Cyan/Turquoise LED lights?

What can I get in either of those colors without spending a fortune. I just really like that color

That's a very practical color. Good illumination and doesn't disturb night adaptation as does white (but a little more so than red - seems to me). There's a couple of old threads that technically compare and discuss colors.

I've a number of turq/cyan lights including a killer MM mod from PhotonFanatic. A CMG Infinity is my current around the house at night light

You might check Peak's current lights. Photon, Inova Micro, Streamlight Stylus (a neat light if you never tried one) and NightIze (for MM) all have some type of cyan/turq/green llights. The original ARCaaa in turq is a great light. I think there was one on BST lately.

Get a photon in green or turquoise and a giant pack of coin cells from DX for cheap and you'll be good to go.

photonfanatic may still have some "to die for" led's. They are gorgeous when driven at 700 or more.

BVH said:

photonfanatic may still have some "to die for" led's. They are gorgeous when driven at 700 or more.

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+1 on that. I have one in an Arc AAA with a Flupic driven by a Lithium Ion rechargeable. The light was custom made by Chimo and blows away
the 2 others with white leds I have.

Thurmond

Tritium said:

+1 on that. I have one in an Arc AAA with a Flupic driven by a Lithium Ion rechargeable. The light was custom made by Chimo and blows away
the 2 others with white leds I have.

Thurmond

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Now that is awesome!

What would be an easy light (or drop-in) to modify with a 1 watt cyan luxeon?

another vote for PEAK!
cyan is one of their favs!

My to-die-for cyans are in Fenix L1-P's and in Mac's custom 4-LED 1-D mag mod driven at 8 different levels up to 1 Watt. That is a site to see. In the Fenix's, they look great but in Mac's, driven at 1 Watt, it is simply indescribable.

CYAN/Turquoise lights are my favorites. BatteryJunction has the NV Green (Turquoise) Photon Freedom full retail pack with all the accessories for $9.95 (plus $1.50 for covert nose). I love that light.

IsaacHayes built a 3C M/\G DD w/S1JCyan LuxIII and O-sink for me a while back. I put in a UCL that I had and I'm still blown away by it. The stock reflector makes a beam so tight it's hard to believe it's just a LUX III.

BIGIRON said:

...A CMG Infinity is my current around the house at night light

You might check Peak's current lights... The original ARCaaa in turq is a great light.

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Yeah, the Infinity and ARC AAA in Turk are both great lights.

About the PEAKs...I've thought about those CYAN PEAKs quite a few times. I've always wondered what color their CYAN is. Anyone know what the wavelength is or how the color compares to the LEDs ARC or CMG used?

Umh, what is the to die for? A 5mm or a Lux?

looks like they're all gone. They were here.

http://www.cpfmarketplace.com/mp/showthread.php?t=85330

Cyan does not preserve night vision, but it is the most sensitive wavelength to the human eye. That means, a little goes a longer way. I find that I can see more with cyan, especially in dark wilderness, but contrast isn't as pronounced as with white or some other colors. Regardless, cyan is functional in terms of brightness/energy and just looks cool . As far as a good cyan light, you may be able to find 5mm lights with these LEDs as they were quite comon not long ago- check for older CMG Infinities or as others have said, contact Peak. For "power" LEDs you may have to turn to moders. I myself would love to get my hands on a light based around a turquoise Cree XRE, since regardless of what is powering it, it is bound to be efficient and BRIGHT! . Anyone who could point me in the right direction for something like this, custom or otherwise, price sensitive, I would be grateful.

"Cyan does not preserve night vision, but it is the most sensitive wavelength to the human eye."

I'm glad you brought that up Solstice. I was going to say (and I will, anyway) that the statement further up above that cyan "doesn't disturb night adaptation as does white" is completely incorrect and is a product of very frequently propigated misinformation.

I recently updated my page on Night Adapted Vision to make it more clear and understandable as to why RED is the only color that can effectively preserve night adapted vision at levels of output useful for navigating through the environment. Cyan is actually the absolute worst monochromatic color to use because the rods in our retinas are so sensitive to it that just a little can blow out your night adaptation.

http://www.flashlightreviews.com/qa/nightvision.htm

Guys -- it may be counter to your findings, but in my experience, cyan does not disturb my night vision nearly as much as white.

I did a little hands on experiment (admittedly not by scientific principle) over a couple of nights some time ago with a white CMG Inf and a cyan CMG Inf. There are admittedly a tremendous number of variables but both lights have essentially the same brightness. There is no question that the cyan was kinder to my night vision.

No matter what your numbers show, the greatest variable must be the individual human eye. My remaining retina is not in very good shape, so that may account for my perception. (My retina doc says "you may be 10ft tall, bulletproof, rich and handsome, but you got bad retinas...).

Besides, my mind is made up. Don't confuse me with facts.

"Besides, my mind is made up. Don't confuse me with facts."

Now THAT'S funny! :lolsign:

Quickbeam said:

I recently updated my page on Night Adapted Vision to make it more clear and understandable as to why RED is the only color that can effectively preserve night adapted vision at levels of output useful for navigating through the environment. Cyan is actually the absolute worst monochromatic color to use because the rods in our retinas are so sensitive to it that just a little can blow out your night adaptation.

http://www.flashlightreviews.com/qa/nightvision.htm

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People, including astronomers, find they can see better in the dark, especially for reading, with a lower level of cyan or 'night vision' green than they can with red. The consequence is that the red light has to be brighter to accomplish the same task, which also damages the night vision. Intelligent, experienced people are split on the issue of whether low levels of red or 'night vision' green is better for preserving night vision. For most of us, and especially for flashaholics, night vision is a non-issue because we prefer to use the brightest lights we can get.

