I've owned a handful of Morimoto LED products and I can say with confidence, that they don't maintain their output nor their color temperature after 1-2 years of use. Personally, I'd rather spend more once, than have to buy a new set all over again a year or two down the road. You could argue however, that if you don't daily drive the vehicle that you put Morimoto products on/in that they would be just fine... and you'd have spent less for almost identical output. Great video guys and thanks again for the email response the other day! Will be ordering all my goodies through you guys next week!
that's funny you say that I have morimoto xb fogs on my 2019 ram. I thought I was going crazy when I noticed they where dimmer, an turning more blue after a year of ownership.
@@mikepetersons1319 Yup! Same thing happened with my blinker bulbs and halos I bought from them. The halos went from white to a very blue hue. Seems they're over driving them to squeeze out every lumen possible but, at the cost of a shorter lifespan!
@@JoeyLovesTrains 😬😬 I don't have any experience with those particular products of theirs (I only own their halos and switchback bulbs) but, I would assume that the drivers/cooling etc would be much more robust, considering the purpose of those bulbs! If not... yeah, hopefully they honor the warranty!
I have the diode dynamics in amber fog beam and they are great. Looks like the Morimotos are very similar. great to see multiple quality light vendors making similar products in different packaging for similar applications
The 4Banger HXB is NOT SAE J583 Compliant. To my knowledge only the NCS version is SAE Compliant. Let me know if I’m wrong. I do agree with the thought that Diode Dynamics has better thermal capacity and is potentially more reliable in the long run. Plus it is available with a TRUE Selective Yellow lens. The DD has been out for a bit and has shown to be extremely reliable, I have not seen any complaints about failures or leaks. Thank you for clarifying the run time! It’s something many do not take into account on UA-cam (calling out a certain headlight UA-cam channel)…. Thank you LightWerkz! Can’t wait to see more!!!
SAE doesn't certify end-user products, the word you are looking for is compliance. It's up to the manufacturer to determine if they are SAE compliant. Most will determine this by sending the lights to a 3rd party test facility before finalizing them for sale.
@@shoogledonk that’s a good point. Wrong terminology was used, editing shortly. Either way, the HXB is not advertised as being SAE Compliant, the lower performance NCS is compliant. So as a fog light the HXB should not be considered OR recommended as a direct competitor to Diode Dynamics SS3 Fog lights unless SAE compliance is in the works which I have not seen any info on. SAE non-compliance makes it not legal to use. Does that matter? No. Because lots of careless people use PNP LEDs/HIDs that produce a lot of glare and for a long time people thought and Baja Designs haphazardly advertised their “Wide Cornering” ok to use as fog lights. But the amount of glare on those are atrocious. Even the BD SAE fog light was non-compliant until an independent tester pointed out glare that was non-compliant which prompted BD to make a fix in the way of a plate inserted behind the lens to block stray light. After that they were the lowest performing SAE LED aftermarket fog light.
...and there's my point about heat dissipation and cooling. 3 vs 4 emitters, compact design. Anxious to see width and colour comparison of the yellow/amber pods. Price might then make or break.
@billbozy Rated power means very little. What’s important is how heat is managed. Judging off the size (think about surface area) of the cooling fins on both it is reasonable to assume that passive cooling will be far more efficient on the SS3. Considering they both use the exact same LED emitter and that the 4Banger HXB is using 1 less LED but trying to equal the performance of the SS3 Max it’s also reasonable to assume that the LEDs in the HXB are being driven harder which potentially reduces life of the electronics. This is especially noticeable in Headlight Revolutions videos where the first video shows the HXB 20% more output than the SS3 Max. Then they posted a 2nd video with longer run times (real world) where they ended being pretty much equal. Plus the SS3 is made in the US, backlit models coming soon and are noticeably wider output than the HXB/NCS. I’m curious if these units that are being tested on all the channels are pre-production units and if there may be a difference in the production units. We’ll have to wait and see.
The peak intensity reading is always going to be higher than live readings based on our experience. It will never show a lower number unless the unit is reset. The Diode Dynamics SS3 would have done the same, it would have shown lower lux reading if it was not set on peak lux. This is just an easy way to see what the absolute highest reading will be for each product.
I've owned a handful of Morimoto LED products and I can say with confidence, that they don't maintain their output nor their color temperature after 1-2 years of use. Personally, I'd rather spend more once, than have to buy a new set all over again a year or two down the road. You could argue however, that if you don't daily drive the vehicle that you put Morimoto products on/in that they would be just fine... and you'd have spent less for almost identical output. Great video guys and thanks again for the email response the other day! Will be ordering all my goodies through you guys next week!
that's funny you say that I have morimoto xb fogs on my 2019 ram. I thought I was going crazy when I noticed they where dimmer, an turning more blue after a year of ownership.
