Talk:Headlamp

message: The statement "The correlated colour temperature of HID headlamp lamps is between 4100K and 4400K" has an issue. The studies done at the time may have only investigated the ones in those range, however HID lamps are made in anything from 3,000 to 10,000K+ Cantaloupe2 (talk) 16:46, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no such issue. 3,000 to 10,000K+ range you're seeing is for illegitimate (illegal) "HID kits". The assertion was true when it was written, but it is slightly outmoded; legitimate/legal automotive HID light sources now have a CCT between 4100K and 5000K. —Scheinwerfermann T·C02:45, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You changed the upper range to 5000K without any citation and removed the tag. Where did you come up with 5000K being the upper limit beyond "I know this" ?. This section is about HID lamps and unless you're arguing that HIDs that fall outside of 4100K<x<5000K are not high intensity discharge type lamps, its inappropriate to dismiss them.  The sentence needs to be narrowed down to read OEM or factory installed HIDs are..... insert range  (cite here). Also, if 3,000K HIDs are legal in India, Pakistan, whatever, such a claim does not lend global point of view, which is expected here.  Cantaloupe2 (talk) 09:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: HID color temperature

message: 67.151.108.178	US Walnut, California, United States,PAETEC Communications,K2 Motors
I've reverted several changes such as this as it was discovered that it was the company itself astroturfing based on IP lookup Cantaloupe2 (talk) 21:36, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  K2 Motors COI edit/astroturfing 

message: Its good to leave your lights on because the alternator in your car needs to recharge your battery.  People don't know this but if a battery isnt charged for a long time, all it does is age.  You need a battery that recharges or parts of it will become dead.  Leaving your lights on while the engine is on is a good thing at times.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.25.193 (talk) 02:27, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: How would that cause the battery to even get discharged, since you've got the engine running the whole time? If it's not discharged, it can't be recharged. Blargg (talk) 07:17, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good to leave headlights on all the time 

message: In Australia, the device itself is called a headlight and the beam of light is called a headlight beam. This is contrary to the article claiming that everywhere in the world, the device is only ever properly called a "headlamp" and the beam of light is always properly called a "headlight". Therefore, the sentence:
"While it is common for the term headlight to be used interchangeably in informal discussion, headlamp is the term for the device itself, while headlight properly refers to the beam of light produced and distributed by the device."
Should either be removed because of a lack of evidence to suggest this outrageous claim to global language, or should be corrected with more accurate information so as to not mislead readers.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.64.159.41 (talk) 11:10, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You are wrong! This matter been well discussed and documented, but the device called a "headlamp" in Australia, too, as you can see from this Australian company and this SA government document as well as the national Australian Design Rules themselves! 18:55, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Headlight/Headlamp 

message: This is an excellent work!  My complements to all!
I noticed that this Headlamp article in the first paragraph of the Tungsten-Halogen section mentions light output power in Lumens" then in "candella" and in the second paragraph in lumens.  Are these referecnces to the same standards? Why the change in units?
or perhaps why not have both units listed for each reference as some might be more comfortable in one set of units and one in the other?  I personally prefer both as i am trying to learn more about this subject and am finding info in both units and want to have a consistent reference in BOTH units.
 Thanks,  Glennndavis (talk) 14:42, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The units are for measuring different things. Lumen is the total power of visible light, such as that emitted by a bulb. Candelas are used to measure how intense the light is, in a particular direction - how concentrated or focussed the light is, as well as the total amount of power. A light source with a luminous intensity of one candela uniform in in all directions emits a total of 12.56 lumens; if the intensity was one candela uniformly ofver a half-sphere, the source is emitting a total of 6.28 lumens, and so on. Solid angles always troubled me till I started comparing them to the areas of continents on the globe; for example, Asia occupies a litte more than one steradian of solid angle (if it were round and not Asia-shaped). --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: And you clearly don't know what each unit represents.  A light source can emit 1,000,000 candela and yet emit no lumens at all.  The fundamental point, as you noted but failed to pick up on, is that lumens is a measure of visible light flux (corrected for response of the human eye), but candela includes all light both visible and invisible.  The relationship between candela and lumen is based on the (often omitted) assumption that all the light expressed in candela is visible and is at the peak of human eye response.  The unit that should be used for light directed in a particular direction is the unit of illuminance or the lux which does take eye responsed into account.  If the total light output of a 1000 lumen (isotropic) source can be captured and directed into a beam of 1 square metre, then the illuminance is 1000 Lux.  The issue is confused because some organisations such as ANSI use lumens to express the light output of items like video projectors.  This saves them from having to express the brightness in lux, the value of which would only be valid at one single projector to screen distance.  I B Wright (talk) 17:31, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Good thing you're always Wright.  You'd better go fix the Candela article then, since it appears to disagree with you.  You might also have to fix the SI article and a few others, as well as some textbooks. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:39, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Units

