Auxiliary Lighting

This is split into 3 categories, fog lights, Auxiliary Low, and driving lights. There is a test winner in each category.

Fog lights

First of all, fog lights works best in fog or low visibility, with headlamps turned off and at speeds below ~70km/h (equals to 50mph). They lit up the road relatively close (30meters) to the car, spreading from far left, to far right, at relatively low max. brightness. By having a low cutoff, and a low mounting point, glare from the fog will not be reflected back to the drivers eyes, which typically headlamps do. Authorities requirements for fog lights are very general, so be ready to see a lot of variations out there. There is many OEM applications where you are not able to turn fog lamps on without having headlamps on. This is what I would call cosmetic fogligths.

Most people don't need fog lights because it very seldom fog appears unless you are close to the ocean or great lakes. But hey, it looks cool, nicely inserted underneath the bumper. From time to time, car magazines and car shows presentes several cars that have replaced headlamps with fog lamps. This is not a good solution. Its dangerous at highway speeds. A typical fog lamp doesn't have the enough brightness down the road. Some HID fog lights have shown up on the marked around year 2000. Nothing wrong with using HID, but its a waste of money. HID usually means brighter output, and that is defiantly something you do not want in fog light. A too bright fog lamp used in fog will only lit up the fog better, increasing the "wall" effect of fog, and make the road less visible. I would suggest to usage of a 10 or 18W HID system instead. They are available in flash lights for divers. See: http://www.extreme-exposure.com/. In comparison to well known D2* HID lamps, these lower power HID lamps is still in the stone age. They take a few minutes to start up, they are very costly.

Automotive Lighting FAQ fog lamp test winner: Hella Micro DE

Auxiliary Low beam

Isn't an auxiliary low beam the same as a fog light? No. Aux. low beam is supposed to be used with headlamp on, and be useful even at highway speeds. Aux. low beam is not just a fog lamp that are aimed higher. Max. brightness of aux. high beam straight ahead is defiantly higher than a fog lamp and brightness to each side is not as high as on a fog lamp. This is the kind of lamp that car manufacturer should have equipped their cars with during the 80's and 90s. HID headlamps have arrived now, and should make aux. low beam disappear. This is an relatively unknown category, there aren't too many products out there for this purpose. Herman have seen the Hella XL and Sylvania Xenarc 1010. The halogen based Hella XL have been discontinued, but some automotive suppliers may still have them in stock. Sylvania Xenarc 1010 is HID based and can be ordered from your nearest Sylvania retailer, sylvania.com or suvlights.com. It will make a big difference used on cars that have average to poor stock headlamps.

Below is a beam of the Xenarc 1010 on the wall. It is compared to one of the absolute best headlamps that was released in 2002. It is a good example that bigger diameter and depth are important factors when designing a powerful lamp - Xenarc 1010 lacks both of them - it is not a big lamp. What is disappointing thou is how uneven the spread of light is. Note that it will make a positive difference if combined with a poor to avarage headlamp. It is 10-100 times simpler to install Xenarc 1010 on ANY car, compared to the BMW projector unit, which takes alot to do a professional install. (The color difference is due to Xenarc 1010 comes with a 5400K bulb, BMW projector unit have a 4150K bulb.)

Driving lights

The intended usage is having them on when you have high beams on. This actually means that unless you live in sparse populated areas with very few oncoming cars, a driving light will be useless. From the name "driving light", it sounds like you can have driving lights on under all conditions, during night, day, high or low visibility. Having driving lights on together with low beams does not work. Even if you try to aim them down does not help against blinding oncoming traffic. Try them in fog and you will soon realize that the fog is lit up 10 times better than the road. Most driving lights have limited brightness up until 40m. This is intentional, so that your eyes can focus better farther down the road. This makes them more usable, even at very high speeds. The marked have driving light models covering the entire spectrum from 5 (spot) to 60 degree wide horizontal opening angles. What's best for you is usually a matter of taste and how fast you drive. The faster you drive, the narrower the angle you want, and HID based systems would be a must. The most narrow angle types should usually be combined with a lower angle type. In example, a 10 degree beam, can very successfully be combined with 40 degree beam. This becomes very useful at speed over 120km/h (75mph), so we are talking rally or road course use here.

What is the best bang for the buck for a driving light?

The BlazerTech 2600 driving light has excellent output for its size, and makes a pretty good high beam on if your headlamp does not have high beams. Cost is less than USD30/set (eBay), which includes a key fob remote, it may have the most bang-for-the-buck of any driving light ever made.

THESE are the BlazerTech 2600 lights: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&category=33709&item=2433916541 Apparently the seller (75stroppe) has bought another pallet load (sept 2003) of these things from wherever he buys these things. He's a good reliable eBay Seller; I've bought a couple of things from him in the past.

What is the best way to see how a aux lamp looks like in real life without buying it?

Hella has a "Light tunnel" which compare the different luminous efficiency of various Hella auxiliary lamps. It shows real life pictures of all their products taken on an ideal stretch of flat highway. Direct Offsite Link>