Let's see if this picture sticks around....
It is Daniel's recommendation for paint to use in the taillight housings.
Ceiling White Paint REALLY Works!
- Thread starter RustyRatRod
- Start date
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It is Daniel's recommendation for paint to use in the taillight housings.
jos51700
Green Bearing thread connoisseur
That's my favorite .png file!
We powdercoat lots of white where I work. There are about 15 shades of white. Igloo white. Arctic White. Snow White. Edgar Winter. Blow White. Bob White. It's insane. Is there a color chip I can use to approximate? I could powdercoat reflectors cheaply/easily if they're not plastic.
I powdered mine "flat white", but I didn't have anything to compare it to. A lot better than the gray/silver, but I might top it with the ceiling if it could be that much better.
I work with video projection screens. Flat white gives the most accurate color reproduction and the widest viewing area (spreads the light more evenly across the width of the room) so a larger audience has a good picture. There are "high gain" screens that use some reflective properties, you get a brighter picture but in a reduced space more down the middle of the room. These days, customers want to be able to keep lights on in the room, but since projectors don't project black, the black in the picture is the lack of light shining on a white screen. With light on in the room, your contrast goes to hell, so they have made grayish screens to reduce the reflection of the ambient light. The brighter output of modern projectors allow you to "overpower" the gray of the screen, but you still get a tradeoff. Flat white gives the most uniform light reflection. Even a perfectly reflective mirror isn't going to give the uniformity without the complexity of lenses as opposed to a simple dish.
I work with video projection screens. Flat white gives the most accurate color reproduction and the widest viewing area (spreads the light more evenly across the width of the room) so a larger audience has a good picture. There are "high gain" screens that use some reflective properties, you get a brighter picture but in a reduced space more down the middle of the room. These days, customers want to be able to keep lights on in the room, but since projectors don't project black, the black in the picture is the lack of light shining on a white screen. With light on in the room, your contrast goes to hell, so they have made grayish screens to reduce the reflection of the ambient light. The brighter output of modern projectors allow you to "overpower" the gray of the screen, but you still get a tradeoff. Flat white gives the most uniform light reflection. Even a perfectly reflective mirror isn't going to give the uniformity without the complexity of lenses as opposed to a simple dish.
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So I just looked at the new H4666 Extravisions I have, reflective silvering missing on the bottom, for the smaller rect. 2-lamp system.....My 1st-gen Dak & '88 ShelbyZ.....so what say You @slantsixdan ??? Should the headlamp bucket be white, silver, gray, black...???
I picked this idea up and ran with it. The test subject is my ratty car that I call Jigsaw.
1970 Dodge Charger, taillight housings are all stock, these are incandescent 1157 bulbs with 1095s in each housing toward the middle of the car.
Tail lights:
This is with the left housing painted with white paint from a spray can.
Brake lights, same as above...the left side with spray paint.
House paint in both housings, tail and brake lights:
Finally, the right side bulbs were replaced with drop in LED bulbs....
How about night time?
Jigsaw on the right, my other Charger ( Totally untouched housings, silver paint as stock) on the left.
Tail lights:
I had nobody here to press the brakes in the cars so I enabled the flashers and tried to snap pictures as BOTH cars lights were brightest. Talk about trying to thread a needle....
Jigsaw is still noticeably brighter with the white painted housings.
Thanks to Daniel Stern for this great tip!
1970 Dodge Charger, taillight housings are all stock, these are incandescent 1157 bulbs with 1095s in each housing toward the middle of the car.
Tail lights:
This is with the left housing painted with white paint from a spray can.
Brake lights, same as above...the left side with spray paint.
House paint in both housings, tail and brake lights:
Finally, the right side bulbs were replaced with drop in LED bulbs....
How about night time?
Jigsaw on the right, my other Charger ( Totally untouched housings, silver paint as stock) on the left.
Tail lights:
I had nobody here to press the brakes in the cars so I enabled the flashers and tried to snap pictures as BOTH cars lights were brightest. Talk about trying to thread a needle....
Jigsaw is still noticeably brighter with the white painted housings.
Thanks to Daniel Stern for this great tip!
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How's longevity of ceiling household interior paint? Or does it go on so chalky its irrelivent? I'm just trying to picture painting something that gets exposed to some heat and atmospheric moisture with house paint? Must be working for you guys... neat find!
It is latex paint so it is surely softer and less durable than catalyzed enamel.
It isn't a real involved process. If it doesn't seem as bright in a couple of years, lay down another 2 coats.
It isn't a real involved process. If it doesn't seem as bright in a couple of years, lay down another 2 coats.
Kind of funny not funny. A owner sent the cast housing of his rally instrument panel off to be powder coated a medium B5 like blue. After he cured the chassis ground faults, he shinned a flash light at it to see is it on. It was painted white for a reason.
As Dan stated, it need not be shiny, flat/chalky is fine.....as long as the white coloration is the same. And the color is available in interior/exterior so......
Thx for puttin' the time in on that, now everybody can see why Dan warns against the retro LEDs, .....timing the snap & both 4-ways, with the digital delay, lolol..kudos!
slantsixdan
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At the centre "heel" of the reflector, surrounding the terminals (outside) and filament capsule (inside). That's because when the glass reflector is being made, the glass sticks a bit to the stamper tool and when it retracts, it pulls the glass out of the intended shape. If that area were reflectorized, it would throw random/stray light which would cause the lamp to fail the (lax) glare limits.
Masking off that area when they reflectorize the reflector is cheaper than keeping the tools in good shape and operating them properly, and over the years the unreflectorized area grew larger and larger as the tools wore out more and more and the makers gave a shіt less and less. Bigger unreflectorized area = smaller active reflector area = poorer performance, but officially there are only two kinds of headlamp: legal and illegal. The crummiest, most pathetic sealed beam that just barely squeaks over the minimum seeing light requirement and under the maximum glare light limit is just as legal as a carefully-made one that meets the requirements with plenty of room to spare, so there's no incentive to make them any better than they have to be. Vehicles that take sealed beams are pretty much all old now, so there's no volume or competition incentive, either. The US sealed beam industry ended some years ago, and they're all now Chinese garbage, much of which doesn't even come close to even squeaking by the requirements, but the standards aren't being enforced, so…again, no incentive.
Comparing the performance of a NOS sealed beam to a recent/current-production one is quite eye-opening.
Does not matter. Aside from the lens (obviously), nothing behind/outside the interior surfaces of the sealed beam affects its beam pattern.
The floor and ceiling of most rectangular sealed beams are unreflectorized to avoid reflections that would cause the lamp to violate the uplight and upward stray light limits.
slantsixdan
=..=
Pretty good in the protected environment of a closed taillight, but earlier in this thread I linked to the exterior version.
No. Goes on a bit gloopy.
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