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"Your lights are blinding!"


Jennifer McM

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Blinded by the light

Inside Braunston tunnel 

Day is turned to night. 

 

Blinded by the light

Inside Braunston tunnel 

Day is turned to night. 

 

Mister grumpy bumpy 
Gotta get me a new LED

Up front wiv me headtorch 
In the cabin lookin for bat trees 
As the old git grumps
His way into his maglite
With a light on my cratchboard
Feelin' kinda older
I tripped the weed-hatch

With this very unpleasin'
Sneezin' and wheezin
The narrowboat  crashed to the side
The narrowboat  crashed to the side

 

Blinded by the light

Inside Braunston tunnel 

Day is turned to night. 

 

Blinded by the light

Inside Braunston tunnel 

Day is turned to night. 

Edited by rusty69
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5 hours ago, Jennifer McM said:

Consider it done! Our lights are tilting more upward - they were slightly though in our defence. ?

 

 

Interesting, the lights were bought as tunnel lights. Thanks for the feedback.

 

Yes, we do have the curtains drawn back and inside lights on.

 

Do you know anyone in AmDram or theatre lighting. If so you may be able to beg a yellow gel and put it behind the "lens" on your light.

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2 hours ago, koukouvagia said:

I have one of these handy in case I break down in a tunnel.  It can be set to flash red and might be quite useful in preventing someone running into my back end. 

Someone was telling me the other day that he nearly ran into the rear of an unilluminated boat that had broken down in the tunnel.

I have a red flashing magnetic light that I bought from Aldi a couple of heads ago. I just set it to flash slowly and stick to the steel by the back doors. 

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43 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Do you know anyone in AmDram or theatre lighting. If so you may be able to beg a yellow gel and put it behind the "lens" on your light.

 No, can't source that. I do have some hobby glass paint, that could work? Guess it doesn't matter what colour the light is?

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1 hour ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Do you know anyone in AmDram or theatre lighting. If so you may be able to beg a yellow gel and put it behind the "lens" on your light.

 

Or the cellophane of a Lucozade bottle ? (do they still do Lucozade in bottles with yellow cellophane wrapper?).

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Quality Street toffees come wrapped in different coloured cellophane, everso useful for this sort of thing. Strawberry creams are wrapped in red, ideal for mending car rear light lenses. Amber which I think is whats needed wraps I think the chocolate cocoanut ones, a few of these stuck over the lamp would do the trick. Purple wraps the few chocolate hazelnut ones. good for sticking onto spectacle lenses to defuse the glare and prevent headaches. There is also green but I can't remember which toffee they wrap I'm afraid.   Hope this helps. 

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Don’t make it too yellow or you may have problems with crt manned tunnels as you are required to have a white light at the front.

That said you can get stained glass filter on eBay that might do what you want with a cold led light.  Something like this

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Uber-Film-Transparent-Stain-Glass-Effect-Self-Adhesive-Sticky-Sign-Vinyl-Film/361090359207

 

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7 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

Don’t make it too yellow or you may have problems with crt manned tunnels as you are required to have a white light at the front.

That said you can get stained glass filter on eBay that might do what you want with a cold led light.  Something like this

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Uber-Film-Transparent-Stain-Glass-Effect-Self-Adhesive-Sticky-Sign-Vinyl-Film/361090359207

 

That cheaper than Bizards tin of sweets and you keep your teeth.

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LED lights have a very narrow colour spectrum unlike tungsten/halogen lights so putting a coloured filter on is likely to result in almost no light not a coloured light. The other problem with LED lights is they are very white and towards the blue end of the light spectrum, this destroys night vision, red light or the reddish yellow put out by 'old lights' is much better for night work (hence red lights on ships bridges). It is not only boats that have this problem it is becoming an issue on country roads with the ultra bright white headlights even when dipped leaving the oncoming driver totally blinded for several seconds.

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19 minutes ago, Detling said:

LED lights have a very narrow colour spectrum unlike tungsten/halogen lights so putting a coloured filter on is likely to result in almost no light not a coloured light. The other problem with LED lights is they are very white and towards the blue end of the light spectrum, this destroys night vision, red light or the reddish yellow put out by 'old lights' is much better for night work (hence red lights on ships bridges). It is not only boats that have this problem it is becoming an issue on country roads with the ultra bright white headlights even when dipped leaving the oncoming driver totally blinded for several seconds.

Led have a very tight spectrum, but white leds work by having a fluorescent coating excited by the blue or near uv led which emits a broader spectrum of light otherwise it would not look white but blue and it would not be possible to see things illuminated that are greens and more so reds.  So a yellow filter will reduce the blue light a lot so it will reduce the brightness but I think you will still have a fair bit of light.  I will have to get a bit of pale yellow and a white led and try it as i’m curious to see the result. 

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9 hours ago, Chewbacka said:

Led have a very tight spectrum, but white leds work by having a fluorescent coating excited by the blue or near uv led which emits a broader spectrum of light otherwise it would not look white but blue and it would not be possible to see things illuminated that are greens and more so reds.  So a yellow filter will reduce the blue light a lot so it will reduce the brightness but I think you will still have a fair bit of light.  I will have to get a bit of pale yellow and a white led and try it as i’m curious to see the result. 

Great information, thank you all. 

 

Wonder if yellow strips would be better? Perhaps testing on a dark night.

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Years ago when you took a car to France you used to have to put yellow sticky film over the headlights to make them less dazzling and match the French cars back then. You can still get the film. Cheaper than a bottle of lucozade too. Enough for yours and a friends boat.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yellow-Light-Headlight-Cover-30x60cm/dp/B00B5NPN5I

 

Jen

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
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3 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

That's a great fun idea, but I'm a martyr to having an over stimulated imagination, and that would be just too scary in a tunnel. 

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Just now, rusty69 said:

Well, yeah, but think about all the bats you would attract! 

Or frighten ?

4 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Years ago when you took a car to France you used to have to put yellow sticky film over the headlights to make them less dazzling and match the French cars back then. You can still get the film. Cheaper than a bottle of lucozade too.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yellow-Light-Headlight-Cover-30x60cm/dp/B00B5NPN5I

 

Jen

Yes, that's what I was thinking, didn't know if was still sold. 

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52 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

Just a thought. Instead of going beyond their remit and making CO alarms mandatory with lost of "positioning" regs to allow examiners to gold plate the standards the BSS could justifiably insist such lights as this one are a BSS fail. because they do cause dangers for third parties - other boaters approaching them in tunnels. That would perhaps force the chandlers to stock better lights.

Couldn't agree more.  When I meet any of the bright light brigade, I always shout,  "Your light is too bright.  It's dangerous."

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All thats needed is a cheap rectangular wide angle driving lamp with a 55w halogen bulb, these usually have brackets which will allow the lamp to easily pivot up and down.  The lights on modern cars are absolutely ridiculousely stupid, front and back, and are like variations of Blackpool illuminations. Even the Americans reckon its one big horrid dazzle over here at night.  And it happens in daylight now too,!!!! horrible.

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On entering the tunnel last week, we encountered three boats in succession. 

 

The first boats captain bellowed 

"This light is too bright!" 

 

I adjusted the light 

 

The second boats captain shouted

"This lights is too dim" 

 

I adjusted the light 

 

So, the third boat is passing, and the captain exclaims 

 

"Ahhh, this light  is just right," and happily crashed into us anyway. 

Edited by rusty69
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