@@mikepetersons1319 Yup! Same thing happened with my blinker bulbs and halos I bought from them. The halos went from white to a very blue hue. Seems they're over driving them to squeeze out every lumen possible but, at the cost of a shorter lifespan!
Well I hope they’re warranty takes care of this in the case that my MLED 2.0’s and 2stroke 3.0’s don’t get dim anytime soon
@@JoeyLovesTrains 😬😬 I don't have any experience with those particular products of theirs (I only own their halos and switchback bulbs) but, I would assume that the drivers/cooling etc would be much more robust, considering the purpose of those bulbs! If not... yeah, hopefully they honor the warranty!
@@Eric2300jeep I was thinking about buying the NCS yellow wide beams for my fog lights, but now I’m not sure
Thanks for the update! Now that's a much closer comparison, what a difference from the previous video!
I have the diode dynamics in amber fog beam and they are great. Looks like the Morimotos are very similar. great to see multiple quality light vendors making similar products in different packaging for similar applications
The 4Banger HXB is NOT SAE J583 Compliant. To my knowledge only the NCS version is SAE Compliant. Let me know if I’m wrong. I do agree with the thought that Diode Dynamics has better thermal capacity and is potentially more reliable in the long run. Plus it is available with a TRUE Selective Yellow lens. The DD has been out for a bit and has shown to be extremely reliable, I have not seen any complaints about failures or leaks. Thank you for clarifying the run time! It’s something many do not take into account on UA-cam (calling out a certain headlight UA-cam channel)…. Thank you LightWerkz! Can’t wait to see more!!!
SAE doesn't certify end-user products, the word you are looking for is compliance. It's up to the manufacturer to determine if they are SAE compliant. Most will determine this by sending the lights to a 3rd party test facility before finalizing them for sale.
@@shoogledonk that’s a good point. Wrong terminology was used, editing shortly. Either way, the HXB is not advertised as being SAE Compliant, the lower performance NCS is compliant. So as a fog light the HXB should not be considered OR recommended as a direct competitor to Diode Dynamics SS3 Fog lights unless SAE compliance is in the works which I have not seen any info on. SAE non-compliance makes it not legal to use. Does that matter? No. Because lots of careless people use PNP LEDs/HIDs that produce a lot of glare and for a long time people thought and Baja Designs haphazardly advertised their “Wide Cornering” ok to use as fog lights. But the amount of glare on those are atrocious. Even the BD SAE fog light was non-compliant until an independent tester pointed out glare that was non-compliant which prompted BD to make a fix in the way of a plate inserted behind the lens to block stray light. After that they were the lowest performing SAE LED aftermarket fog light.
pretty sure few months ago 4banger hxb's are now compliant
SS3 max now comes with backlighting and interchangeable lenses, the 3 banger does not.
What does the backlighting do?
@@workunion76it lights up the light very weakly, like DLR
Driving video please!
...and there's my point about heat dissipation and cooling.
3 vs 4 emitters, compact design.
Anxious to see width and colour comparison of the yellow/amber pods.
Price might then make or break.
Are you going to install these on your 4Runner and compare them side by side?
Do a test after the pods have been on for an hour and a half. Want to see lux drop
After 10 mins the pod is basically fully saturated. There shouldn’t be any further changes after an hour and a half vs this 20 mins test.
Really want to see a comparison video of the ncs 4banger wide fog vs the pro ss3’s
Very soon!
Whats the rated power output of morimoto?
@billbozy Rated power means very little. What’s important is how heat is managed. Judging off the size (think about surface area) of the cooling fins on both it is reasonable to assume that passive cooling will be far more efficient on the SS3. Considering they both use the exact same LED emitter and that the 4Banger HXB is using 1 less LED but trying to equal the performance of the SS3 Max it’s also reasonable to assume that the LEDs in the HXB are being driven harder which potentially reduces life of the electronics. This is especially noticeable in Headlight Revolutions videos where the first video shows the HXB 20% more output than the SS3 Max. Then they posted a 2nd video with longer run times (real world) where they ended being pretty much equal. Plus the SS3 is made in the US, backlit models coming soon and are noticeably wider output than the HXB/NCS.
I’m curious if these units that are being tested on all the channels are pre-production units and if there may be a difference in the production units. We’ll have to wait and see.
The morimoto looks likes plastic vs cast, but that’s nether here nor there. But definitely looks like DD’s homework was copied by Morimoto 🤷🏻♂️
I haven't noticed any mention of the housing material in the tech specs; the only reference is in relation to the radiator being die cast.
The 230 lux you had for the morimoto was not true. You did not reset it. The 230 was all Diode Dynamics. The Morimoto maxed out way less around 160
The peak intensity reading is always going to be higher than live readings based on our experience. It will never show a lower number unless the unit is reset. The Diode Dynamics SS3 would have done the same, it would have shown lower lux reading if it was not set on peak lux. This is just an easy way to see what the absolute highest reading will be for each product.