How do you use your coloured LED light?

I have seen LED in various colours, such as red, green, blue, and purple. I am not sure what is the purpose of these lights. I believe you use red to protect your infrared and to track blood but I may be wrong. Could any CPF member lists the purpose of these coloured LED lights.

Useful suggestion so far:

Green:
Makes the blood stand out more.
Green allows better map reading (most visable to the human eye).
Don't get a faceful of bugs when it's on (less attracted to bugs).
Good signaling light.

Red:
Maintained night adapted eye sight
Preserving night vision

Blue:
"Since blue light is not focused correctly in normal eyes it may actually sharpen the vision of abnormal eyes --
there are a number at CPF who need glasses and can read more easily with blue light."

Purple:

See post #11.

yes ...id like to know also...

Red is suppose to help you retain your night adapted eyesight. Not sure what the benefits of the others are? I have seen alot of green LEDs advertised in reference to hunting.

the green makes the blood stand out more. blue is good for detecting liquids like human blood, red is for preserving night vision, and I'm not sure what purple is, a cross between red and blue I s'pose
have a good one,
Flash

IR is a useful for lighting things up to see better using IR goggles. UV would be useful for looking for biological stains, or lighting up fluorescent dyes. So far the only ones I've personally used are red (night vision preservation) and white (best one to actually see things with...).

I use red to preserve my night vision.

Aside from being beautiful, green allows better map reading than other colours. Green is also the most visable to the human eye. it illuminates without startling people. I carry a GREEN FENIX P1 and I love my GREEN SUREFIRE L1. It's with me most of the time. I have found a very worthwhile use for it when I visit family because a knock or a doorbell is most startling to some folks.

I simply shine the green light into the house and it does not startle anyone. :goodjob: it is also a unique identifing attribute to my nearby presence.

Greetings!

I find that red is the most useful color, as it allows your eyes to keeps dark-adapted vision. This is immensely useful when doing astronomy - you need at least 20-30 minutes before you can see some things through a telescope. A quick blast from a white light will completely ruin this, requiring another long waiting period to re-adapt.

Best wishes,
Bawko

I used to use my red CMG for reading at night, now it's half and half with my new green Infin and white Ultra. I also have a Dorcy 1xAAA that I swapped a blue led from a toy into, and it's blue/violet. I plan on using colored leds, mainly the blue Dorcy and green CMG, as headlamps with a NI strap while camping in the hot summer months, so I don't get a faceful of bugs when it's on.

wait, so green doesn't attract bugs like white light does?

This is from a fellow CPFer's site:
http://edcfeatures.blogspot.com/2006/12/on-leds-and-color.html

JPH, Great find!
I am going to study this tonight.

Flashbang- green doesn't attract bugs like white will. I just put a cyan (basically green) LED in my T3 and am finding it much brighter but less obtrusive for walking or checking things out in the house. I've used blue for blood trailing and find it to work quite well when the blood is fresh.

Oh man, after reading that link, I may have to spend more money and start playing with coloured LED.

My green inova x1 has been my flashlight of choice since I bought it. The beam is so bright and narrow that people have confused it with a laser, which it obviously isn't.

Sure would like to compare it to the green L1. I'm sure the L1 is much brighter.

Green is a much more pleasing color to the eye when compared to blue. I find blue led xmas lights particularly unappealing due to the quantity of the leds. They're tough to focus on.

Foliage reflects mostly green, so it is good in a forest. Some yellow pigments reflect brightly under green light. Like police caution tape.

I was in a theatre with red seats... I was carrying my red pal-light to be unobtrusive, but it was so bright when shone on those velvet seats. That would be one good application.

If I'm sitting around late at night listening to the radio in my workshop or in bed I'll often have a red LEDs or red filtered white LEDs burning. They're easy on the eyes.

Geoff

I use blue/green for nearly everything that doesn't require color rendering. In lights with widely variable output like the Covert Photon Freedom in NV green and the Rigel MIL-Starlight Mini (both of which are actually CYAN) dark adapted vision may be easily preserved while still seeing far more detail than red. There are other interesting uses for blue/green lights that may be found if you scratch around a bit.

Blue/green may also be had in very bright lights like the old turquoise ARC-AAA or the CMG Infinity. These two models were brighter than any other lights in the same models offered.

Blue is a great color as it is the easyest color to hide from an audience -- which is why it is used so widely backstage and in other technical spaces by techies in theatres. Blue can also often be had brighter than other LEDs in the same model lights.

Since blue light is not focused correctly in normal eyes it may actually sharpen the vision of abnormal eyes --
there are a number at CPF who need glasses and can read more easily with blue light. I'm one of them.

Amber may be very discrete. My old CMG Infinity in amber is so dim that it is the perfect menu/wine list light in a cafe with subdued lighting -- places where an ARC-AAA might be too bright. Handy.

The biggest problem with colored lights is the fact that we are not used to them. Making the most out of any monochromatic light is a learned experience and it takes time, experimentation and lots of practice to develop the skill set needed to make the most of the advantages they offer.

The same is actually true of getting the most out of white light but in the case of white we're all pretty used to what the sun's light is like. Even with white there are still professions where users learn to see more than ordinary folk. They really do develop a trained eye. This is even more true for people working with monochromatic lights. It takes time and work.

Since blue light is not focused correctly in normal eyes it may actually sharpen the vision of abnormal eyes --
there are a number at CPF who need glasses and can read more easily with blue light. I'm one of them.

Click to expand...

Interesting. I just now tested out how well I could read fine print with different monochromatic LEDs (and a cool white coin cell), the following is my order of preference for reading fine text:

green (the best by far)
cyan
cheap cool white 5mm LED
blue
amber
violet*
red
royal blue**

*the violet is a special case -- by itself it's barely visible at all, but it caused this particular paper to fluoresce, producing a similar effect to the standard blue. True UV would be even better.
** causes similar fluorescence as the violet, but the wavelength is visible enough that it "obstructs" the text -- I actually have astigmatism, which is most noticeable with deep blue so it renders the fine text almost impossible to read.

Before, I experimented with different color temp CFLs for working under. I find I've preferred to work under 3500k-5000k lights the best (oddly, both 3500k and 5000k usually have a lot better CRI than 4200k -- otherwise I'd like that the best). I guess that's because within that range, the green component is the strongest -- for warm white, red/amber is stronger, and in cool white light, the blue is stronger, both of which fared worse in my test above.

Blue light really bothers some.

I love my green Led lights! Make your own cheap. http://www.besthongkong.com/index.php?cPath=19_22&osCsid=3aeddd4cec66bea24246cf17c9135277

They have all of the colors. I bought Elly flashlights from DX...$5.50 apiece. THe LED's from Best..$3.60 apiece. A simple star swap. These LED's work very well and and are quite bright in the Elly. Put the Green LEd light on while taking a restful bath..just great. I'd do a video commercial, but I don't want to gross you out!