Projector beam

[Saaby]

Debated where to post this and it landed here so...

Nearly all new cars have projector beam/complex reflector headlights , they're much nicer looking, don't cloud, and focus light much better.

I am talking about the headlights with completly clear lenses, like this



as opposed to the old type that are less transparent and more translucent and have all the little squares and stuff on them.
Here's the best example I could find...I think I will have to just go take a picture of one of our cars but anyway until then...



The squares and circles were to focus the light, now though, the light has a thing around it that throws all the light back at specially enginnered (Takes really powerful computers) mirrors that focus the light...

So what if somone made a flashlight that used a system similar to this, it could throw all the light from the LED back into a specialy designed reflector that would make a nice, focused beam...only problem being you don't always want a beam, thats where I am hung up...what would you do to get away from the focused beam? Here's what I have so far

The focued LED would have a housing around it that throws much of the light back at the mirrors, so could you have a 2 position switch that could activate another led mounted outside that housing?

Huh, guess it doesn't matter much since modders can't exactly design and manucafture their own precision engineered reflector, but maybe the ARC people can pick up on it or something...

I know this is kind of what the Turtlelites do, but I think this could be better...we're not just taling about a multi-faceted reflector, we're talking precission engineering, then again maybe I'm completly off my rocker, on the car the purpose is to get the light to shine on the road, in a flashlight your light is best fosuced straight ahead, I guess I'll leave it at that for now.

[Bad Influence]

It's not a bad idea, but I think that with a multi-faceted reflector, the advantage would be to "flood" the light into whatever pattern is set up as opposed to "spotting" it down. Perhaps an interesting concept would be "projector" style lights like a lot of companies are moving to. My friend's VW Beetle has quite a bit of throw from the headlights. Oh, and to my knowledge, that little cap over the bulb in the multifaceted reflectors is to prevent you from blinding other drivers. (I think)

[Saaby]

Eek I need to risize that pic! The cap sorta is to prevent blinding other drivers, it is to throw all the light back against the mirrors since they are doing all the focusing, the "lens" is just there to protect the light, and so without the cap it would not be nearly as bright or as focused and since most the light coming out of the lens would not be bent towards the road it would indeed blind drivers, esp. the Xenon and HID lights!

[McGizmo]

Fix the dang picture!!!

I spoke with a friend in the LED lighting business and his Co. has a couple of full time engineers who use computer captured info on an LED's beam intensity and pattern and then design reflector/ lenses based on where they want the light to go. At this level, like your head lamp above, we're talking pretty sophisticated! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Darell]

Picture resize, please!

You know there's a problem when a post won't fit on a 19" monitor...

Oh, and yes, projectors are cool.