message: The "Increased safety" section says "Automotive HID lamps offer about 3000 lumens and 90 Mcd/m2 versus 1400 lumens and 30 Mcd/m2 offered by halogen lamps." I don't think either of those luminances can be correct for any realistic throw distance. For example: Given a perfect reflecting diffuser, the HID case requires concentrating the light into an area of only (3000/pi/90,000,000 =) 0.0000106 m2, which may be even smaller than the area of the arc between the electrodes.
Please check those luminances and specify the distance at which the values are obtained.--Therealdp (talk) 04:27, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Those figures you doubt are actually correct. They refer to the flux (lumens) and the luminance of the light source itself (the filament coil or the arc). They don't refer to light flux in the beam or luminance on the roadway ahead.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.69.125 (talk) 05:07, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: These figures are dubious, but not for the reason initially stated here. Halogens now are pushing over 2500 lumens with 9011 (HIR1) bulbs. MWisBest (talk) 04:00, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  HID & halogen luminance claims are implausible 

message: WOW, WOW, somebody did some real digging to come up with that French legislative record from 1936 announcing the start of yellow headlamp requirements in France! I have long wondered what inspired the French to enact that law, and had heard a variety of explanations but always without documented proof. I made some adjustments (I think/hope they are improvements) to the "light colour" and "yellow light" sections of the article. From the Selective yellow article's talk page I pulled interesting citations to current regulations requiring yellow front lights on all vehicles in Monaco (I kind of doubt this is enforced -- yellow lights specifically for one tiny country just seems very unlikely -- but I have no idea how to go about finding out). Also, I have tagged some assertions that need support. I deleted a claim that yellow headlamps are allowed throughout Europe "on vehicles that originally had them". If someone can find a reliable citation backing that up, let's put it back in, but I have pored through a large amount of vehicle regulatory code from a bunch of European countries, and I have yet to find anything reserving yellow lights for only those vehicles that originally were equipped with yellow lights. I can't say for 100% sure exactly what the whole situation is, because I haven't looked at the codes from each and every European country. Obviously some countries permit either color, that's been the case for many years. France's current vehicle code says "white or yellow" (see here and note no limitation for yellow lights only being allowed if the vehicle was originally equipped) while Germany's says "Only white" (see here). I would like to be able to tabulate a complete list of which countries permit/prohibit yellow headlights, but that would be a huge task. Anyway, again, WELL DONE to whomever found that French document!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.69.125 (talk) 06:00, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Do not troll. As you have sources to emprove the article, go for it. But keep in mind, there's also a historical fact. Differ btwn makers headlamps an position lamps! France had yollow head lamps. Today in Germany allweather bulbs are avail providing warm white light, but check for use in all Europe. --Hans Haase (talk) 19:30, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Um...excuse you? What is this accusation of "trolling" based on? And what is "Differ btwn makers headlamps an position lamps!" supposed to mean? 207.8.179.21 (talk) 05:36, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: In USA turn singnals are used as position markers, too. This amber bulbs or/and lamps use high power for signals, low power for markers. Bulbs are avail in 36/8 and 21/5 watts, also 21/4 watts. The former french head lamps were yellow. For the German regulations, use the official source. It is true France switched form yellow to white head lights. --Hans Haase (talk) 00:44, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course amber is not the same as selective yellow. I don't see where anyone has confused the two or claimed they are the same, so again, where is your claim of "trolling" coming from, and what error do you think you're correcting? (Speaking of errors, there is no 36/8w bulb. 27/8w, yes.) 24.87.69.125 (talk) 19:31, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yellow light 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060921151618/http://unece.org:80/trans/main/wp29/wp29regs/r037r4e.pdf to http://www.unece.org/trans/main/wp29/wp29regs/r037r4e.pdf
