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5k Lights: do you find them tiring?

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Accessories and Modifications' started by andreimontreal, Sep 1, 2020.

  1. andreimontreal

    andreimontreal Active Member

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    I like the look of 4-5k light at night. But I read it can be tyring on the eyes? Anybody who's been driving long enough with white day lights, what's your experience?

    Also, kind of lights we have on a Prius? led? I see there's a projector in there.
     
  2. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    I'm more concerned about everyone else's experience who have to deal with my headlights shinning on them... Blinding bright headlights may well help people with bad eyesight see better at night, but people with good eyes get blinded by overly bright headlights and it's a huge safety issue as far as I'm concerned. If people can't see well enough at night with regular low lumen headlights than the state that issues their driver license should not issue them a license to drive at night!
     
  3. Diemaster

    Diemaster Active Member

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    It's a proven fact that blue and UV can lead to eye problems. (ever notice how red lights dont disrupt your night vision?)

    I used to get terrible headaches, sometimes almost migraine bad, toward evening and night time. Since I work on a computer most of the day, I thought it was (severe) eye-strain. Then when "blue light filters" came into existence, the headaches stopped. Since then I got rid of all fluorescent lighting, including switching from a CFL to a LED monitor, and I only work under incandescent Light or Warm-white LED's now. Also swaped out the interior 6500K (blue tint) LED's to 3500K (warm) LEDs in the Prime. FYI 5000K is supposed to be "pure" white light AKA sunlight. Still get eyestrain on long days but it's NOTHING like it was.
     
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  4. Vman455

    Vman455 Senior Member

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    Sunlight is closer to 4300K IIRC, and that's also what most OEM LED headlights put out.

    OP, if your headlights have 2 projectors per side (4 total), they're LED. If 1 (2 total), they're halogen.
     
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  5. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    I had 5000K HIDs on my 2010 in the factory projector headlights. I never got flashed (maybe because everyone else drives SUVs or trucks lol).

    They were great on the dark, unlit highways in the prairies and through the Rockies.

    Honestly, I found the halogen projectors on the Gen 3 to be quite good (better than the multi-reflector dual-filament on the Gen 2 by far and slightly better than the 02 Camry's multi-reflector headlight).

    Like @Vman455 said, if you have one large projector on each side, it's halogen. If you have two smaller projectors per side, it's LED (low beam only). The 2012+ models have an LED boomerang-shape parking light for those cars equipped with LED headlights. Halogen models have a small 5W filament bulb as the forward-facing parking light.
     
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  6. andreimontreal

    andreimontreal Active Member

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    Let's dissect this further. The light projector is supposed to have a light limiter in the housing. If I'm replacing a 2000 lumen light (or what's the oem spec for their warm light?) with a 3000- give take- lumen light, is that going to make much of a difference for other drivers if that beam is not directly reaching the eyes? I somehow doubt it. I know strong lights bother other drives when they are inserted in housings without the proper projector designed for them - ie projector bulbs in reflector housings mostly to simplify it.

    I see pretty well and I've seen plenty of modern autos with fancy lights, like Audis and whanot, that have very bright LEDs. But the light was cutoff by the limiter and it only hit below the waist - sort to explain. And I found that the extra light bouncing off the objects was nice even for me - I wasn't personally bothered. But I work in cinema and I'm a light-o-filliac. So I could be an outliar, is what I'm saying.

    I like white light: I think I want to replace all my lights with quality 5000-6000k bulbs. But I'll research it a bit, look at examples and draw a conclusion.

    Mine has 2 projectors, 1 reflective, 1 projector. You probably didn't get flashed with the HIDs because the limiters were doing a proper job and the bulb was matching the projector well.


    The bigger issues is the spectrum of the light. CFL is incomplete most of the time (it's dirty white - it lacks certain wavelengths) so you're struggling to see since you lack detail. A lot of the monitors and light sources - other than incandescent - have terrible light spectrum and color rendition; they're weareing out out without you even knowing it. Yeah, I know from photography that 5000k is the most natural white. It also depends on what is available out there for sale.

