Instrument Lighting & Paint Testing

[ArdWrknTrk]

ETM wrote

Gary Lewis wrote

ETM - Good idea!  I hadn't thought of that.  Do you have a recommended app?  I looked and there are several.

You're Forum you Silly

Not alot of forums let and any that have a detailed people as this one.

My Captain Crunch decoder ring sez: Your (this) forum.

There's not a lot of Forums left, nor any that have members with the depth of knowledge that this one does.

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks, guys.  I will take it as a compliment.  As for the forum, this one truly has a wide and deep knowledge base.  Love it!

Now for the testing, I just went out to get the mail, and the mail carrier was there and said "You got some goodies."  Sure enough I got the kick panels and vents, the voltage regulator for the ICVR, and the blue LED's from HiPo.  Let the testing commence!

And, on that note, I'll set out my procedures here, again, to see if anyone has upgrades.  Here are the scenarios, all of which will be photographed as well as tested for

1: I'll use the cluster with HiPo paint as the mule, and will populate it with 5 new incandescent bulbs and newly-polished blue filters.  That will give me a as-close-as-possible-to-new baseline for setting the camera.

2: Then I'll put the HiPo cool white LED's in, retaining the filters, and test that checking for fluoresence as well as brightness, in lux, using the app called Light Meter.

3: I'll swap the HiPo blue LED's for the cool whites and retain the filters, checking for fluoresence as well as brightness

4: HiPo blue LED's by themselves, checking for fluoresence as well as brightness

5: HiPo cool white LED's by themselves, mainly checking for brightness

6: HiPo warm white LED's by themselves, mainly checking for brightness

And if I get enough fluorescence to warrant it I'll run the same test, singular, with the cluster that has Testors paint on it.

Suggestions?

[ArdWrknTrk]

As said above, hit it with a true UV flashlight and see how much both those paints really glow

[Gary Lewis]

I don't have a UV flashlight.  Are they cheap?

[ArdWrknTrk]

They are inexpensive.
Just take note of the frequency advertised.
Usually 320-350nm

Great in conjunction with yellow lenses and oil, AC or coolant dye when looking for leaks.

Not so great when you see what cannot be unseen.  

[ArdWrknTrk]

I haven't had a blacklight (nor a lava lamp) since the '70's..  

But I do have a violet laser and a few CSI style flashlights.  🧐

[Gary Lewis]

I'm not sure I want to get a black/UV light to do that test.  But let's see how I did today.

In all of these tests the cluster was the one with the HiPo fluorescent paint.  And the voltage to the lights was kept between 14.6 and 14.8 volts.

Note how the color of the needles seems to change with differing light sources.

1: Five new incandescent bulbs and newly-polished blue filters.  That is as close as possible to new.  The camera picked a 1 second shutter speed, f/4.5 for the aperture, 10.70mm on the lens focal length, and 1600 ISO.  And while that combination looks good here in the picture, it was DIM to the eye in essentially total darkness.



2: Then I put the HiPo cool white LED's in, retaining the blue filters.  The camera stayed the same: 1"; f/4.5; 10.70; 1600.  And the gauges were bright, well lit.



3: I swapped the HiPo blue LED's in and retained the filters.  The camera stayed the same.  The gauges were bright.



4: HiPo cool white LED's by themselves, meaning no filters.  Camera the same with the shutter at 1 second.  Gauges were BRIGHT!.




5: HiPo cool white LED's by themselves, but dialed the shutter down to 1/60 second to match the pictures from the other day so we could compare to the blue LED's.




6: HiPo blue LED's by themselves but with the shutter at 1/60 second:




In my opinion the cool white LED's without filters are the winners.  But, the pics above don't show how they really look since the first pics are at way too long of a shutter speed, and the last two are too dim.  Here's a photoshopped version that comes close, but I think they really look good.




So, what other tests need to be done?  Can I quit and install the cluster?  Do we need to see a comparison of the Testors paint vs the HiPo paint with the blue LED's?

