tree68Something I have seen is full width LED bars on civilian vehicles. They are all "white" and are intended as off-road driving lights. I wasn't aware of any police agencies using them, but I could be wrong.
Latest craze are the dual-colored LED bars.
Whelen also has similar products (FedSig just had handy videos to link to). PA state police has their lightbars that can alternate red and blue or amber (or some combination thereof). Around here they use slower flash patterns which seems to cut back on the "disco effect".
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
To return to LED locomotive lights, today I saw three new Chinese built SDA-1 units heading south to finally take over the fast container trains they were bought for. It has taken twelve months to clear these units for use on tracks using British Jointless track circuits. These use AC current in the circuits and AC traction motors can interfere with the circuits.
The headlights are not LED, but are the same blue-white colour. The marker lights are LEDs and so are the ditch lights, the circle of six arrangement mentioned earlier.
What caused me to comment again was the ditch lights. I hadn't seen this feature on these units, operated by QUBE before. Twice, I saw the ditch lights flash as the brakes were released. A good feature for railfans waiting for a train to start....
M636C
rdamonI remember one of our engineers saying he adjusted the oscillator to get a yellow that matched a specific pantone color. Not sure how much time was used in that experiment, but he appeared to have fun with it.
Been used for searchlight signals over 30 years now.
You adjust several things in the waveform to change the 'yellow/orange' color -- we used these in critical systems in the '90s. Far too much fun for most of the non-technical people here!
Of course the light involved is RGB (without the blue) so there is some limitation in how you match a CMYK Pantone color, but you can easily figure out what is and isn't possible to match from available resources. Here is one Web version out of many (I used it because it features orange-ish tones at the top.)
M636C What caused me to comment again was the ditch lights. I hadn't seen this feature on these units, operated by QUBE before. Twice, I saw the ditch lights flash as the brakes were released. A good feature for railfans waiting for a train to start.... M636C
M636CDo current (or very recent) USA units flash their ditch lights when the reverser is moved?
Never had one that did. Which is good. That would get EXTREMELY annoying when shifting cars around.
zugmann Amtrak uses led headlights/ditchlights in their new electrics.
Amtrak uses led headlights/ditchlights in their new electrics.
Time will come in the not too distand future when all lighting will be LED.
All new ceiling troffers in our place are LED. The new hospital in Dickinson is 100% LED lighting.
Streetlighting will soon be all LED, in the Lincoln Tunnel, it is already all LED.
Even my train layout is 100% LED : )
So the answer is that they will all be LED probably sooner than you think.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
There is a fly in the ointment with LED lighting. Read an AMA article changeling LED street lighting that is close to the ultra voilet spectrum. Seems the concern is too much light from the sunburn frequencys. Unfortunately at present ultra violet is cheaper than spectrum toward infrared ?
blue streak 1Unfortunately at present ultra violet is cheaper than spectrum toward infrared ?
A possibility.
Outdoor lighting tends to be done in the higher K ratings - more "outdoors" than the "warm white" version. As noted, it all comes down to how the LEDs are doped.
I should think, though, that CFLs might emit more UV than LEDs. I could be wrong.
One never knows - new research is apparently showing that ethanol is actually worse for the environment than the devil oil it is supposed to supplant.
One of these days, we may be back to incandescents as the "better health choice..."
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
I've seen some aftermarket LED headlights on trucks that should be outlawed if they're not illegal already. They are blinding when coming at you even on a bright sunny day.
Norm
Norm48327 I've seen some aftermarket LED headlights on trucks that should be outlawed if they're not illegal already. They are blinding when coming at you even on a bright sunny day.
Reminds me of the trend a few years ago where idots were running high beam bulbs in their fog lamp housings. Saw it a lot on older GMs.
zugmannReminds me of the trend a few years ago where idots were running high beam bulbs in their fog lamp housings. Saw it a lot on older GMs.
There are trucks on the road right now that have auxiliary lights on when the low beams are on. The aux lights go off when you go to high beams, but I think the low beams plus the aux lights are brighter than the high beams...
While we're in complaining mode:
You have the bikers that have multiple headlights on their motorcycle (several being high beam-level brightness). Why they think blinding oncoming traffic makes them safer is beyond me.
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