logix1229

Does anyone know of a GOOD high quality reputable shop in SoCal that does custom automotive lighting? I'm looking for lighting that is like police or emergency lighting. I won't mimic the colors of police as i don't want to get in trouble with that and cops thinking i'm trying to pretend to be a cop car but I'd get something like Blue & white or some yellow combination. The reason is because for the nature of my work I drive through remote areas and often times at night. There's been times when I'm in my other car and it's extremely foggy driving through the canyons etc so I need to have some emergency lighting in case i ever get stranded or when the fog gets so bad that I need to light through them and warn other potential drivers in the area.

I'm looking to find a good shop who can do all the wiring and installation. I found a company but they're located in Chicago but here's a link below. I'm looking for a company that does this type of work.
https://www.wickedwarnings.com/

Thanks.

Pittsy

Gerlicious Performance can set you up big time!

@gerlicious_performance on Instagram. Send him a message.

logix1229

damnit. I don’t use Instagram but let me try and find his info.

thanks for the recommendation.

Pittsy

His CL username is @Gerxiong89

Heres his website too, maybe you can contact him on there. This is not a means of advertisement, but strictly a method of possible contact: gerliciousperformance.bigcartel.com

sunamer

Driving with blue lights installed on your car is not illegal, but having them ON while on public roads will get you in trouble for cop impersonation. Even firefighters and EMS do not have those blue lights.
if you wanna be safe, use white, orange and green (or red/purple maybe). Ideally if you really need those lights (officially) you might ask local cops about them first...

for in-fog collision mitigation - install fog light (rear ones too). They are very bright and get through hundreds of ft of thick fog (unlike regular stop lights)

logix1229

yes I am aware that it’s illegal and as mentioned I would never try to impersonate a cop. I would only use them if I ever had to drive through dense foggy areas or areas where no lighting is around such as remote desert areas where I sometimes have to travel for my job. Or if I’m stranded or pulled off to the side of the road I would turn them on when necessary if I needed to alert others or use them to get attention in an emergency.

sunamer

Also, short wavelength is the worst for water (aka fog) due to more pronounced scattering.. That is why any good fog lights are always yellow...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electr...quid_water.png

GR3Y5H3ART

can you break this Data down to more layman's terms

i.e. HID's usually go on a scale like 4000K (pure white light) vs 6000K (hint of blue with white light) to 8000K - 12,000K (usually the super Blue/Purple aka useless during nighttime driving) lights

sunamer

Blue light gets scattered more easily by water (or water vapor also), which basically makes fog glow uniformly while not letting that light through to the obstacle you are trying to see while driving through that fog. Yellow light is a bit better, because it does not get scattered that easily.

1. Also, understand that K number is a certain point on the mathimatical (warmer...........neutral............more blue) line, and it does not represent a particular single wavelength. If you wanna know more about what K is - read about black body spectrum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation
Basically, there is no such thing as “pure” white light. White light is the “dirtiest” “color”, and in reality is a mix of different visible wavelengths (true pure colors). The first chart on that page I just gave you shows what K actually means. You can see that the more overall spectrum is shifted toward shorter wavelengths (blue), the higher K will be and more blue it will appear to the eye. The same applies to the warm colors, but the spectrum needs to move to longer wavelengths and have more of those in order to be perceived as “warmer” white.

2. The reason blue light is useless for us for night driving is because human eyes have the highest sensitivity in greens. Blue sensitivity of a human eye is 3-20 times less than that of the green part of the spectrum, which is why using head lights of 9000-15000K is stupid. Whoever does it, unknowingly limits his own chance of seeing something on the road before it is too late.

Flash5

4000k is definitely not pure white. It’s more yellow. 5500K is usually the most crystal white you can get.

sunamer

It really depends on which point (K) you choose to be “true” white. Usually it is either 5500K or 6500K. So, of course 4000K is less than any of those and so it will be a warmer white (but not by much).

Flash5

Yeah when I say yellow I mean that warm color that stock halogen bulbs output. 6500k starts to output a little too much blue IMO and 6000k has a slight tinge of blue that’s why I say 5500k is like pretty crystal white.

whoismiked

Here is a visual comparison of the temperature spectrum. I agree with Flash that the purest looking white is right around 5500.

sunamer

that is because color balance (when that image was rendered) was set to 5000-5500K. If it was set to 3000K, the “purest” white would be on the left, and the rest of the lights would be blue.

Here is an example of WB being set to 7000-8000K.


The fun fact is - our brains constantly adjust which color balance it uses, in accordance to the most prevalent colors in the environment. If you were placed in a room with blue walls and spent some time in there (10-15 minutes at least) you will walk out of it, seen everything in “warm tint”... that is how we see white all the time, even though it is rarely the case that lighting is actually perfectly balanced at about 5000K.

Flash5

I’m not trying to sound like a douche or anything BUT in real world use, 5500k is most commonly advertised as the most crystal white in automotive lighting when it comes to LEDs. I did notice for HIDs the most common was 6000k. Either way I do agree that it’s a little subjective how we see colors (my wife and I always argue about certain shades of colors lol).