12000K HID's

Seoul_lasers · Mar 10, 2011

Meatball said:
Here is what happens:

Its the same reason why the sky is blue. Short wavelengths of visible light are 10 times more likely to be "scattered" in air than long red wavelengths. So naturally, the coolers your color temperature is, the more useless your lights are in the fog, and heavy rain and snow. If you have dedicated fog lamps on your car, keep them as yellow as possible as such light can better penetrate the fog, keeping you a safer driver.

"Cooler" color temperatures suck for other drivers on the road though, high beams and low beams- even with a projector housing. These shorter wavelengths, the blue and violet hues absolutely Destroy a person's night vision. While such a light is within their viewing range at all, they can lose as much as 95% of the image around that point source of light- ie other cars, pedestrians, and road signs. The eye has to make a sudden "adjustment" of the iris to block all of the bright blue, leaving the driver without comfort. Its not painful, but very surprising to feel your own iris having to adjust so quickly.

What's worse, is that while human vision peaks in the green during the day, it is more of a blue peak at night. So people definitely see blue as the brightest color at night. You might say that "Hey Meatball! You meat head! People only see in black and white in the dark!"

I tell you, you are correct. However, if one of your only available sources of light happens to be blue, you will see it with lots of intensity. Of all of our rods and cones within our eyes, we actually have sensors that are dedicated to the color blue. And for some reason at night, our blue receptors do an excellent job at... receiving.

So Razko, while it is neat to have so much visibility at night, just make sure to have your headlights properly aimed by a technician, and just remember to double check your brights before heading out on the road. Otherwise, enjoy the view!

Exactly, however blue is MUCH less visible to us than say green. Our eyes peak at around ~500nm or what is considered to be true green.
Reason a DPSS green (523nm) laser pointer at 200mW vs a 445nm blue diode of the same optical power looks FAR brighter.. Green light is the most visible to the human eye.

Razako · Mar 10, 2011

Seoul_lasers said:
Exactly, however blue is MUCH less visible to us than say green. Our eyes peak at around ~500nm or what is considered to be true green.
Reason a DPSS green (523nm) laser pointer at 200mW vs a 445nm blue diode of the same optical power looks FAR brighter.. Green light is the most visible to the human eye.

Here's the thing though. Green headlights are taking it a bit too far IMO. That's just begging to get stopped by the cops. Basically I'm wondering where 12,000K lies on the visibility scale when compared to a lower temp like say 8000K. I know that in the dark you see blues and purples better than warmer colors.

HIMNL9 · Mar 10, 2011

The problem is the scattering / diffusion in fog and similar environments .... as for the cars headlights, the better solution for fog is red light, but the eye don't see it good, for this reason it was choosd yellow for anti-fog lights ..... (wondering about sodium projectors vs cops

)

(well, ok, ok, the better solution will be infrareds, but you humans see them also worse than red

.....)

Cyparagon · Mar 10, 2011

Meatball said:
Short wavelengths of visible light are 10 times more likely to be "scattered" in air than long red wavelengths. So naturally, the coolers your color temperature is, the more useless your lights are in the fog, and heavy rain and snow.

I don't see how they are the same thing.

BShanahan14rulz · Mar 10, 2011

Headlights today do much better in the fog than headlights of the past, and yet they are the same color.

Discuss :san:

Meatball · Mar 10, 2011

Seoul_lasers said:
Exactly, however blue is MUCH less visible to us than say green. Our eyes peak at around ~500nm or what is considered to be true green.
Reason a DPSS green (523nm) laser pointer at 200mW vs a 445nm blue diode of the same optical power looks FAR brighter.. Green light is the most visible to the human eye.

Not at night. Blue is most visible at night. There is a shift. Just Wiki it and you'll find what I mean.

Cyparagon said:
I don't see how they are the same thing.

They're just heavier mediums for waves to get scattered in. Should I mention dust storms, sleet, and volcanic ash as well?

BShanahan14rulz · Mar 10, 2011

I believe the words you are looking for may be reflection, refraction, or internal reflection. Rain, sleet, and ash are very very large "particles."

I think color isn't as much the problem as the fact that HID efficacy goes down as color temp goes up. Car headlamp design has gotten much better, with much more light actually making it out the front of the headlamp and to where it is directed, rather than just outward.

Meatball · Mar 10, 2011

Nope. Scattering.

Car headlamp design has gotten better on some vehicles because of the projector "lens" with focuses the beam without the need for a large reflector.

Prototype · Mar 11, 2011

Razako said:
Basically I'm wondering where 12,000K lies on the visibility scale when compared to a lower temp like say 8000K. I know that in the dark you see blues and purples better than warmer colors.

Here are some pics (not the ones I was looking for) of some different temp HID lights on a stretch of road.

From: 50W 55W Bi-Xenon HID Conversion Kit Dual Beam High/Low - eBay (item 280642091509 end time Mar-10-11 17:08:31 PST)

Edit: Aha! See here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/HID-...Q5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories#ht_4827wt_1226

HIMNL9 · Mar 11, 2011

^ careful, those pics are fakes (photoshopped, not real colors).

Look at the background lights ..... i doubt that changing your car lamps, you can change also the color temperature of the city lights some kilometers away ..... right ? .....

:crackup:

EDIT: the mechanic near my shop had to mount a 30000K kit on a mercedes for a HID fanatic, a pair of months ago, so i asked him to show me the result ..... TERRIFICANT

..... they was looking as if they had an ultraviolet halo, and the visibility of details with them was half of the one that you have with standard incandescence lamps (means, you see almost all blurred, and any reflecting objects appear as if it have scattering all around and no details ..... very good "visibility improvement", ROTFL :crackup

BShanahan14rulz · Mar 11, 2011

Hid colors image by mikabuc on Photobucket

Cyparagon · Mar 12, 2011

Not all blues are created equal.

For comparison, "30,000K" xenon, blue fluorescent, and blue LED:

Razako · Mar 13, 2011

So anyway I've decided what I'm gonna do. I'm going with 12000K's for the lowbeams and I'm gonna try to replace the halogen highbeams with 3000K's

I figure I can just switch the highs off if cops are around. Should look awesome:eg:

Cyparagon · Mar 13, 2011

Bad idea. Highbeams are switched pretty often; the life of any discharge lamp (except cold-cathode) is inversely proportional to on/off cycles.

Razako · Mar 13, 2011

Cyparagon said:
Bad idea. Highbeams are switched pretty often; the life of any discharge lamp (except cold-cathode) is inversely proportional to on/off cycles.

Normally I don't use the highbeams anyway and when I do I leave them on for a while.

Tonga · Mar 16, 2011

Show us your pics of the finished project!

12000K HID's

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Meatball

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Prototype

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HIMNL9

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