4500k LED causes illness?

I just bought a nailbender SST-50 dropin in 4500k color temperature. PHENOMENAL dropin!! I'm super impressed by the beam quality, the output power, and the color rendition. I was all excited to show my girlfriend (a non-flashaholic) the light and when I fired it up outdoors, pointed at an object about 50 feet away, she said 'eew, that light makes me feel sick.' I asked her what she meant and turned the light off, she wasn't able to describe it except that it didn't hurt her eyes but instead made her feel sick to her stomach. We tried the light again later and she said it felt the same.. My new 500L light = girl repellent!

Needless to say this could prove to be both entertaining and problematic..

Anyone else ever had an issue where the color, or perhaps the PWM rate (is this driver PWM or no?) actually caused someone to feel ill?

Fird

PS: Thanks Nailbender!

Re: 4700k LED causes illness?

LEDs wash out everything, maybe that's it. Tried a high output incandescent? The LF EO-9 is awesome, hint, poke.:thumbsup:

Re: 4700k LED causes illness?

Well, I hate to be Captain Obvious here, but the problem is your girlfriend, NOT the light.

If LED's caused illness, there would be hundreds of thousands of cases, every day.

Likely, your girlfriend is sensitive to the high frequency 'flicker' of PWM (assuming your light has it; I don't know for sure); kind of like fluorescent lights give many people headaches.

I happen to really LIKE bright CW fluorescent lighting, at least while I'm working: the older I get, the more light I seem to need, to work.

I have 15 4 foot fluorescent lights in my garage, and when I work on my car, i have them ALL on. They are 3000+ lumens, so we're talking a LOT of light in a 24 x 24 foot garage.

Re: 4700k LED causes illness?

Which one did you really get, the 4500K or the 5700K? Perhaps Nailbender tried an experiment and took parts of both to create a new 4700K one... :devil:

Seriously, I have lots of 4500K by now and they have the best tint I can imagine. They are still white, but warm as well. Can't make anybody sick. I don't have a 5700K though, perhaps the brain can't decide whether it's cool or warm, not neutral neither and gets sick? Oops, I said seriously!

My wife gets sick whenever I mention the word "flashlight" and she already holds her stomach when I come to the words "LED" or "tint" or "Neutral white", but that's another story I guess. Let's be serious here! :duh2:

Yeah, I got it now, I once saw an older Luxeon beam, that was so greenish, that I got sick as well. Then I saw a light at an online shop advertised as "guaranteed greenish tint". I felt that sickness again and wrote the shop-owner somebody hacked her site or something, nope, she was serious, as it seems hunters are after greenish tints. Well, their hobby makes me sick as well, so I can understand...

What I want to say is, that we all know things that make us get sick. Like the smell of a fish-harbor, the taste of a worm in the salat or a politician's speech. For your girlfriend it's a certain color temperature perhaps. You have to track that down, make her see different beams and try to find out whether it is the tint, the Luminus, the SST50 or Nailbender's reflector. Be sure to show her the "4700K" without her knowing which one it is in between.

Re: 4700k LED causes illness?

I know that it's just her, nobody else I know has reacted that way to the light. The odd thing is that I didn't know it was possible for a certain color/wavelength of light to cause that.. dunno

goldenlight said:

Well, I hate to be Captain Obvious here, but the problem is your girlfriend, NOT the light.

If LED's caused illness, there would be hundreds of thousands of cases, every day.

Likely, your girlfriend is sensitive to the high frequency 'flicker' of PWM (assuming your light has it; I don't know for sure); kind of like fluorescent lights give many people headaches.

I happen to really LIKE bright CW fluorescent lighting, at least while I'm working: the older I get, the more light I seem to need, to work.

I have 15 4 foot fluorescent lights in my garage, and when I work on my car, i have them ALL on. They are 3000+ lumens, so we're talking a LOT of light in a 24 x 24 foot garage.

Click to expand...

Re: 4700k LED causes illness?

Fird said:

The odd thing is that I didn't know it was possible for a certain color/wavelength of light to cause that.. dunno

Click to expand...

If you girlfriend is sick because of a type a light, watch out !...buy some garlic, holy water and silver bullets.
4500°K is not an uncommon color temperature for natural light (during sunrise and sunset) and artificial lights so if it was the first time she felt uncomfortable with a light, it is probably not because of its temperature color.

Re: 4700k LED causes illness?

I have had a similar experience with my wife. The only light that seems to bother her is my Ra Clicky. I am fairly certain that this light is current regulated and has no PWM. I am not sure if it is the tint or what. She carries several lights herself and has never had this reaction to any other lights. It is kind of a drag as this is by far my favorite light. Maybe I should trade it (140CN) for a high cri version. :shrug:

Re: 4700k LED causes illness?

Fird said:

I just bought a nailbender SST-50 dropin in 4500k color temperature. PHENOMENAL dropin!! I'm super impressed by the beam quality, the output power, and the color rendition. I was all excited to show my girlfriend (a non-flashaholic) the light and when I fired it up outdoors, pointed at an object about 50 feet away, she said 'eew, that light makes me feel sick.' I asked her what she meant and turned the light off, she wasn't able to describe it except that it didn't hurt her eyes but instead made her feel sick to her stomach. We tried the light again later and she said it felt the same.. My new 500L light = girl repellent!

Needless to say this could prove to be both entertaining and problematic..

Anyone else ever had an issue where the color, or perhaps the PWM rate (is this driver PWM or no?) actually caused someone to feel ill?

Fird

PS: Thanks Nailbender!

Click to expand...

It's the electromagnetic radiation emitted from the diode. Send it to me immediately for photonic neutralization. Delay at your peril!

Re: 4700k LED causes illness?

As mentioned previously, my first guess would be that it has nothing to do with the LED or tint, but something PWM related (i.e. "strobe"-like) - as it's PWM which normally causes sickness. But I don't know if the drop-in has PWM regulation.

Maybe PWM exacerbates PMT?