Some thought the blues were impossible!

[craigb]

The nerd (and lighting enthusiast!) that I am thought this video was awesome! ?

 

[Wibbles]

Sorry. I haven't yet watched the video. But a number of years ago I was involved with a company that produced high end LEDs , including for the US military.

I was told that white LEDs were expensive to manufacture and that most "white" LEDs were blue LEDs with filters.

It was green LEDs that were used for military purposes (landing planes on aircraft carriers) and the company had a patent for their method of producing green LEDs up to military standards.

[henkejs]

Good story. I had no idea making a blue LED was more challenging than the others, but I remember buying my first string of multi-color LED Christmas lights years ago. Most of the blue bulbs had dimmed or failed completely after the first season, while the other colors continued to work fine. I wondered at the time what was different about blue.

[Shane_B.]

@craigb Are you sure we aren't related? Lol. I swear to God I watched that video a couple of days ago and was going to post it and tag you.

Remember my blue LED Christmas light thread a couple years ago? They always fail regularly. Which is why I'm surprised to hear @Wibbles mention that white LEDxs were actually blue with filters. I have sets of white LED lights that are over 10 years old and still work like new.

Here's another good LED light vid. This guy is crazy about LED lights. He has a couple really good "rant" videos about LED Christmas lights.

This vid though is about the old school Tru-tone C9 lights. You can get actual Tru-tone brand LED C9's now and you can't tell the difference from the incandescent ones, at a tiny fraction of the operating cost.

 

Edited February 13 by Shane_B.

[Grem]

Yes it was a good video/story. I like to watch good stuff like that.

[Wibbles]

4 hours ago, Shane_B. said:

Remember my blue LED Christmas light thread a couple years ago? They always fail regularly. Which is why I'm surprised to hear @Wibbles mention that white LEDxs were actually blue with filters. I have sets of white LED lights that are over 10 years old and still work like new.

When I said a number of years ago, it was back in 2007 so the technology may have changed. You could get white LEDs but most of those available at the lower end of the consumer market were blue ones with filters*.

I perhaps should have mentioned my involvement was that the company had gone administration (a form of insolvency akin to Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in the US) and I was trying to sort out the mess, find a buyer for the business and try to save as many jobs as possible. Unfortunately there was not one employee of the company who wasn't a complete bum-hole. It's maddening when you're dealing with a bunch of people acting against their own self-interest. They all seemed to want to make my job as difficult as possible. Net result: they all got made redundant.

The company's premises were owned by somebody you would know as King Charles the Spaniel 3rd.

 

* Of course, they could have been bullshitting me about this, as they tried to about almost everything.

Edited February 14 by Wibbles

[Gswitz]

I watched the same video this week. They must be pushing it. 

It was a great watch. 

Another one I recently enjoyed was this...

 

[craigb]

2 hours ago, Gswitz said:

I watched the same video this week. They must be pushing it. 

It was a great watch. 

Another one I recently enjoyed was this...

 

So, if those routes are actually secret, then these birds have a traitor (with a nice camera) in their midst! ?

[craigb]

Back around 2000 when I was just starting on my PhD work, I got the chance to work with the PhD who created these light & sound goggles:

I've got one along with about a dozen of the glasses that each use different colored LED's.  Several pairs are considered "experimental medial devices" by the FDA because they're twice as strong as they legally should be!  The device has two outputs (for both light and sound) so that couples could use the device at the same time.

(More info here if you're curious about the device: https://www.photosonix.com/products/nova-pro-100/ )

Anyway, the usual goggles had four LED's right in front of each eye (you wear these with your eyes closed and the LED's blink).  The different colors cause different effects and, after awhile, are not strong enough (in my not so humble opinion!).  So we doubled up the number of LED's and used both light outputs!

I still have and use these; they are AWESOME!  (Especially while using certain "plant medicines!" ? )

Anyway, when we started the project, we were limited in what colors we could use and I was bummed that my favorite color (blue) wasn't available... Then I got an excited call from the guy saying he had access to some from someplace in Japan!  I never made the connection before, but I wonder if it was from the same company!  I was VERY happy to get both some blue LED's as well as white.  My favorite pair of goggles has blue in the middle surrounded by white. ?

[Rain]

They should have remained impossible as far as I'm concerned. Those pesky things always annoyed the heck out of me.  (But it's funny to see that these ridiculously affordable monitors still work 22 years later). I guess my brain's geared backwards - I can spend 60 hours a week in this red room, but a tiny bit of blue drives me nuts.

Edited February 17 by Rain