[ArdWrknTrk]

If you're happy it's all good.

I re-lit my '87 cluster with the Sylvania high output LED's and I like it.
There are a lot of differences but it works for me.

[Gary Lewis]

I'm happy with the cool white LED's, but I'm not happy with the testing results.  The testing was done accurately, but I don't think the results tell the tale very well.  By starting with the incandescent bulbs with filters as the baseline, then everything else washed out.

So, how 'bout I do one more round.  This time I'll not only let the camera pick the exposure, but I'll also overexpose one, two, three, or more f-stops.  Then I'll compare the pictures to the real thing and pick one that is essentially what I'm seeing in real life.

At that point I can shoot the other bulb & filter combinations using that camera setup, which should come closer to showing what you would see in real life.

I don't want to continue this, but I have everything set up so it isn't that hard to do.  So I a willing to do it one more time.  However, I would appreciate ideas on how to do it so I do it "right".

[ArdWrknTrk]

Everyone's eyes are different.
Whatever works best for you is what counts.

[salans7]

I'm not sure why we're doing this multiple times in the first place aside from the fact that you're the king of microanalysis. Just throw the cluster back in because I've seen enough to make my own decision, and that is the cool white with no filter looks best.

[swampedout]

Gary, as someone who has worked in the film industry, I appreciate your desire for an accurate image.
Perhaps you can start with the lights you think are the brightest and use that to set your baseline. Then all the dimmer lights will be noticeably dimmer and nothing will wash out.

[Gary Lewis]

Jim - The cool white is best to my eyes.  But what I've shown you isn't what I'm seeing.

Shaun - My reason for going back over it is so you, and everyone else, can see what I see.  No other test I've seen on the internet has done it scientifically.  Everyone points an automagic camera at the gauges and says "Here it is."  But that's not what the eye will see.  So I'm frustrated that I can't convey that to y'all, but feel like I'm almost "there".

Sam - That is the conclusion I've come to.  Use the cool white, which is brightest, as the baseline.  The camera's sensor probably doesn't have the same sensitivity as the human eye, so as things get less and less bright what the camera sees and what the eye sees will be two different things.  But at least they'll just go dim rather than washing out.

All - We are going to be at the church building most of tomorrow for a funeral, so I doubt I'll get to try the new approach until mid-afternoon - if then.  Or maybe Saturday.  But since I have everything in place I do want to give it another go as it doesn't take long to run the tests.  And here's the process I'll use unless you have a better idea:

1: I'll use the cool whites, put the camera on automatic, and take a pic.  Then I'll overexpose one stop and shoot that.  Then two stops, then three stops, etc.  (Each stop doubles the amount of light.)

2: I'll use this tablet and bring each pic up on it, side-by-side with the gauges.  Hopefully one of the pics will be essentially what I'm seeing with my eye, although the intensity of the screen will have something to say about that.

3: Once I figure out what setup the camera needs in order to render a pic equivalent to gauges, I'll use that setup to shoot the other combinations.

[Frank Wyatt]

#1 is what I see in my truck and I'm happy with that. I also have to agree the cool white looks really good to me as well.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Gary, sorry to hear about a passing in your congregation.
I'm sure you'll all do a wonderful job of celebrating that person's life.

Even if you do get the gauges to properly render on your iPad, none of us are going to see exactly what you do.
There will be artefacts of jpeg compression, different screen values and pixel counts for each of us.

The one disadvantage I see with LED's is that they won't dim down as much as incandescents.

The Iris is exactly like the apeture in your camera.
So you can have depth of field or light gathering, but not both.
Unfortunately, as we age our ISO seems to as well.  

At sea or under cover we used to use red light so as to not dialate our pupils and ruin our night vision.
But since sensors took over from film (and they are sensitive in the IR) other methods are required to remain unobtrusive.

[Gary Lewis]

Jim - Yes, we do a good job on life celebrations, but those of us hosting them spend a lot of time doing it.  But thanks for your concern.  She had a heart problem and hospice had been called in for some time, so her passing was both expected and yet still very sad.

