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#Yellow fog lights free
So by projecting light in such a low level it can achieve penetration further in a fog free zone increasing viewing distance. One thing that yellow does well like in the sodium vapor is increase the contrast by washing out all the color and leaving everything in a yellow-black environment which under certain situations may improve driving but as I said before color is such an important information that we need in order to take the correct choice.īecause fog hovers around 18 inches off the ground the fog lights are usually in a lower position in the front bumper. But in fact fog droplets are big enough to reflect all colors of light. The claim that yellow light have a such a longwave that could pass through the thin fog droplets and give better penetration than white light, but there is much more in the fog light operation than just the color itself. Because fog droplets reflects light everywhere, thus lowering the performance of lighting by decreasing the viewing distance under either fog or extreme bad weather. In fact what most aftermarket manufacturers do is put a yellow lens in front of a standard white light so by doing that they decrease the light output by around 20 to 30%. That was until the last decades of XX century most of automakers changed to 4300k halogens, so after that the aftermarket started to offer yellow fog lights for those believing they could achieve better results with it. But the fog lights in most cases stayed yellow, not because they provide better lighting under fog but because they didn’t wanted change it. But as decades advanced and lighting technology helped to lower the price in halogen bulbs to a point where there is almost no room for improvement. So when auxiliary fog lights were needed they selected the yellow ones for two main reasons, they were way cheaper and since they were meant to be used as auxiliary lighting, was not worth it to put expensive bulbs for an application that was not meant to be used all the time. Back in the early XX century when lighting was still transitioning from street and home lighting to automotive, back then they were yellow and the current 4300k bulbs were the novelty and actually expensive to produce. Some might claim that yellow actually works but the truth about the yellow lights is a little different. Thing is that even though a yellow glasses will improve visibility, it doesn’t work the same way when instead of filtering light you project a colored light towards a dark environment. In the case of fog lights they are traditionally 3000k yellow light, but there is a little misunderstanding there about the yellow color.
#Yellow fog lights driver
And what you call rear fog lights are in fact fog warning lights so driver behind you will know that you are driving slow due to the bad visibility conditions. Red is even less visible and they are being used as brake lights and warning lights because is the universal warning color and the vests are orange-yellow mostly because those colours are the less abundant in nature so you will notice them faster. Yellow light in fact offers less perceivable light because is closer to the infra-red spectrum and also the reason why a HID above 6000k will produce almost no usable light whatsoever. The light our eyes evolved to see is the sunlight which is rated around 5700k and that is why headlights are between 4300k and 5000k to imitate that colour temperature. Actually fog light penetration is mostly due to the angle and relative height with the road because fog itself sits around 18 to 20 inches above the surface hence why fog lights are placed the lowest and also explain the fact that regular headlight will not work at all under heavy fog situations.
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