Talk:Automotive lighting/Archive 3

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Blue Japanese Speed Lights

I heard that in Japan trucks have blue lights on the front, indicating how fast they are moving? Anyone one got info of pictures? 75.153.176.88 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 10:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC).

Article style

This is a really longwinded article. For example, this:

Turn signals [...] are signal lights mounted near the left and right front and rear corners of a vehicle [...]

...would be better phrased:

Turn signals [...] are signal lights mounted on the four corners of a vehicle [...]

Similarly, this huge chunk of waffle:

In virtually all left-hand drive cars, the lever is on the left side of the column, and the driver moves the lever up to activate the right turn signal, or down to activate the left. In right-hand drive cars, the placement of the signal lever varies by maker and market. When the lever is located on the right side of the column, the lever is moved down to signal a right turn, up to signal a left. The direction in which the lever must be moved is intuitive, in that the lever must be pivoted to signal in the same direction as the steering wheel must be turned for the car to make either a left or a right turn.

...would suffer no ill effects by being edited down to this:

The lever, whichever side of the steering wheel it is mounted on, is moved clockwise to activate the right turn signal, and anticlockwise to activate the left turn signal.

I have not made the edits, because I know I'd get caught up improving the rest of the article -- something for which I do not have the time. Thanks.--Rfsmit (talk) 22:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

You're right that the article contains some awkward and unnecessarily circumlocutious text. Some of what you objected to has now been improved. Remember, the default status of most Wikipedia articles is incomplete — it's fine to point out defects, but it's better to pitch in and help to improve the article, eh? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C00:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

External link

DMahalko, I appreciate engineering history, but I don't think this external link you added really belongs in this article, and I'd like to remove it. The emergency brake warning signal is a light, but it isn't really automotive lighting within the scope of this article. It's more in the realm of automotive controls and displays, and that's how it's regulated worldwide. The rapidly expanding Google publication archive is a real boon to Wikipedia, but we'll quickly wind up with an overly-large list of external links if we don't exercise some discretion and include only links that are directly germane to the topic. Even then, WP:EL advises us that it's better to incorporate the information from a source into the article itself, and use the source as a reference; Wikipedia is not a collection of links. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C00:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Rather than simply excising anything that you feel doesn't fit perfectly within the bounds of The Rules (which are themselves arbitrary and subject to change), it would be more helpful if you would be willing to try to find ways to either incorporate what is obviously non-spam and historical information, or find more appropriate article locations for it. Also if you think a historical citation would be better incorporated into the article somewhere, why not take up the task to do that yourself?

On further exploration, it appears that this historical cite to the "Emergency Brake Engaged" indicator is more appropriate in the Dashboard article, so I will move it there, and incorporate it into the text so as not to upset you any further. DMahalko (talk) 01:19, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Whoah, there, bud. Accusations right out of the gate really don't do anything productive, eh? Please remember to assume good faith. You're not upsetting me at all, and neither did your addition (which, please note, I did not "excise" or otherwise touch) — by bringing up the matter here on the article's discussion page, I am appropriately working towards the betterment of this article. We work by consensus here, so I thought I'd discuss it rather than just arbitrarily deleting your contribution or moving it elsewhere. I'm glad you found a better fit for the ref you dug up. Onward and upward! —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C01:34, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Blinkers working as Parking Lights

I'm writing this new section to claim for the addition of some information about the subject of this frame. Basically, I've been watching cars in the U.S. that usually tend to use their turn signals as their parking lights. As a matter of fact, most of the cars that own that specific feature are imported European cars (such as Audi, BMW, etc.). Do you have any kind of idea of what to do with it? I think Wikipedians ought to be able to see this info.

[1] [2] [3] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Albertosim1592 (talk • contribs) 20:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Combination amber park/turn signals are the most common type on all vehicles in North America, regardless of brand or country of origin. This is for a few reasons: historically, America used sealed-beam headlamps (and for about ten years after that requirement was dropped, American replaceable-bulb headlamps were required to be sealed to such an extent that adding a parking lamp was difficult). It is possible to build a sealed beam with an unreflectorised window in the reflector bowl to accommodate a parking lamp bulb and socket — this was done in England and other Commonwealth countries — but it is less expensive simply to use a double-filament, two-intensity bulb in the front turn signal. This was also done outside North America until amber (rather than white) front turn signals were required, at which point the dual-intensity park/turn system became unworkable since parking lamps were/are required to emit white light. In North America, parking lamps were/are permitted to emit either white or amber light, so the dual-intensity park/turn system remained the most popular after the 1963 introduction of amber front turn signals. When in 1968 amber front and red rear sidemarker lights became required in America, this gave added incentive to use the combination park/turn system: depending of course on the design and placement of the housing, one single two-filament bulb could now serve three required functions: parking lamp, turn signal, and sidemarker light (and it can also serve a fourth function, as the daytime running light). Likewise at the rear, one single two-filament bulb could serve as tail lamp, brake lamp, turn signal, and sidemarker light. That kind of setup is generally the least costly to install, because it minimises the number of bulbs, housings, and the amount of associated wiring. European- and Japanese-type white parking lamps, integrated into the headlamps or separate from them, are legal in America as long as they meet the American performance requirements, and these types have been growing gradually more common on American roads since the 1980s. But all vehicles still have to have amber front turn signals and amber front sidemarker lights, so there is still fairly strong incentive for makers to economise by stacking functions onto the one bulb. Recently it has become easy to use PWM to vary the intensity of a single-filament bulb, which means multiple intensity levels can be had from a single-filament bulb that would ordinarily burn at just the one (bright brake or turn signal) intensity level. VW, BMW, Audi and others use this strategy to get park/turn or tail/brake function from a single-filament bulb, thus reducing the installation cost even further — one wire rather than two, one socket contact rather than two, one type of bulb rather than two.

This is a significant difference between American and almost-rest-of-world practice, and so should probably be covered in the article. It will take careful emplacement of references, though, and it's not as simple(?!) as I've described above. Japan, for example, allows amber parking lamps, and as a result some countries that have tended to be friendly to the import of used Japanese cars have also permitted amber parking lamps even though their general home-market practice is to use white ones. And countries that allow/ed yellow headlamps also allow/ed yellow parking lamps, if those parking lamps are integrated into a yellow headlamp. I've got some images specially made for coverage of this topic, just gotta find time to prep and place them, get the refs, etc. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C14:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. It's amazing to hear that you have been working on it and that you have further ideas than I thought at a first time. I really wanted the readers to be told that special issue with parking lights and front turn signals, since I guess it is a good point to talk about. I really appreciate your agreement about this and I hope you can count on more people to work it out (yet always sharing information). ASIM at 14:26, 25 February 2009 (EST)

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