auxillary lighting and winter driving
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jeraldoronaldo
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:10 am
auxillary lighting and winter driving
hello everyone. winter is almost upon us all in the north, especially new england. i drive for a living, so i will more likely than not be driving in a few storms. my real question here is if an auxillary lighting system on my 97 pathfinder will give me better night time/winter (snowy) visibility. any advice anyone can give me on which type of system (if any) would be suited to these conditions in my situation. i dont know which style or wattage or even mounting locations i should be thinking about. thank you all very much!
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Densetsu
- Posts: 557
- Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2008 5:50 am
- Car: 2004 Nissan Pathfinder Chinook
Prev: 2003 Nissan Pathfinder Chilkoot - Location: Edmonton, AB
Re: auxillary lighting and winter driving (jeraldoronaldo)
Mounting locations? When it's snowing... the lower, the better. If you don't already have them, grab a set of fog lights -- online or from a dealership -- and get them installed. If you already have fogs and they're not doing their job, you might want to either (a) get brighter bulbs or (b) put another pair of lights on your bumper.
Adding any aux. lighting that's the same level as your headlights (or higher) will just light up the falling snow in your field of view and give you a headache.
Adding any aux. lighting that's the same level as your headlights (or higher) will just light up the falling snow in your field of view and give you a headache.
Re: auxillary lighting and winter driving (Densetsu)
Hey another new englander! What part are you from?
I was reading up on fog lights, cause I need new ones, and it said somewhere that yellow bulbs actually work well, as they dont permit light off fog/snow/rain as much as ultra white or halogen bulbs.
Edit:
My understanding is that it is important for fog lights to be one color (rather than white, which is all colors) because the differentwavelengths(colors) of visible light scatter off the fog dropletsdifferently. This phenomenon is known as "dispersion," because thedifferent colors of light in an image will separate from each other,causing the image to "disperse." If you illuminate the road with only onewavelength (color) of light, the images of the objects you see will stillbecome somewhat blurry because of the scattering of light by the fog, butat least you won't have extra problems from dispersion. So, if we want touse just one wavelength of light, which wavelength should we use? It turnsout that light with short wavelengths scatters more than light with longwavelengths (short to long: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange,red). So, a long wavelength light will be best. There's another thing toconsider, too: our eyes are not equally sensitive to all colors. It turnsout that we are most sensitive to yellow and green light. So, our bestcompromise between sensitivity for our eyes and a long wavelength for leastscattering is yellow light.Now, I don't know what kind of light bulbs are used in fog lights, butanother consideration used in street lighting is cost and efficiency. Youmay have seen some yellow street lighting in some places; this is"low-pressure sodium vapor" lighting. The special thing about this lightis that it is almost entirely one (actually two very close together)wavelength of yellow light, and that it gives the most illumination for theamount of electricity. A big problem with this light, though, is that itthrows off color perception. Under sodium vapor light, something bluelooks gray. This makes it hard to, say, recognize your car in a parkinglot.Richard Barrans Jr., Ph.D.
I was reading up on fog lights, cause I need new ones, and it said somewhere that yellow bulbs actually work well, as they dont permit light off fog/snow/rain as much as ultra white or halogen bulbs.
Edit:
My understanding is that it is important for fog lights to be one color (rather than white, which is all colors) because the differentwavelengths(colors) of visible light scatter off the fog dropletsdifferently. This phenomenon is known as "dispersion," because thedifferent colors of light in an image will separate from each other,causing the image to "disperse." If you illuminate the road with only onewavelength (color) of light, the images of the objects you see will stillbecome somewhat blurry because of the scattering of light by the fog, butat least you won't have extra problems from dispersion. So, if we want touse just one wavelength of light, which wavelength should we use? It turnsout that light with short wavelengths scatters more than light with longwavelengths (short to long: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange,red). So, a long wavelength light will be best. There's another thing toconsider, too: our eyes are not equally sensitive to all colors. It turnsout that we are most sensitive to yellow and green light. So, our bestcompromise between sensitivity for our eyes and a long wavelength for leastscattering is yellow light.Now, I don't know what kind of light bulbs are used in fog lights, butanother consideration used in street lighting is cost and efficiency. Youmay have seen some yellow street lighting in some places; this is"low-pressure sodium vapor" lighting. The special thing about this lightis that it is almost entirely one (actually two very close together)wavelength of yellow light, and that it gives the most illumination for theamount of electricity. A big problem with this light, though, is that itthrows off color perception. Under sodium vapor light, something bluelooks gray. This makes it hard to, say, recognize your car in a parkinglot.Richard Barrans Jr., Ph.D.