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The first sentence in the "Automatic beam switching" section says:
"Even when the high beam is prohibited by the presence of other drivers on the road, drivers generally do leave them on all the time.".
This claim is not supported by the cited reference, which pretty much says the opposite ("The results indicate that high-beam headlamp use is low"). Even if it is true in the USA, it is not true in other parts of the world and certainly not in the UK, where it is rare for drivers not to dip their lights when there is oncoming traffic. 90.155.73.34 (talk) 19:42, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Automatic beam switching 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: From German Wikipedia:
:Ein erstes Kurvenlicht wurde bereits 1918 im Cadillac Type 57 angeboten, später für das Modell V16 von 1930. Bei Tatra wurde 1935 im Tatra 77 und später im Tatra 87 ein Kurvenlicht verbaut. Auch der Tucker Torpedo, der ab 1948 nur in einer Kleinstserie produziert wurde, besaß einen dritten Scheinwerfer in der Mitte, das sogenannte „Zyklopenauge“.
:Im September 1968 wurde das Kurvenlicht erstmals in Europa serienmäßig von Citroën im DS eingesetzt. Über einen Seilzug, der mit der Lenkung verbunden war, wurde das Fernlicht gelenkt.
From the web:
:Directional headlights have been around at least since the 1928 Willys-Knight 70D Touring Car and were featured on the Duesenbergs in the 30s and Citroën in the 50s.
Thanks. --Alexander.stohr (talk) 15:19, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  more cornerstones for use of directional lights in cars 

message: Something we should definitely add is a section about the "smart" headlights developed at Carnegie Mellon's cs department. I should really add it myself, but because I'm an idiot, if I never get around to it, I wrote a blog post about it that may be of use to some other wikipedian. Test35965 (talk) 02:32, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Future headlamps Suggestion 

message: This section of the article contains no citations/references. Its information isn't complete, and therefore isn't correct; it claims HIR bulbs all have a reflective coating, but that's not true. There are two "HIR" bulb specifications: HIR1 (also called "9011") and HIR2 (also called "9012"). The original designs of these bulbs, by General Electric, did have an infrared-reflective coating on them. So did the next versions, by Toshiba-Harrison. But the actual legal technical specifications for these bulbs do not require or necessitate an infrared reflective coating. All they do is specify the parameters of the bulb: how much light it's supposed to put out, how much power it's allowed to draw, and all the physical dimensions and markings on the base, etc. It's up to the manufacturer to decide how to meet the requirements. "HIR1" and "HIR2" doesn't necessarily mean the bulb has (or has to have) a coating, it's just the name of the bulb. Most (or all?) HIR1 bulbs and some HIR2 bulbs currently manufactured by makers like Philips, Narva, Voszla, General Electric, and Sylania/Osram do NOT have a coating on them, and they meet all the specs just the same. Those are the facts, and I have technical literature to prove it, but I don't yet understand how to make sure this literature is acceptable, and I don't know how to put them in the article correctly. I don't want to take a chance on messing something up, so if someone else can please improve this section, with updated/correct information and appropriate sources, please go ahead. Thanks. 78.131.30.180 (talk) 15:45, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Halogen infrared reflective (HIR)

