Lights

[Fegco]

hello guys

long time since i posted

today i bring you a new discussion

what is the effectiviness of yellow lights?!?!??

let me explain...

in this days the Oporto city is living some nights of intense fog, i don't know if is from the changes of the climate, the matter is all the streets that are beeing upgraded with new street lamps, are yellow lights, and a curious thing, i live on 4th floor, and know i see cleary the street/Cars in the bottom
i know you are going to tell me that the street lamps are better than the older
but still, wen stroling trough the sidewalk, (these lamps are higher than the older) we see more cleary
even my neighbor who as one of the rare uno's 75sx, changed the headlights with yellow ones, equal to the fog lamps that came with the car
and is a curious car, the HT distributor, ignition module and other elements are from "Ducelier" i don't know why in my car everithing is from Magnetti...
well, and he say to me is better this way because he see's better the road not just two beams trying to pierce the fog...

so i just leave to you guys, wich is the best tipe of illumination for each purpose

cheers

 

[alexGS]

Hello Fegco,

I'm going to try moving this thread to 'Let's talk FIAT', where I think you may get a wider range of replies

Personally, I am not convinced. I bought some 'all weather' bulbs a few years ago - they were expensive, and had a purple coating. They put out yellow light!

The French have always been keen on yellow lights, but by doing that, you lose a significant part of the light intensity (knocking out colours other than yellow means losing those parts of the light).

At the moment, the trend is towards glaring high-temperature Xenon lights, so I'm not sure yellow is going to go down very well. Yellow is used for street lighting because sodium-vapour (or sodium-halide) gas lights are highly efficient in terms of light 'spread' on very little power. I don't think anyone has ever fitted them to a car as headlights... it would be interesting to know if they exist?

-Alex

 

[StiloBoy]

History update! French-land moved over to yellow bulbs at the advent of the 2nd World War, to differentiate their own vehicles from those of German invading vehicles! Yellow stuck in France for many years!

I had yellow spotlights on my mini when I first purchased it, they did seem to give a better view when the weather was wet or foggy! However in the UK yellow tinted lights will probably be viewed poorly by the Plod, although spots would likely be fine.

 

[fingers99]

When I was a kid most fog lights were yellow. Not sure why. Back then in the 50s and 60s we had a lot of fog, probably due to pollution from heavy industry.

Maybe the yellow light simply doesn't flare back so much? Pretty sure that on a clear night an ordinary halogen bulb would have the advantage.

I think FIAT and Lancia used Ducellier as an alternative supplier in the 70s, maybe 80s. Marelli probably own Ducellier now.