As a little boy I was fascinated thathey made the whole brake light appear purple from a distance! Still don’t understand how the higher frequency blue light makes all the lower frequency red light appear somewhat purple. Did one drill outhe plastic brake light cover to inserthe lens? Illegal tod…

IIRC, places like J.C. Whitney sold small “blue dot” lenses that could be inserted into the red lenses after drilling a hole. I always liked the look of brake lights with those blue dot lens additions. I don’t know for sure, but i imagine that they wouldn’t be legal today.

They are still sold today. You can buy them from Speedway Motors and others. Back in the day, tail light lenses were glass, not plastic. It made adding blue dots harder than into plastic lenses. They are illegal but I doubt anyone would care to ticket a guy sporting a pair on a 40 Ford or a 49 Mer…

Google it for more history, and sources for new/old blue dots.

[image] Mustangman: They are illegal but I doubt anyone would care to ticket a guy sporting a pair on a 40 Ford or a 49 Mercury. For that matter, I think that most people sporting blue dot lenses wouldn’t get pulled-over nowadays. For several years, I have observed vehicles with outrageously…

[image] Mustangman: They are illegal but I doubt anyone would care to ticket a guy sporting a pair on a 40 Ford or a 49 Mercury. Depends on the state, in Washington they are legal as long as the non-commercial vehicle is over 40 years old. Or any Motorcycle regardless of age.

[image] Robert-Gift: Still don’t understand how the higher frequency blue light makes all the lower frequency red light appear somewhat purple. It’s because the red cones of the eye have some response to far blue (AKA purple). A mix of red and longer wavelength blue can give the same appeara…

In the paper today someone asked the Highway Patrol about use of collector plates in Minnesota. Seems that there are quite a few restriction such as cannot be used for daily driving like to the store. And must own another car with standard plates, etc. So seems to me I read if you have collector …

We have a couple here in town that go on daily coffee runs with a 62 Porsche 356 on collector plates, they do have other cars on standard plates since they only drive the porsche 9-10mo out of the year on average. There have been drivers cited for commuting on collector plates but usually acting on …

A guy I drove with at a national freight company with a ton of trucks on the road put a blue light on his CB antenna that lit up when he pressed the mike. Since we had a different rig every trip. this was his way of identifying himself. We drove out of Buffalo NY to points East and spent a lot of …

Just saw a 1955 Chevy pick up with collectors plates. At a red signal I congratulated the owner ohis truck. He said he drilled the holes and put in the blue dots. Unfortunately, the nickel-sized blues were more athe 6 o’clock position and not bright enough. Should have been dead center over the …

Whatever happened to the small round blue lens inserted into brake light covers?

General Discussion

circuitsmith July 29, 2020, 10:23pm 7

It’s because the red cones of the eye have some response to far blue (AKA purple).
A mix of red and longer wavelength blue can give the same appearance

Note the red curve has a little bump between 380 and 430.
The curve peaking at 530 is the response of rods in dim light.

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Whatever happened to the small round blue lens inserted into brake light covers?

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