message: No information AT ALL on adaptive driving beam in this article? Seriously? Not a word? It's a hugely revolutionary advance in vehicle lighting, and this article is silent on it. Come on, can't we do better than that??? 78.131.30.180 (talk) 15:47, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: You're somebody. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:36, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adaptive Driving Beam (ADB) 

message: CZmarlin, in this edit you added text stating that France's selective yellow headlamps were ended at the request of the French auto industry. Looking at your source, it goes into more detail, claiming that French automakers felt the French requirement put them at a competitive disadantage because they had to make yellow headlights for France and white ones for everywhere else. There are problems with that idea. For one thing, this is directly contradicted by the very next assertion, which is backed by a citation of the actual French law, which is probably more authoritative than "nth"-hand information  in a non-technical book written by an author with an agenda. For another thing, the claim doesn't make sense. The requirement was that all vehicles in France have the yellow lights. It wasn't just for French-made cars, it was for all vehicles driven in France, no matter what brand they were or where they were made, so every car company had to put different lights or use different bulbs for the French market...how would that put the French makers at any kind of a competitive disadvantage? This feels like it might be yet another one of the surprisingly many folktales that have been dreamt up to "explain" France's yellow lights—military tactics, different road paving materials, a variety of claims about light penetrating fog, etc. I don't mean to diss the source you found as definitely/necessarily wrong, but there are reasons to suspect it might not have the facts right. The author doesn't give any citations to support the claims made in the text, and the document he mentions (Council Directive 91/663) makes no mention at all of French automakers requesting this change. Moreover, it doesn't say what he claims it says. The preamble says the colour of headlights will be required to be white only, but it is clearly in context of what would be required for EEC type approval, not what would be required for entry or use in any particular country, and Article 3 of that document says as of 1 January 1993 an EC member state would not be permitted to refuse entry or type-approval of a vehicle that meets the lighting standards set forth in the document. That is: France would no longer be able to refuse entry or EC type approval to a vehicle with white headlights. That does not mean France couldn't continue to allow the yellow lights, and the citation here in this article to current French legal code points to that understanding: France still allows yellow (with no apparent vehicle production or registration date cutoff), but white is also allowed. I think it would be good if another source could be found to corroborate or definitively debunk yours. But no matter what combination of terms I search on, all searches seem to point back to that one solitary source you found, or to this article's incorporation of that source. Not a good feedback loop, how do we exit it? Pogorrhœa (talk) 05:06, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Selective yellow headlights in France 

message: "Burner" is sometimes used deep in the rabbit-warrens of engineering departments to refer specifically to the part of the bulb/lamp comprising the glass or quartz capsule and its internal components (gas fill, filament and filament supports/shields in incandescent bulbs; electrodes, gas fill and halides in gas discharge bulbs). It's not a term in widespread general use. The complete item with the burner, the base (or cap), the blacktop (if present), and any other components is the bulb, the lamp, or the light source. Proof? Yeah, there's a lot of it: here and here and here (and more to the point, here), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, just for a selection of government-regulation, technical-standard, and industry refs. 173.180.13.37 (talk) 00:48, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Burner" vs. "Bulb" and "Lamp" 

message: The article does currently include a mention of the first type of dipping headlamps, but nothing about whether one light was dipped or both. In the UK up until the mid-1950s, the anti-dazzle fittings on all cars worked by completely extinguishing the off-side headlight and only deflecting the near-side beam (Autocar 16 January 1948). This was changed at some as yet undetermined point, with the later process, which deflected the beam on both headlights referred to as "double dipping". I'm not sure if this was the same in other countries, but it was a significant change at the time in the UK and would merit inclusion if anyone has more specific details of this development in other countries. Mighty Antar (talk) 14:27, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double dipping Suggestion 

message: No mention is made of headlamps on locomotives etc Peter Horn User talk 17:08, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The answer is Train lights Peter Horn User talk 17:25, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Headlamps on locomotives