Geekzone: technology news, blogs, forums
Guest
Welcome Guest.
You haven't logged in yet. If you don't have an account you can register now.


gzt

gzt

17104 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#195421 19-Apr-2016 20:15
Send private message

I had a couple of encounters with led headlights this week.

The first one. For a few seconds I thought a police car had activated it's light bar behind me. But it was some kind of weird purple flashing caused by the led combined with it's headlight reflector at different angles.

The second time. Really bright very white light in the rear view.

Imho some of the problem is no diffussion lens and some is a wrong colour temperature. These seem like first generation tech problems and too much cost saving.

Create new topic
gumboot19
52 posts

Master Geek


  #1536007 19-Apr-2016 20:31
Send private message

Possibly some of the HID kits sold on sites like Trademe, some were not compliant and stated in the auction that they were not compliant and not to be used on NZ public roads.

 

Modern cars like Porsche, BMW and Audi with their LED headlamps are very blue/ white? but not painful or annoying when they are following you.

 

Maybe time for more stringent rules at WOF time??




Aredwood
3885 posts

Uber Geek


  #1536053 19-Apr-2016 21:32

Aftermarket HID kits (the type that are HID bulbs that install into your existing headlight reflector assembly) Have never been legal for road use. Probably another case of people either not knowing the rules. Or swapping things over to get the WOF and swapping back again. You are allowed to fit a complete HID headlight and reflector assembly though. EG if HID lights were a factory option for your car. Also no law against selling HID lighting systems. As you can still use them in off road vehicles, non road legal race cars ect.






1eStar
1604 posts

Uber Geek


  #1536084 19-Apr-2016 22:18
Send private message

I had similar issues with a Prado tailgating me. The self levelling headlights didn't. They would flash annoyingly with a purple tinge in the rear vision mirror. After about 2 minutes I pulled over to let him annoy someone else. Toyota seem to have the worst cutoffs on their headlight design. They are the ones that look like the vehicle approaching has forgotten to dip their lights.



gedc
355 posts

Ultimate Geek


  #1536139 19-Apr-2016 23:40
Send private message

Interesting as I noticed this whilst driving the wifes 6 month old mondeo the other night.  A definited purple halo or border around the bright white LED illumination on cars etc in front. It even made a white car look pinky/purple.   What causes this. I thought she had a purple light stuck behind the grill at first ! 


CitizenErased
207 posts

Master Geek


  #1536853 20-Apr-2016 16:42
Send private message

Having had a company car with HID lights, as a driver I actually prefer the colour temperature of halogen bulbs.

 

Newer isn't always better, either. A couple of weeks ago I read an article about an independent test performed on a range of car headlights and they found the visibility provided by some of the expensive luxury cars with the newest technology, e.g. LED, performed much worse than some cheap run-of-the-mill cars with halogen bulbs. So, just as you can have crappy and excellent halogen headlights, the same applies to HID and LED.


gzt

gzt

17104 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

  #1536892 20-Apr-2016 18:05
Send private message

gedc:

Interesting as I noticed this whilst driving the wifes 6 month old mondeo the other night.  A definited purple halo or border around the bright white LED illumination on cars etc in front. It even made a white car look pinky/purple.   What causes this. I thought she had a purple light stuck behind the grill at first ! 


Yep. If the car behind changes angle like around a turn then the vehicle in front gets a few purple flashes in the rear views as the purple bit flashes past. Combined with the odd brightness and colour temperature it is a minor distraction. I wonder if getting used to this will have other road users becoming less sensitive to actual police warning lights behind them.

MadEngineer
4271 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

  #1536965 20-Apr-2016 20:12
Send private message

Just use the tilt function on your mirror which makes the reflective surface of the glass the mirror rather than the mirror film. This has the effect of lighting up some of the cabin of your car and I like to think some light is reflected back to the offender. This action is usually clearly seen and maybe they will take the hint. Pulling over and beeping as they pass helps too :p




You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

 
 
 

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.
tripp
3848 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #1537138 21-Apr-2016 06:31
Send private message

I hate LED and halogen head lights, they almost give me an instant headache when driving at night now.

