dor123
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Other loves are printers/scanners/copiers, A/Cs
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I've noticed that it is very hard to me to see in the blue, after seeing some of my lamps spectra in the unaided eyes, I've noticed that blue spectral lines looks to me blurry even compared to deep red lines. Violet spectral lines are essentially invisible to my eyes. Also: It is hard to me to read blue text on a black background, as can be seen in many DTV receivers, like the one in the attachment, that the TV companies have here with blue LED displays, that it is very hard to me to read the clock from them, because it looks fuzzy and blurry and I need to see from very close in order to read. Are other members have this illness?
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« Last Edit: June 04, 2025, 09:06:41 AM by dor123 »
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I"m don't speak English well, and rely on online translating to write in this site. Please forgive me if my choice of my words looks like offensive, while that isn't my intention.
I only working with the international date format (dd.mm.yyyy).
I lives in Israel, which is a 220-240V, 50hz country.
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Medved
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Maybe a good time to visit and consult an opthalmologist, could be some problem starting which when untreated may lead to irreversible damage...
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No more selfballasted c***
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Multisubject
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All lights are created equal
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I have astigmatism in my eyes, my glasses fix it a little bit but it is still there. It is really only noticeable when looking at small point of light with a dark background, but the light has a sort of halo around it. I notice that this seems to happen with blue and true violet light (not a mix of red and blue) light a lot more so than red light, and that makes it sort of hard to see illuminated blue text against a dark background.
I use this to my advantage though, because (at least with my glasses) at the edge of my vision the colors of light sort of separate into different astigmatic halos and I can tell what kind of light it is. Sort of like a crappy spectroscope with me at all times.
If it isn’t astigmatism, then it could be something like mild color blindness or something, IDK.
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BT25
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Vintage HID Collector
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The human optical system not being able to focus with blue light is rather typical, due to it's high frequency short wavelength properties. Red, on the other hand is the antithesis of blue and is easier to focus on. Why do you think automotive tail/brake lights are red? It's a whole lot easier to look at and doesn't effect your night vision. Which begs the question: why do automotive lighting engineers design automobiles with 6500K CCT forward lighting???
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« Last Edit: June 04, 2025, 05:16:58 PM by BT25 »
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Never argue with idiots...they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
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Laurens
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A higher CCT (than let's say 2700k) is associated with higher visual acuity. But you'd have to dive into scientific literature to see to what degree it benefits vehicles. Philips did a lot of research on MV versus SBMV versus LPS for stationary street lighting, and in their case they claimed that LPS resulted in the shortest response time to stimulus under real life street lighting conditions the way it was installed at 3 different roads. But this was 1930s research, and i have no clue whether almost 100 years later these results hold up.
Many people have issues with focusing on monochromatic blue light like blue LEDs, that's nothing unusual. But it shouldn't become a complete blur.
The reason for red tail lights is more likely because red has always been what was used to signal the end of a train in the mid 1800s. I don't think the first cars with red tail lights looked at it from a 'Oh, this is easier on the eyes' kind of way. The night vision thing is absolutely true - but i don't dare to say whether it's happy coincidence that they chose for that or not. I really don't think that in the 1800s they gave that much attention. The first place where i am aware of red being used in that way, is red night lighting in WW2 era submarines so your eyes are constantly adjusted to darkness if you have to get on deck of the sub at night to evacuate or something.
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« Last Edit: June 05, 2025, 01:54:38 AM by Laurens »
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Medved
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The red for tail and STOP signalling is used because red is the color which stay rather focused the longest with worsening conditions like fog levels.
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James
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Indeed from the studies I have red I must agree that red stop lights have the most visible colour, for the reasons already stated. However, there are two additional reasons.
One is colour contrast : technically speaking a yellowish light is even more visible - but there are a lot of yellowish objects in nature and early incandescent lamps were also rather yellowish, so a stop light of that colour is not good at attracting attention. There could be many other ‘false signals’. Because of that a different colour was needed. Blue would be a bad choice because of the reasons above, greens are prevalent during the daytime in nature, so red was selected.
The quantity of light also has a lot to do with visibility. Incandescent lamps produce more red than any other colour, so when applying a coloured filter more light can pass, and it appears relatively bright. Blue and green filtered filament lamps would be far too weak! Yellow would be good because the human eye is most sensitive to that colour, but due to the need for stronger contrasts red is the most effective.
As for why automotive manufacturers became obsessed with glaring and frankly dangerous high CCT headlights that comes down to pure marketing. The original headlamps used open yellowish flames, and were replaced in the 1910s by whiter filament lamps. In the 1960s and 70s halogen lamps were all the rage, but its actually rather difficult to see their approx. 25-50% brighter beams. What is easier to spot is their whiter light due to the higher CCT. So in trying to sell an expensive upgrade option to customers, car makers latched onto the idea of linking better visibility with a whiter colour light. And it worked. The average consumer became jealous of newer cars that had visibly whiter headlamps and many paid for them without hesitation.
Then in the 1980s when HID headlights were developed, pretty much every manufacturer focussed on HP Sodium technology because of the above scientifically proven facts. Philips was one of the first with a workable system. They took it to the big German car makers, and made impressive presentations about the fantastic advances in visibility and safety. But were astonished to be met by a total rejection of the concept. Everywhere they went the response was the same, that for the past decades car makers had been promoting the flawed message that whiter light was better (which is only partially true if combined with more light). It was unthinkable that they would suddenly change their arguments and start promoting an old-looking yellow light - even though many people understand that yellow is better for streetlights. So the lampmakers were sent home with a clear message to only come back after developing HID headlamps that were whiter than halogen. That was what started the era of miniature metal halide developments, that took another decade to be ready for market.
Precisely the same happened with LED. The car makers still have this obsession that blueish lights sell better, hence their demands to make LED even whiter than HID. With the very high CCT of LEDs the situation has become ridiculously dangerous, due to the fact that the human pupil diameter is mainly triggered by blue light. Blue-rich lights cause the diameter to reduce, which is good in terms of forming sharper images for high visual acuity in detailed tasks, but that is absolutely not what is needed for night vision when driving. High contrast vision is far more important, which is only attained with lower colour rendering light sources. The other evil of a smaller pupil caused by blueish headlights is that much less light can then enter the eye, so visibility can even become worse! Present car headlighting trends have become scientific nonsense, but unfortunately market economics take priority over technical sense and road safety.
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