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Bryan Irons
Don’t Be Colour Blind
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Bryan Irons
Don’t Be Colour Blind
A merger between Rigid and Truck-Lite has yielded some new products.
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Bryan Irons
Don’t Be Colour Blind
These little strips warm the lens in cold conditions to help melt ice.
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Bryan Irons
Don’t Be Colour Blind
Make sure to use the included lube on all the electrical connections to keep them from corroding.
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Bryan Irons
Don’t Be Colour Blind
A set of amber and blue lens covers were also acquired for testing.
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Bryan Irons
Don’t Be Colour Blind
Our Rigid 50-in lightbar seen here with amber lenses attached.
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Bryan Irons
Don’t Be Colour Blind
Our control light for this experiment is the Rigid 50-in lightbar with no covers.
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Bryan Irons
Don’t Be Colour Blind
Rigid 50-in lightbar with blue lenses.
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Bryan Irons
Don’t Be Colour Blind
Rigid 50-in lightbar with amber lenses.
Story & photos by Bryan Irons
Coloured lenses get the most out of your lighting
The “Google that” generation we currently live in has seen mergers, acquisitions, takeovers and buyouts like no other segment in history. President Business of Lego Movie fame would be proud of the cannibalistic dog-eat-dog money making advancements, but all too often in these corporate moves, we bear witness to the tragic consequences that are birthed from the back alley maneuvers of the corporate world.
When Truck-Lite entered the Rigid Industries fold, we feared that the deal would see a complete change of the commercial line of heavy-duty lighting products we have come to enjoy. We have since sat with fingers crossed thinking “happy thoughts” and our power of positive thinking has worked; Truck-Lite’s stature as a top-level light manufacturer remains unchanged.
Editor Stanley’s obsession with the Truck-Lite 7-in round headlights we have been running for eons on Stinky Jeep has grown to “creepy” proportions; his manhandling and constant referrals to them as “his precious” does nothing but remind us to renew our Gun Club membership. Being as Canadian as we are, we yearned for Truck-Lite’s new headlamp, as it now has a built-in heater element to melt snow off the lenses when temps drop below 10°C. We made a few arrangements to get ourselves some new units with the heaters.
With light output unchanged and an impeccable beam pattern with razor sharp cut-off, we’re still impressed every time the dark blankets our wheelin’ grounds or tarmac cruises. We’re not fans of the “spider eye” look that many of the other LED manufactures have turned to, DOT compliant or not. And the DOT compliance and SAE stamping on all of Truck-Lite’s offerings mean that we are still playing within the confines of the law... well, at least our lights are.
Because we could order everything under Rigid Industries’ parenthood, we picked up a few accessories for our 50-in Rigid Radiance lightbar that we should have gotten when we got the nightstick originally. Vehicular laws in BC border the ridiculous, and will have you breaking rocks for a fortnight if caught with lights installed above your windshield… running or not. So, while we ordered covers for the Rigid Radiance, we also picked up some coloured lenses as well. Specifically, blue and amber lenses to enhance different driving conditions.
The broad-spectrum white light that emanates from quality light sources, like those found in Truck Lite and Rigid products, show almost the entire spectrum of light. What we mean is that if the light is shone on a rainbow of colours, they will all illuminate equally and we will be able to see all the colors available. With white light containing all the colours of the rainbow, a coloured filter, such as our coloured covers, narrows the spectrum of light that is heading out into the world to light things up. The filter can be “tuned” to allow a wide, or a narrow spectrum to pass and offer different colour ranges depending on the make up of the filter.
Many companies will brag about a light “temperature” depicted as a number in Degrees Kelvin (sorry for the physics class flashback), this number simply highlights the strongest colour in the emitted lights bandwidth, but does not describe the spectrum width it emits. The higher the number, say 6500°K, the “cooler” the light (think bluish), and as you would suspect, the lower the number, like 4000°K, the warmer the light (think red).
When we put a filter lens in front of a white light, the filter only allows the light in a specific spectrum pass through it. Consequently, only objects within that spectrum can then be seen.
Take an amber coloured filter we picked up that only allows light in the red to yellow coloured spectrum to pass. You will only then see objects that have a colour that is within that, other objects appear black… such as fog and snow which reflect colours in the “cooler” colour ranges. This is why an amber fog lamp becomes handy in foggy and snowy conditions; it “sees through” the “cooler” temperature rating of the snow and fog and illuminates the “warmer” coloured objects around it. In dusty conditions, you want to be able to see the trees and bushes around you, so a lens in the “cooler” spectrum, like the blue lens we chose, may be the right ticket for you.
As you can tell, there is a lot more to lighting then simply “light output”, and understanding what kind of light is coming out of the fixtures you choose, can make the difference between an informed decision and driving in the dark. We gravitate towards quality fixtures because we will get light that includes the entire spectrum, and it can be tuned to meet the specific needs of the season.
- Rigid Industries - www.rigidindustries.com
- Truck-Lite - www.truck-lite.com