Lights for the blind

I am legally blind (which is a huge relief since I've been illegally blind for so many years). More specifically I have less than 5 degrees peripheral vision left and that is going too. The vision I do have does correct to 20/50. My main problem now is night blindness. Many years ago I started wearing headlights and became quite dependent on them and also not realizing how bad my vision was getting. The condition I have is called gyrate atrophy, has no cure, and is progressive. I quit night driving 4 years ago and driving altogether 2 years ago.

However wearing a Petzl Megabelt with halogen bulb is quite unacceptable in most situations. It works fine for me but I can't look at people without blinding them. (Insert evil maniacical laughter here (now we're even)).

I've been using LED's for many years now. In the last two years I've developed LED antenna using clusters of red and blue (trying to get more of a 3d effect similar to the 3d red and blue glasses to improve my depth perception).

Anyway what I'm trying to do (mostly for myself, but I'm running into all kinds of people with night blindness and as I begin hooking up with the Braille Institute and more blind people) is develop LED technology specifically for night blindness and depth perception. This is along the lines of preserving night vision. But in my case at least dim is not an option. It has to be bright and I need the contrast to tell where the edge of a step or dropoff is. At the same time I don't want to be blinding people and I don't want to always be obvious.

So any thoughts or advice? I'm running a bit short on time before I have to leave so I will post some more design criteria later.

Originally posted by Mutiny Sfears:
... and I don't want to always be obvious.

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I'm afraid this might eliminate the "LED antenna" idea. Or maybe my imagination is just more active than it should be.

Wow, that sucks. No other way to put it. (This is my version of sympathy, in case it isn't coming through just right).

So the big question here is how to privide illumination and depth-perception for YOU, but not blind anybody who happens to look your way. Hmmm. How do you do with night-vision gear? If you could get away with lighting everything up with IR, you wouldn't be blinding anybody else at least. But that would probably eliminate the depth perception AND the incognito requirement.

We'll have to put on our thinking caps for this one.

Night vision equipment is my first thought also. Unfortunately, I cannot think of anything right-off that would fit in the not-so-obvious department.

(Donning thinking cap)

C. Crane Company has a 3 white LED bulb for the 4.5 volt Petzls: just screw it in. You won't get much of a focus (I have one).

http://www.ccrane.com/

LEDcorp has single and dual white LED bulbs for 4.5 an 6 volt Petzls. Single LED give you the focus and smooth wide flood (I have one). I have a Zoom w/3AA adapter.

http://www.ledcorp.com/

One of the guys on here put a Luxeon sandwich into his Zoom.

At the moment, I am sitting here in the dark (just the TFT monitor on) wearing my Princeton Tec Solo with Versalux PR-2 LED bulb and textured reflector. Not as bright as the single LED in my Zoom. Brightguy carries the PT Solo.

http://www.brightguy.com/

http://www.techass.com/

Brightguy also carries a 6 volt single LED bulb for the 4AA PT headlamp, which it also has.

Braille Institute: Isn't that the one that is on the West side of Western Avenue, North of Melrose Avenue??? (I used to live on North Wilcox Avenue, half block South of Santa monica Blvd.)

I would look at modifying either the Streamlight Septor or Trident.
The Spetor has 7 Led's and the Trident three plus a krypton bulb.
With button pushes individual sets of LED's can be set to turn on and in the case of the Trident LED's or krypton.
Exchange the LED's in the Trident for the colours you need.
Not sure if it will be bright enough but give it a try.
The dimming features will allow you to be more socially acceptable!!

www.worst4x4.freeservers.com

I think I actually get your approach Mutiney.

Humans are designed to have two light perceptors, eyes if you will. Having two eyes allows for depth perception.

If an object is illuminated by blue light you get that exclusive rendition. If an object is illuminated by red light you get that exclusive rendition. If an object is illuminated by both of these lights from two different angles then both exclusive renditions come together to give rendition that is depth perceptive. Further the colors received by the CPU (brain) are somewhat perceived to be correct.

Well, all that is fine if you have good eyes and are trying to see in the dark. What I think you are proposing is that sub-level illumination of these two described patterns would work. UV and IR.

What I think is needed is a device that would receive these two light patterns (not as simple as night vision) and transmit the light to the remaining active cones in your eyes.

I'm not at all saying that I have a solution. I'm trying to follow the way you think this condition could be mitigated.

We need some scientists for this but if they can understand your ideas they would have one possible solutionary path they may not have thought of to consider.

Is it possible that the business you are in contributed to this condition?

Thanks you guys. Good food for thought but I still need to check the links and stuff. I can see thought that I need to further qualify the design. I'm not trying to be covert and I haven't tried any night vision stuff at all. What I think I want is more of a task light that would also function as a headlight if clipped onto the side of my glasses for instance.

Icebreaker you nailed exactly what I'm after although well beyond what I was thinking. My condition is not job related but that could be a factor in the detetioration. The condition is genetic because my sister has it too although not nearly as bad yet as mine. That too is another consideration in my design is something that a woman could or would use.

A lot of this is thinking out loud and without seeing the various type of star configs out there. I have some blue LS/O hooked up and I have some 5w royal blue ones that I haven't hooked up yet. It seems that the bare luxeon emitters are what I'll end up using. However it also seems that I don't have the equipment needed (let alone the skill or vision) to properly use these.

There are 3 levels of operation that I consider workable. Full on headlight with halogen bulb and beltpack and D cells. At this point I don't see a replacement for the long range beam and battery life. I've tried and broken a lot of headlights over the last 20 years and so far my Petzl is the only one that has held up. I think supplementing it with a more user friendly task light for around the campfire and not blinding people I'm talking to is the answer for that.

Performer mode. This is where I'm in costume and working backstage and stuff and where I need light the most. In this application I have some freedom of design in that I'm a mad scientist involved in a genetic engineering accident. The only thing is that a standard headlight and/or white light won't be used. In this mode I have my antenna which are 2 clusters of 4 8000mcd red and 2 5600mcd blue in each cluster and 1 watt ls/o in the palms. This is probably more than enough light for most here but is not enough for me. I'm thinking now in terms of red ls/o and 5 watt rb ls but this is where I need to try what I have.

Civilian. Let me ask this. Who here would consider at all wearing a headlight in a civilian setting? What if it didn't look like a normal headlight?

Well once again my time is short and getting my thoughts out took way more time than I thought. More later but I hope what I put down helps clarify what I'm after.