Anyway, you are right, our ISO diminishes.  For sure.  My cataract surgery helped that a lot, but I still can't see as well as I used to in low light conditions.  As for depth of field, this camera has an f/4.5 lens, so isn't great at either light gathering nor DoF at that setting.  But it has better DoF than the big SLR if I let it open up to 1.7.

On what I see, it'll be this Microsoft tablet rather than the OLD, SLOW iPad.  But I might try the iPad once I settle on a pic using the tablet, just to see what the difference is.  However, there are differences between the two monitors on the shop computer, so there are certainly differences between any and all computers.

Frank - If you are using incandescent bulbs with the filters still in and seeing this then you have better lighting than any Bullnose truck I've seen in recent years.  I could live with that, but unfortunately that's not at all what I've been seeing.  Hopefully today or tomorrow I'll get a shot that shows more of what it looks like to me - at my antiquated age.  

[ArdWrknTrk]

I keep forgetting, you're rocking a Surface now.
(and yet, you are not using the tuner, EFI or a computer controlled transmission) oh, the irony!  

[Gary Lewis]

The Surface is essentially the same size as my wife's iPad, but allows me to edit the website - which is something you dare not do with an iDevice.  That's 'cause you have to drag and drop new pages into position, and with ~600 of them that's not happening w/o a mouse.  Or, maybe I should say that's not happening accurately w/o a mouse.  You may drag a page, but which page you drag and where you drop it is Russian roulette.  

As for EFI, Big Blue as well as Dad's truck will get there.  Eventually.  But I'm feeling overwhelmed with things to do and have decided that getting Big Blue back on the road, albeit with a carb, is the thing to do at the moment.

[Frank Wyatt]

They used to be very dim, until my head light switch started playing tricks on me on dark roads. After changing it, they got much brighter. The rheostat for the dimming feature in the head light switch used to be available separately, but I have always replaced the whole thing. I also have not had to have cataract surgery neither, so that plays into what I see as opposed to what you see.

[Gary Lewis]

Frank - I'm glad your lights are working well.  From what I've seen, your truck is an oddity on that point.

I did get the testing done today.  And I think the answer is that a camera, or at least my camera, cannot depict what the eye sees.  I say that because while I did get the Cool Whites to look in a picture pretty much how they looked to my eyes, from there on each change looked worse in the pic than it did in real life - with the exception of my old blue LED's for whatever reason.  Anyway, I'm done!

Oh yes, all shots were taken with the voltage to the lights at 14.8 volts.  That's more than your lights will see, but it was the lowest voltage I could maintain with all the current the incandescents pull.

I started by shooting pics of the HiPo Cool White LED's at 1/60, 1/50th, 1/40th, 1/30th, 1/25th, 1/15th, 1/13th, and 1/10th second, and with the aperture locked to f/4.5, the lens at 10.70 mm, and the ISO at 1600.  Then I compared those pics, displayed on this Surface tablet, to the real thing.  By comparing the amount of light on the waffles of the cluster and other things, as well as the overall image, I finally chose 1/20th of a second as the shutter speed that best represented what I was seeing with my own eyes.

Then I shot the other LED's or incandescent bulbs with filters at that shutter speed, aperture, etc.  Here's the HiPo Cool Whites:





The HiPo Warm Whites:





The HiPo Blues:





The old blue LED's I had in Big Blue.  Bill @ HiPo says these are similar to their 5SMD LED that puts out 115 lumens.  But their Cool, Warm, and Blue LED's put out 245 lumens.  You can see the difference here, especially with the needles themselves which tend to disappear with these LED's.




And now for the incandescent bulbs with blue filters.  Yes, they are actually on.  In real life they are quite a bit brighter than this, but certainly not bright.  And in my "dark room" they are legible.  However, if I was getting hit with headlights and then looking down at the gauges I think they'd be very hard to read.