very interesting Rocket, I stand well-corrected thank you, and all.
but what's this about 'tying onions on our belts' ? ?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rocket J Squirrel" <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 5:20 PM
Subject: Re: High beam blue light?

> On 3/11/2009 4:54 PM Mike S wrote:
>
>> At 07:15 PM 3/11/2009, Scott Daniel - Turbovans wrote...
>>> yeah.........duh.
>>> if he would have said 'blue hi beam INDICTOR LED in the
>>> dash'...........
>>> that would have made good sense.
>>> It's barely a 'bulb'  after all, unless we want to consider light
>>> emitting
>>> diodes as some form of bulb.
>>
>> No. It's an incandescent bulb, with a blue plastic filter on it. Blue
>> LEDs weren't commercially available until CREE introduced them in late
>> 1989, and even then, they were too expensive (over $10, AIR) to use as
>> a dash indicator on a VW. He said "blue hi beam on bulb," which
>> signifies an indicator.
>
> I thought it was pretty clear, too. An LED is a light-emitting diode, not
> a generic term for a little round bright thing that glows with a pretty
> color. The tungsten filament bulbs used on the dash are most decidedly not
> LEDs. They light bulbs. Menlo Park tech. When we tied onions on our belts.
> Which was the style at the time.
>
> I used them very early CREE pale blue bulbs in a product around '89.
> Before that, there /were/ blue LEDs, from Tektronix (I think) which, near
> as I can tell, were used for some kind of visual spectrum analyzer
> calibration or some darn thing wanting accurate color or tightly-specified
> wavelength. Those really cost a lot.
>
> --
> Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
> 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
> 74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
> Bend, OR
> KG6RCR