Yellow Fogs in Dust?

[Allof75]

I'm looking to upgrade my factory fog lights, and I'm curious, do yellow foglights do anything to cut through the dust when trail running?

I have been frequently blinded by the kicked up dust when in an area like Ocotillo Wells, which is full of motorcycle riders and prerunners creating dust, and I would obviously like to end this. My theory is along the lines of how orange lights are frequently used in the Baja 1000 to cut through the dust and aid visibility, then perhaps yellow will help as well.

I know the information is dubious at best on helping in the rain, but if anyone has personal experience with an improvement there as well, I'd be more than happy to hear.

My ideal setup would be a powerful LED replacement H3 bulb, and probably a yellow Lamin-X cover, though I will probably go with a conventional bulb of the clear or yellow varieties. I like the look, I'm just hoping there can be a practical application to push me over the edge to put it together. :sombrero: Any recommendations for the bulb are greatly appreciated as well!

Thank you!

 

[4xdog]

I've run yellow fogs (Hella 500) for years on my XJ, and I've used from time to time on various cars a set of vintage Norma H4 jaune bulbs I picked up in France in 1984. I like the yellow fogs but I'm not sure anything will cut through dust. I used to get pulled over all the time with yellow H4's -- they never gave me a ticket when I showed the section that stated "no color except white or amber shall be shown at the front of the vehicle". One cop was smart enough to know my H4's weren't legal at the time... On my 1962 Triumph TR3 I don't think they much care, or it's so old they have no idea.

Daniel Stern's writeup on selective yellow has been posted on ExPo before, but it's probably time again for the link:
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/lights/light_color/light_color.html

Note that he references yellow HID capsules from Philips and gives part numbers. I've never seen these, but kinda like the idea.

Don

 

[Dirtytires]

Get some glass paint and try it . you can remove it if you don't like it by using thinner. Stained glass paint can be found at most craft stores.

 

[grimbo]

Haven't used yellow foggiest but did use to wear yellow lenses goggles in my Samurai to counter dusty conditions and they did work considerably better than polarized sunglasses.

The thing is with fog lights and dust in daylight I can't imagine they will do much and if it is night the glare would be blinding

 

[Hilldweller]

Yellow tint films are NOT optically clear and you'll lose about 20% of your light just to the film, a little more to the tint itself.
No tint adds light. None. They all take away light.
That said, there are conditions where selective yellow can/may help a little; Stern's article directs you to the research.
And many people prefer the color. I'm one of them and have used the Duplicolor Metalcast Yellow on lenses with success.

I doubt it would "help" in dust. A quality well-aimed light would be a better investment. I'd want a really good HID with a very distinct cut-off I think.

Do your research on this forum and you can chat with automotive lighting professionals about it. Scheinwerfermann is a good one to pay attention to there as well as AlaricD.

 

[Allof75]

Yellow tint films are NOT optically clear and you'll lose about 20% of your light just to the film, a little more to the tint itself.
No tint adds light. None. They all take away light.
That said, there are conditions where selective yellow can/may help a little; Stern's article directs you to the research.
And many people prefer the color. I'm one of them and have used the Duplicolor Metalcast Yellow on lenses with success.

I doubt it would "help" in dust. A quality well-aimed light would be a better investment. I'd want a really good HID with a very distinct cut-off I think.

Do your research on this forum and you can chat with automotive lighting professionals about it. Scheinwerfermann is a good one to pay attention to there as well as AlaricD.

I definitely wasn't implying the tint was going to increase lighting power by any means, I did read that article, and what I could surmise from it is that the loss is relatively negligible because yellow actually can aid the eye in peering through. And this is for night-time purposes primarily, my foglights are factory integrated glass units from Nissan, so I'd imagine relatively high quality. There are no upgraded replacement options for them, so what I would do, should I go the HID route, is get the H3 HID conversion kit from Amazon most likely, and then swap them in. I'd put a lens cover on there because it's easily reversible, and protects the light housing itself a bit.

 

[eggman918]

To me the yellow tint help with potholes and the like the yellow adds contrast and holes,rocks and ruts seem to show up better.

 

[bob91yj]

Desert racers run a high mounted amber light on the back of the car so that a trailing car will see them but not be blinded by the light. Is it more visible in the dust than any other color, questionable. The drivers in our Jeepspeed car liked yellow's in the conventional headlamp locations to complement the high mounted HID light bar. I think it's as much a personal preference thing as anything.

I used to wear yellow lense glasses for night driving, recently tried some light rose lenses, liked them better than the yellow for cutting glare.

