10 degree version. https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...aux-2in-modular-led-off-road-work-light/1699/ then order a pair of these https://www.amazon.com/MagicShine-G...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=4AAJY9TV1TVE852EJ7GX You will have to sand the edge of the wide angle lens to reduce the overall diameter until it fits on the surface of the front of the light. Then use a dab of DAP clear flexible sealant glue on the FLAT surface of the wide angle lens then press it on to the front of the light until all air is removed and some glue leaks out on the edge. the lines on the wide angle lens need to be vertical. This stuff drys crystal CLEAR, silicon glue drys foggy....... http://www.dap.com/dap-products-ph/flexible-clear-sealant/ Now this combination is not very wide for a fog but it is just right for my needs. You are welcome to adapt to your needs. I have used this process on other lights...... If you want wider then go to your local glass supplier and ask for "1/8 inch reed glass" and have them cut it to what you need..... The one on the left was the original one that I used with halogen lights. It uses the 1/8 inch reed glass and was very wide angle and made a big difference in seeing the sides of the road. However when I went to led headlights I could not tell if they were on because the led headlight was so much better. The second light is the 10 degree spot. the third light is one with the above recommended lens glued in place. Tthe fourth one is an experiment (that works) to reduce glare for a driving light. it has some aluminum tape blocking the center of the light..... use at your own risk to seeing better at night.....
Interesting!!! Now, how much brighter are them after the hack..??? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Ah... less bright. if you take a bright spot and spread out the light then it will be less bright, but you are now putting the light where you need it. As a rider I want to see what is on the side of the road as well as down the road. I do not need to light up the stars above nor the ground below but rather the far horizon that i am heading toward...
it spreads the light horizontally. 10 x 30. not a big round spot. The horizontal beam puts most of the light out on the horizon where you need it. A round spot puts less light on the horizon and too much light close in on the road right in front of the rider. This causes glare that causes the riders eyes to constrict so he does not see as well into the darkness. Plus light is wasted into the sky. the horizontal beam is best for open roads where you need to see far. Now if you are an off road rider. You might want light everywhere. Riding tight trails you can not see far anyway because of the trees and rocks. So different rules apply.
That's a clever mod you did there. Kudos to you for thinking like an optics engineer. I'm sure many of you may already know this.... When light has to go through a refractor, the final light output is about 20-30% less than before, depending on clarity, thickness, and shape of the refractor medium. If light is put where you need it by using just the reflector, the final light output is higher, no more than 5%-15% light loss, depending on how specular the reflector material is.
There are some who quote Daniel Stern and his panel of experts to explain why fog lights are bad. They are correct to say that close in glare reduces your far vision but they are wrong to say fog lights are useless in clear weather. They only consider three elements and miss the most important reason why using your fog lights actually helps your vision at night. The headlights are mounted high and are more in line with your eyes so they create flat lighting. Fog lights are low to reduce glare from fog, but they also create shadows when there is no fog. If you look at the full moon it looks flat and featureless. If you look at a quarter moon you will see mountains and craters. If you look at the walls of your room they look smooth and flat. But if you use a flashlight and place on the wall with the beam shining across the surface you will see imperfections that you did not know were there.... Cross lighting is called modeling light in photography. It helps to see the 3D features that is lost with flat lighting. So it is not the light that is added by the fog light but rather the shadows that it creates that improves your 3D perception on road and off road! Many offroaders have discovered this and mount lights low and call them rock lights. I use my fog lights on road because it helps me see the whats on the road better. So the next time you are out try looking at the shadows created by your fogs. Then turn off the fogs and watch the shadows go away.... Now you know why fogs are useful......
So along this line I have discovered an awesome fog light. It has both a upper and low cutoff. The beam is thin, clean and flat. It is way better than my above DIY fog lights. way less glare for on coming traffic. They are DOT compliant. https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...fog-light-3-square-13w-1700-lumens/3542/7536/
Good job finding that LED fog light. LED fogs - affordable ones! - are hard to find. The beam pattern for that light Looks good against the wall. The expensive guys, Hella, produce a perfect rectangle shape, w/ sharp corners. So, for $50...this baby of yours aint bad at all...
That "glare" on the bottom of the screen is not really very bright. it gets lost in my low beam light. The camera makes it look brighter than it is. When mounted low it is only a foot or so out and not where you are looking. There is a simple way to fix it with a little black tape on the tube behind the lens..... If I get some time i will fiddle with but it is really a non issue.... Ok. I took one apart and put white electrical tape around the tube. I trimmed the excess tape off with a razor. It got rid of the two biggest flares and evened out the weak close in light... (this is not necessary to do but sometimes inquiring minds want to know.....)
I was wondering why the driving light was 20 watts and the fog was only 13 watts? Looking under the hood and checking the data sheets it looks like it can be done. Yes, I did the calcs, and they will be running at full power at 20 watts. YOU DO NOT NEED to do this but there are some who would like to know... tread softly here.... How to modify the fog light. If you have never done this before then find someone else who has. This requires fine soldering skills. The circuit board is not a standard FR4 PCB but rather a thin film over a copper core. It does require a large hot tip and you need to be quick..... a fine tip tweezers to place and hold the resistor. a big magnifying glass or a stereo microscope really helps. Kind of like soldering a grain of sand.... welcome to my world... R4 and R5 are empty pads. By adding a 0.360 ohm (360 milliohms) [ R36 ] resistor to these two locations increases the wattage from 13 watts to 20 watts. https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetai...=sGAEpiMZZMtG0KNrPCHnjbviVnP99fKErtlahldQbxw= You will need 4 resistors, two for each lamp. You can see the two green R36 resistors that I added in the photo, one just above the screw and the other is on the top middle. This will increase the light output by 50%, which is a slight improvement. Repeat - you do not need to do this. This is just for your information.
