Low Power Idea for an optimal night vision preservation light

All this speculation is based on this article: http://stlplaces.com/night_vision_red_myth/


Great article, found it searching here.

OK, here is the idea.
One light body and one power supply, with three controls be they button, dial, whatever.
There's a dark red spot beam, a blue/green (teal?) flood beam, ideally with the center blocked or faded, and there is a white beam maybe it should be spot or maybe a mix of spot and flood.
All have very low lows.

Since it's a low powered light it could be small and ergonomic, maybe set up as an armband, ring, or clipped for a hat bill.

Until someone makes such a light, you can buy three Photon Freedom Microlights -- in aqua/teal, red, and white. They come with a clip, a claw, and a lanyard; plus, they are dimmable so you can find out how much of each color of light you need to see in various conditions.

that is a very good idea for cheaply testing the concept...
a little bit of liquid electrical tape carefully painted along the side of the red led could simulate the dim spotlight and be easy to remove later.

Blue, red, white.
I suddenly thought about that light Thomahawk MC with multi color

eh4 said:

. . . . . . There's a dark red spot beam, a blue/green (teal?) flood beam, ideally with the center blocked or faded, and there is a white beam . . . . .

Click to expand...

The only users who benefit from Blue/Green are those with friends/enemies using Night Vision - others will get better vision using the full spectrum i.e. White.

That's why readily available Multi colour lights have White and Red.

this is from the article linked at beginning of thread: http://stlplaces.com/rods_vs_cones.gif

eh4 said:

All this speculation is based on this article: http://stlplaces.com/night_vision_red_myth/


Great article, found it searching here.

OK, here is the idea.
One light body and one power supply, with three controls be they button, dial, whatever.
There's a dark red spot beam, a blue/green (teal?) flood beam, ideally with the center blocked or faded, and there is a white beam maybe it should be spot or maybe a mix of spot and flood.
All have very low lows.

Since it's a low powered light it could be small and ergonomic, maybe set up as an armband, ring, or clipped for a hat bill.

Click to expand...

For dim-only, I could see this happening powered by a CR2032 with a 4-way switch and 1 potentiometer running up to several hundred kOhms. It'd be dang small, but only ever be dim. Replace that CR2032 with a 10440 and you can run it up to what the pot can dissipate.

The only thing to really test is the practical impact of your night adapted vision using a very low white beam vs a low but somewhat higher red beam and see which you recover from quickest after reading some gauges or a map.

I think both will be close and the "winner" will vary depending on what your need is for a light (reading, not falling over a cliff, etc).

It's actually a tough one to test. If the red is dark enough to be effective it's a fine line between being able to see it and it therefore being useful or it being so far along the spectrum that it's IR and therefore not only are your rods not sensitive to it but your cones aren't either and therefore it's not doing anything for you! I haven't found a red light dark enough to do what the articles suggest should happen.

gcbryan said:

The only thing to really test is the practical impact of your night adapted vision using a very low white beam vs a low but somewhat higher red beam and see which you recover from quickest after reading some gauges or a map.

I think both will be close and the "winner" will vary depending on what your need is for a light (reading, not falling over a cliff, etc). . . . .

Click to expand...

At 680nm Red, the same level of Cone visibility will cause one-ninety-fifth of the triggering of Rods, compared with 555nm Green - so Red will ALWAYS cause much less desensitisation of Rods, compared with light which contains Green.

If you need to see all colours, e.g. a colour map, you will have to use white light - whereas Red would work well for Black text or diagrams.