Street legal LED fogs?
 

I'm trying to find some replacements for my factory fog lights and I want to go LED. I want to install them and not have to replace anything down the road. I also want to be able to use them on the street without blinding oncoming traffic. Rigid Industries, Inspired Engineering, and Vision X all seem to be good choices, but my concern is whether they'll be too obnoxious to other drivers. I plan on replacing my headlights with the new KC LED 7" headlights, but I'd still like to be able to supplement these just in case I need a little more light, even though they probably don't need supplementing.

I was concerned before about DOT approval on these lights, but I emailed a rep at Vision X asking if their lights were "DOT approved". They promptly responded, saying that there are no Federal regulations for auxiliary lighting and that state law would regulate auxiliary lighting. Just to be sure, I turned to Google.

Sure enough, the standards set by the Code of Federal Regulations can be found HERE. Just run a search for "auxiliary" to skip through the 100s of pages in this .PDF document. There are no regulations as far as brightness or beam pattern. It mainly just regulates mounting locations and stuff like that.

Here in Texas, the Texas Transportation Code only sets the following standard:

§ 547.305. RESTRICTIONS ON USE OF LIGHTS. (a) A motor
vehicle lamp or illuminating device, other than a headlamp,
spotlamp, auxiliary lamp, turn signal lamp, or emergency vehicle or
school bus warning lamp, that projects a beam with an intensity
brighter than 300 candlepower shall be directed so that no part of
the high-intensity portion of the beam strikes the roadway at a
distance of more than 75 feet from the vehicle.


So with this information, what kind of light would I be better off with as far as aiming the lights downward to keep the high intensity portion within 75 feet? Rigid Spots, floods, driving lights? Vision X 10, 20, or 60 degree light patterns?

Like I said, I just don't want to blind oncoming drivers and/or piss off the cops!

I just got the JW Speaker 6145 LED fog lights and I am very satisfied with them (minus having to ship one back bc it didn't work). Even with one fog light it is still a HUGE difference from the factory fogs, can't wait to have both on. New should come in tomorrow or Saturday.

I just might go that route since they are certified DOT approved which tells me they comply with all that Federal Regulation jargon. I saw a video on YouTube about them and they had a really funky color spectrum to them. It's like the beam was red around the edges or something like that.

Have you noticed any kind of non-uniformity to the beam pattern or beam color?

I swapped my factory fogs with LEDs and they are too bright when there's ACTUAL fog you have to drive through & makes things worse. If you just want them for more visibility in normal conditions, then I'd recommend getting them or trying just a bulb swap like found on eBay, otherwise it's not worth it IMO.

http://bit.ly/U59kjw

We never used to get fog here in D/FW but it's been foggy more and more lately. The weather here is nuts. Might look into some PIAA fogs or something.

I've heard mixed reviews on LEDs in the factory housings, how do you like those ones? What is the color like?

I went with the plug n play LED fogs from inspired-engineering you can see some still shots here (post 289)

https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/spon...8/#post3803566

and a night dashcam video here: (post 300)

https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/spon...8/#post3805226


.

I got these bulbs too, and a set of Amber ones too for the winter...love them

Check out this item I found on eBay: http://pages.ebay.com/motors/link/?n...d=271006845159

Sent from my obama monitoring device

It was actually your video that put Inspired Engineering on my list! Awesome price with the forum discount! Ugh... decisions, decisions...

So far I haven't noticed anything like that, seem fine to me but like said I only have one in, I will install the new one tomm and try and post pics. I haven't a chance to use it driving through dense fog only because fog hasn't been bad here lately.