An interesting, and potentially useful item from your web page, if it's true: "If you want to thoroughly ruin someone's night adapted vision, shine a bright Cyan/Turquoise at them. Since the rods are responsible for our night vision and are most sensitive to this color light, they'll immediately go "night blind" and will be unable to see in the dark at all immediately after turning off the light."

So this makes a very bright cyan a "tactical" light. Cool.

i think we have two distinctly phenonmena at work here.

the first is that some shorter wavelength lights, viz. green and cyan, make it easier to read in low light situations. maybe(???) we can phrase this another way too, what frequencies of light allow us to see better in the dark WHEN that light is ON?

the second is what wavelengths of light preserve our low light vision or dark adaptation (which is actually composed of at least two separate unrelated factors) so that we can maximize our ability to see in the very low light situations WHEN that light is turned OFF?


the first, i.e., seeing well in the dark WITH a light ON is also vastly different from preserving so called night vision.


preserving our low light vision or dark adaptation means, to me at least, when the light is turned off how well can i still see in very low light situations.



[Note: two things: 1--just for reference visible light ranges from ~400nm-~700nm, and 2--i don't trust my memory any longer for these numbers in this Post, please check them with a reliable source before quoting them to someone else]


the fact is that rhodopsin is required by the rods of the eye to perceive light, particularly in very low light situations.


any light above ~620nm WILL REACT with rhodopsin and break it down.

light at and below ~620nm (maybe it's 650nm - i forget, but it's in the red wavelengths which starts around 650nm, if i recall correctly) is essentially "invisible", so to speak to the chemical rhodopsin (aka visual purple), and so, does NOT break it down.

once the light is removed, the rhodopsin is still present at the rods to enable them to perceive low levels of light and make things out.


to summarize:

no rhodopsin = no low light vision

light above 620nm = reacts with rhodopsin and breaks it down.


therefore, if you want to see well with a light on in the dark, go with green, cyan, or white. of course, this will leave one unable to perceive much in the dark once the light is turned off.

if one wants to preserve one's low light vision or dark adaptation, then you must only use DIM light at 620nm or below. this way when the light source is turned off, one still is in possession of one's dark adaptation.

I've been through this so many times.... (apparently Half-Watt has too, by the looks of it - he just beat me to it!)

Intelligent, experienced people are split on the issue of whether low levels of red or 'night vision' green is better for preserving night vision.

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I didn't want to go into this level of detail, but after that initial comment...

Many of these so-called intelligent and experienced people may be less of both than they present themselves to be. The following information is easily verified by researching the subject at any university.

It is a widely accepted, experimentally shown fact that cyan light will bleach rhodopsin in the rods faster than red light of the same intensity simply because rhodopsin is so insensitive to the lower frequency light (red) and so much more sensitive to the higher frequency (cyan). As a result it can be accurately stated that cyan will disrupt night adapted vision more readily than red light.

As I said in my article, a good litmus test is whether or not a subject can perceive the color of the light. If so, it's disrupting their night adaptation. This means it is, at any moment in time, bleaching the rhodopsin faster than it can recover. Cyan light can be used without disrupting night adaptation if it is exceptionally dim, so that the color of the light is not seen. Same goes for white, blue, amber, green, etc.

Keep in mind that the cyan light is still bleaching the rhodopsin, even at these low levels, but the bleaching action is what creates the neural signal which is sent to the visual cortex and allows us to see, and is therefore necessary. At these low levels, the restoration of the rhodopsin matches the bleaching and therefore our night vision is preserved.

These simple facts are most frequently overlooked by those with a general interest in night adaptation and as a result people tend to recommend cyan for night adaptation preservation without the caveat that it must be exceptionally dim. For that matter you could use any frequency of light at these dim levels to preserve night adapted vision, but due to the sensitivity of rhodopsin to cyan light, the cyan light can be dimmer than the other frequencies of light to produce the same effect.

Red light is the exception since rhodopsin is essentially blind to red light and it doesn't cause (significant) rhodopsin bleaching. However it must still be kept at a low level for another reason - to prevent the creation of afterimages which will overlap the subject's field of view in the visual cortex. These afterimages would interfere with visual perception of the viewed scene, but not the so-called "night vision" itself (the build up of rhodopsin).

An interesting, and potentially useful item from your web page, if it's true: "If you want to thoroughly ruin someone's night adapted vision, shine a bright Cyan/Turquoise at them. Since the rods are responsible for our night vision and are most sensitive to this color light, they'll immediately go "night blind" and will be unable to see in the dark at all immediately after turning off the light."

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It is true, but a blast of bright white light will have the same effect. The rhodopsin in the rods will be fully bleached almost instantly and when the light is turned off (and if it's nearly pitch dark) the subject will have to rely on their cones to see, which are not as low-light sensitive as the rods. However, the cyan light will do it more efficiently because rhodopsin is so sensitive to cyan, and as a result, you could actually use a dimmer cyan light (relative to a white light) to have the same effect.