Thread: A selection of the "many ambers" (or colors) of whelen

Whelen has changed their "amber" numerous times over the years. I was told some of the smaller changes are batch variations, larger ones are intentional.... This is just a small non-strobe beacon example.... if you include strobes and lightbars the variation is even greater.

I've found the "yellower" amber that Whelen uses to be pretty effective. It retains color and doesn't look washed out or white.

I've always liked the 'lighter' shades better.

Originally Posted by rwo978

I've always liked the 'lighter' shades better.

Me too....... for a very short time some of their halogen stuff was super light yellow.

I am leaning toward darker amber as my favorite ones, but I must admit, the light amber/yellow Whelen Guardian I passed the other night left me blinded.

Same issues with their blues.

Originally Posted by dmathieu

Same issues with their blues.

I have 2 sets of 80h domes, on is light blue one is dark, and no CIE dark.. Interesting...

well, why's that?
don't they have quality control, or concistancy tests?
or is there a "special" reason for such a thing?

Like most of the manufacturers, the older lights usually had a darker / deeper color.
Most lightened up to some degree, over the years.
Whelen seems to have had more shades, and less consistancy than most, especially in blue and amber.
And that's the way it is!

I think Federal Signal was pretty consistent with their colors. In blue I have a model 14 from 1988, a 22I from 1987 and a 121 Series A1 (probably from the 1970's) and a 174 with a plastic dome, all are pretty close to the same shade of blue. They definitely don't have the variation seen in Whelen's blue. Federal did change their red from a ruby red to a little brighter red somewhere around 1960. I have a small dome 1957 model 17 that has a dark red dome, but my 176 from 1971 and most of my Fireballs have a lighter red that matches my TwinSonic and mini-Jetstream. I do have one or two Fireball domes that are dark red. I don't think Dietz, Signal-Stat, or PSE/Code 3 had much color variation. Whelen's colors seemed to vary the most.

Originally Posted by stansdds

I think Federal Signal was pretty consistent with their colors. In blue I have a model 14 from 1988, a 22I from 1987 and a 121 Series A1 (probably from the 1970's) and a 174 with a plastic dome, all are pretty close to the same shade of blue. They definitely don't have the variation seen in Whelen's blue. Federal did change their red from a ruby red to a little brighter red somewhere around 1960. I have a small dome 1957 model 17 that has a dark red dome, but my 176 from 1971 and most of my Fireballs have a lighter red that matches my TwinSonic and mini-Jetstream. I do have one or two Fireball domes that are dark red. I don't think Dietz, Signal-Stat, or PSE/Code 3 had much color variation. Whelen's colors seemed to vary the most.

I was told once that whelen has been known to taylor their colors to the product that the dome is desgned for..... apparently started because the halagen and strobe lights needed different shades.... I'm not sure if that has any basis in fact or not... I was told this by a dealer many years ago. I have always suspected that to be at least a partial exaggeration...and figured that some of the variation was accidental.... obviously there is great variation between years of the same light so type specific color tayloring can't be 100% true.

Well, i worked at one of these plants who makes plastic things like the better cup and sourcers and all that kind of stuff for the railways, and i remember that the bloke who was responsible for the coloring always had to finetune the the machine for at least two hours before the machine reached the same color as the samples (references) had and all that products with the wrong color were grinded and reused, and only after that the new batch was started!

so, armed with that knowledge, i would say it seems to me that at Whelens production line they were at least a bit sloppy...

which i think is a big time PITY for such a big manufacturer.
they could have done better

and i'm not taking in account the discolorisation from the sun, because if the sun did so, you could see that at the little edge that slides into the extrusion, the sun never reaches that part, so that will alwais stay the original shade.

I would say, if you have to reorder lenses because your bar took a hit, it could be very difficult to end up with the same color on one bar?!?

Maybe Whelen outsourced their dome production to several different companies? As for changing the color based on incandescent/halogen bulb vs. strobe tube, that is a possibility. Strobes emit different wavelengths of light than incandescent or halogen bulbs, even incandescent and halogen put out different wavelengths.

Originally Posted by stansdds

Maybe Whelen outsourced their dome production to several different companies? As for changing the color based on incandescent/halogen bulb vs. strobe tube, that is a possibility. Strobes emit different wavelengths of light than incandescent or halogen bulbs, even incandescent and halogen put out different wavelengths.

I believed the strobes vs halogen arguement until i got the two different color model 33hs