    I've recently did lighting in my folks living - I insisted they get high CRI led spots - especially because of that reason. At first they thought I was crazy but I did a side by side real test between cheap average leds and higher CRIs for them and even my dad - who's lazy and ignorant as ever lately - was convinced visually.

    A
     
    #6 andreimontreal, Sep 6, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2020
  7. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    This it the argument that the flat earthers always make. They try to say that headlights are adjusted to never get too high and because cars never actually go up or down hills because hills don't exist there's no possible way their headlights could hurt someone's eyes.

    People will go to great lengths to convince themselves that they can do whatever they want no mater how dangerous it is for everyone else. And in this case, we need new laws to ban people with bad eyes from driving at night as well as not allowing cars to be registered if their headlights are too bright.
     
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  8. Pulse07

    Pulse07 Active Member

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    4300-5000k is what cars with HIDs come with and is considered the "brightest" or most white. Daylight is about 5000k. I used to do plug and play HIDs with 8000k and I couldn't see anything when it rains . The higher Kelvin the LESS light you are getting, 10000k is purple and the more you go up, the closer you are to the ultraviolet range.
     
  9. andreimontreal

    andreimontreal Active Member

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    So because they are 50% less bright, in those situations, the oem lights won't blind anybody? Do you have any idea what is the brightness difference between a direct reading of 2000 lumens - 3000 lumens VS the reading of indirect light bouncing off the pavement/surroundings of that same source of light?

    The eye of a driver will adjust to the reflected light bouncing off the physical world back to his/her eye. That reading is exponentially smaller than the source - first of all because of the distance that light travels from the source to the object and back to the eyes ( light diminishes 1/distance squared), and secondly because most of that light is absorbed by the non-reflective surface. So the light reading at the eye should be much smaller, say 10 stops smaller (that is the light is halved 10 times), relative to the reading of a headlight a few feet in front of it and I'm being generous. Jump 5-6 stops and that will be blinding to the eye (just assuming based on camera experience but a quick search yields this flashlight test which rather confirms that and the light is well under 1000 lumens but close to the subject); so 11 vs 10 stops (assuming the aftermarket lights are twice as strong lumen wise) will have a similar effect in terms of blinding. The only reason we can see in low situations is because our eyes cells sensitive to low light - turn on a light while in darkness and you'll be blind as your eyes switch to daylight cells. It doesn't matter if the oncoming car has a 2000 lumen oem lamp or a 3000 lumen aftermarket lamp. The light difference is great in either case and in both situations you'll go "blind" for a split second as your eye cells adjust from low intensity to high intensity and then back to low intensity again.

    I have been playing with cameras and light-meters and spot meters quite a bit and I've engrossed my self in low light photography from day 1. It seems to me that you're angry but for the wrong reason.

    You're most likely talking about the experience of an uneducated dyi'er buying HIDs or something like that and installing them in a reflective (for halogens) case vs a projector case dedicated (for hid or led bulbs). And like any par reflective case, the light is bounced up and down like a high beam. In that case the lights are blinding and I've experienced that as well. Doubling the lumens of a bulb isn't the culprit. Only fitting the wrong bulb in the wrong fixture.
     
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  10. Daigi_

    Daigi_ Active Member

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    I've ran 4300k HID on most of my cars, including my gen3. I switched to 5000k bulbs last year, and I really like them. Switched to "4300k" LED last Saturday. Then switched them out on Sunday because they're trash.

    I haven't felt any eye fatigue what so ever switching to 5000k bulbs. I don't blind oncoming traffic, nor do I blind super slammed cars in front of me.

    I don't have stock headlights though. They're jdm PHV lights. Because they're jdm, the cut off goes the "wrong" way. So I filed down the cut-off and it flat now.

    IG: twnzy_
     
  11. andreimontreal

    andreimontreal Active Member

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    So you think I'd be happier with HID? The housing you got, does it have an HID projector in it? I know iirc that led projectors are not the same as hid projectors.
     
  12. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Dr. Mike on YouTube did a great job of explaining how the closer to ultra-violet your lighting choices get, the greater the risks/harm... The more blue your headlights get, the closer to ultra violet they get is what I learned from his 7min presentation. Blue blocking glasses and avoiding blue LEDs, especially before bed is key!