 

[Allof75]

Desert racers run a high mounted amber light on the back of the car so that a trailing car will see them but not be blinded by the light. Is it more visible in the dust than any other color, questionable. The drivers in our Jeepspeed car liked yellow's in the conventional headlamp locations to complement the high mounted HID light bar. I think it's as much a personal preference thing as anything.

I used to wear yellow lense glasses for night driving, recently tried some light rose lenses, liked them better than the yellow for cutting glare.

Thank you! Just the kind of information I was looking for, obviously you have plenty of experience in the desert- my primary locale of wheeling. I'll probably add an LED white lightbar at some point, but if this helps with the glare, it'd be great. Are those yellow bulbs or are they covers?

And I hadn't even thought of glasses at night, that could be interesting.

 

[Hilldweller]

Don't put HID capsules into the stock fogs; the light source is oriented wrong and they'll seem bright but the focus will be wrong. Best analogy is a Maglight with the bezel twisted all the way in the bad direction. If you look at the Maglight, it still seems uber-bright but if you try to look with the light you'll be twisting back to where it belongs.

For aux lights in the desert, I'd go with some aftermarket HIDs. I tinted the lenses on mine with the Duplicolor method that Dan Stern links --- just a bit of tint to bring down the color temperature. I think I used 3 coats.
To me it seems like the bounce-back off the dust is less harsh. Also seems like I can see contrast better, see rabbits and rocks sooner/better. Could be Mr Subjective speaking but I like it better.

The yellow bulbs aren't an improvement. Nobody makes a good one. They aren't horrible though and I've used them in the past.

Check with Scheinwerfermann on Candlepower forum about upgrading your headlights though. He might know something and probably knows who designed them....

 

[stioc]

I have the EU spec yellow fog bulbs in my stock fog lamps that I purchased from Candlepower, they're designed for foggy/rainy conditions. Honestly IMHO there's no light that will peer through a cloud of dust in a manner that will aid the driver in seeing beyond the wall of dust. However, they may help the car in front to see you. While not the same thing that you're talking about but I've been in situations where you're in a caravan and the cloud of dust created by 3 or 4 trucks in front is completely blinding. In this case the rear facing lights help the truck following behind from not rear ending you. Besides keeping more distance a sharper focused light may help- most LED bars are flood pattern and will only make the white-out worse as the dust will reflect the wide flood pattern more. Just my opinion and some experience, I'm not even close to being an authority on off road lighting

 

[1stDeuce]

I have an old (like 10 years+) set of IPF's that have an amber tint to them. I got them from an ARB rep directly to use for running Sweep in SCCA Pro Rally events because they wanted feedback on the amber tint. I loved them, as they cut down on glare from snow and dust. White just shines back in your face, but the yellow seemed to be less... Bright? while still allowing me to see what was going on. I had them overhead mounted behind the cab, as I wasn't concerned with using them on-road, and that helped me to see over crests a little better. Obviously not the ideal placement for lighting in snowy/dusty/foggy conditions. My experience is that the yellow does cut down on some of the feedback glare in situations like that. Hence the reason a lot of older fogs with poor optics were yellow instead of white... If you can't keep the light low, then you use a color that doesn't cause so much glare.
Good luck!
Chris

 

[Allof75]

Don't put HID capsules into the stock fogs; the light source is oriented wrong and they'll seem bright but the focus will be wrong. Best analogy is a Maglight with the bezel twisted all the way in the bad direction. If you look at the Maglight, it still seems uber-bright but if you try to look with the light you'll be twisting back to where it belongs.

For aux lights in the desert, I'd go with some aftermarket HIDs. I tinted the lenses on mine with the Duplicolor method that Dan Stern links --- just a bit of tint to bring down the color temperature. I think I used 3 coats.
To me it seems like the bounce-back off the dust is less harsh. Also seems like I can see contrast better, see rabbits and rocks sooner/better. Could be Mr Subjective speaking but I like it better.

The yellow bulbs aren't an improvement. Nobody makes a good one. They aren't horrible though and I've used them in the past.

Check with Scheinwerfermann on Candlepower forum about upgrading your headlights though. He might know something and probably knows who designed them....

Thanks for the warning, after putting some more thought into it, I didn't buy the HID capsules, I remember reading you're much better off with a projector beam upgrade, and that's too much of a project for stock lights.

Do you (or anyone for that matter) have any small and cheaper auxiliary (sub-$300) LED or HID lights to recommend?

As you can see, I don't exactly have tons of room, nor a flat point to mount larger lights.

Thanks!

 

[Hilldweller]

...Do you (or anyone for that matter) have any small and cheaper auxiliary (sub-$300) LED or HID lights to recommend?
...

Call and talk to Dave and tell him that you're poor and want a discount. Tell him I said "hi".
http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=4970
These things are stupid-bright.