 

I like the older yellow tone "warm" headlights.  The cold white ones are just evil


mentalinc
3225 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

  #1537140 21-Apr-2016 06:49
Send private message

Don't even get me started on fog lights with no fog seen for months





CPU: AMD 5900x | RAM: GSKILL Trident Z Neo RGB F4-3600C16D-32GTZNC-32-GB | MB:  Asus X570-E | GFX: EVGA FTW3 Ultra RTX 3080Ti| Monitor: LG 27GL850-B 2560x1440

 

Quic: https://account.quic.nz/refer/473833 R473833EQKIBX 


gzt

gzt

17104 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

  #1537144 21-Apr-2016 07:00
Send private message

MadEngineer: Just use the tilt function on your mirror which makes the reflective surface of the glass the mirror rather than the mirror film. This has the effect of lighting up some of the cabin of your car and I like to think some light is reflected back to the offender. This action is usually clearly seen and maybe they will take the hint. Pulling over and beeping as they pass helps too :p

I use the tilt on the rear view. This one required the button to fold in the side mirrors. I'm sure part of the problem is no headlight diffussion. Trying to rely on the LED diffusion alone. This is just a money saving feature for the car maker.

Batman
Mad Scientist
29760 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #1537147 21-Apr-2016 07:25
Send private message

I have more problems with cars coming towards me whose lights blind me into a daze.

SepticSceptic
2186 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

  #1537388 21-Apr-2016 12:31
Send private message

tripp:

 

I hate LED and halogen head lights, they almost give me an instant headache when driving at night now.

 

I like the older yellow tone "warm" headlights.  The cold white ones are just evil

 

 

At night, our eyes are more sensitive to the blue-white end of the spectrum, making the effect more dazzling. The older one is, the more sensitive our eyes become to the blue end of the spectrum, and take far longer to recover from the dazzle effect.

 

Part of the reason why there is a clamp-down on aftermarket HID's and LED.

 

http://www.lightmare.org/effect_on_vision.htm

 

 

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1771460/

 

 

 

 

 

 


old3eyes
9119 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

  #1537409 21-Apr-2016 12:57
Send private message

mentalinc:

 

Don't even get me started on fog lights with no fog seen for months

 

 

 

 

Especially the rear ones that get turned on in clear air and are brighter than the normal stop light..





Regards,

Old3eyes


MikeAqua
7773 posts

Uber Geek


  #1537421 21-Apr-2016 13:09
Send private message

I don't see what the problem is with halogen bulbs.

 

I've had to replace two headlight bulbs on cars in 25 year of private motoring. 

 

I used to work in rental cars with a fleet of 150 vehicles all doing >20,000kms per year and rarely had to replace bulbs.

 

An alternator is easily able to keep up with the demands of halogen bulbs when the car is running.





Mike


gzt

gzt

17104 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

  #1537430 21-Apr-2016 13:23
Send private message

Lower power requirement allows the manufacturer to economise the electrics all over the place. It looks like creating first generation issues for other road users. Maybe there will be civil law suits in USA and there will be recalls. It is a real risk imho.

Create new topic





News and reviews »

Air New Zealand Starts AI adoption with OpenAI
Posted 24-Jul-2025 16:00


eero Pro 7 Review
Posted 23-Jul-2025 12:07


BeeStation Plus Review
Posted 21-Jul-2025 14:21


eero Unveils New Wi-Fi 7 Products in New Zealand
Posted 21-Jul-2025 00:01


WiZ Introduces HDMI Sync Box and other Light Devices
Posted 20-Jul-2025 17:32


RedShield Enhances DDoS and Bot Attack Protection
Posted 20-Jul-2025 17:26


Seagate Ships 30TB Drives
Posted 17-Jul-2025 11:24


Oclean AirPump A10 Water Flosser Review
Posted 13-Jul-2025 11:05


Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7: Raising the Bar for Smartphones
Posted 10-Jul-2025 02:01


Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 Brings New Edge-To-Edge FlexWindow
Posted 10-Jul-2025 02:01


Epson Launches New AM-C550Z WorkForce Enterprise printer
Posted 9-Jul-2025 18:22


Samsung Releases Smart Monitor M9
Posted 9-Jul-2025 17:46


Nearly Half of Older Kiwis Still Write their Passwords on Paper
Posted 9-Jul-2025 08:42


D-Link 4G+ Cat6 Wi-Fi 6 DWR-933M Mobile Hotspot Review
Posted 1-Jul-2025 11:34


Oppo A5 Series Launches With New Levels of Durability
Posted 30-Jun-2025 10:15









Geekzone Live »

Try automatic live updates from Geekzone directly in your browser, without refreshing the page, with Geekzone Live now.



Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.