Ambulance Warning Lights

[Nerd13]

I'm all for LED's, I feel they are safer for the responders, to be seen. The only down side is at night some units I feel are too bright for drivers passing by. It can be almost blinding.

I agree with you but I do find that after the bright flashy LED covered object has passed it seems as though my eyes can adjust quicker than they can if they're assaulted by halogen lights.

 

[Cup of Joe]

I'm all for LED's, I feel they are safer for the responders, to be seen. The only down side is at night some units I feel are too bright for drivers passing by. It can be almost blinding.

Wouldn't It be great if they put a light sensor on the roof that could automatically dim the emergency lights at night, depending on ambient light levels?

Such an instillation would cost maybe $100 to the manufacturer?

 

[ArcticKat]

Wouldn't It be great if they put a light sensor on the roof that could automatically dim the emergency lights at night, depending on ambient light levels?

Such an instillation would cost maybe $100 to the manufacturer?[/QUOTE

And an extra $1,000 to the buyer.

All we've got is a 3 way switch. Off, secondary, and primary. With the secondary setting only the lights on the 4 corners are activated, no flashers or strobes. When we enter a rural intersection, populated area, or have a vehicle that doesn't notice us coming up behind them we switch the primary lights back on.

With 2 hour + transport times at night those secondary lights are a whole lot easier on my eyes too.

 

[metro9]

We use a Woodway strobe light bar with cheesy China-made LED's on the volunteer unit. Augmented by a Whelen-like dash mounted red/white strobe system.

On the private units, everything is almost exclusively Whelen with clear EDGE light bars firing clear strobes and red/green LED's.

 

[svfd21emt]

Ok, I agree with what you guys/gals have said about the good parts of the LED lights. But what about when your in an area where it snows? The LED lights/lightbars dont build up enough heat to melt the snow off of the lights. And if your a service that works on the interstate or highly used highway, and you have a motor vehicle accident and its snowing really hard? It wouldn't take to much time for thsnow to completely engulf your beacon and warning light. Just a thought. My service was going to switch to LED lights and beacons but then we thought about what I just posted and we have decided to just buy new rotating halogen beacons.


P.S. We were talking about replacing our lights because our rotating halogen bars on our trucks intermittently work. If anyone is a electrical goo-roo, or knows some stuff about lightbars, feel free to post something that we could try so we don't have to buy new trucks.

Thanks,

 

[ArcticKat]

Ok, I agree with what you guys/gals have said about the good parts of the LED lights. But what about when your in an area where it snows? The LED lights/lightbars dont build up enough heat to melt the snow off of the lights.,

1. Snow doesn't stick to the light bar, freezing rain and ice fog might, but snow does not. If the snow is wet and sticky it'll tend to fall off the light bar because it's too heavy.

2. The light bar might be at room temperature when you leave the garage, but it quickly cools to ambient temps and snow will stick to it about as well as it would to the signal lights or hood.

3. The old halogen lights never got warm enough to melt anything either, because the rotating or the flashing gives plenty of time for the polycarbonate lenses to cool. I can remember multiple times I've had to pull over and chisel a half inch of ice off the light bar.