Color Blindness...

[salvato]

Hi All. This is mostly a proposal for the future. I'm color blind (for me the red and green leds on the board look the same) would be possible to ask (for the future models of Pi) to change the color of one of the on board leds from red or green to blue ?

[kerry_s]

the rpi400 only has green, so that would fit you better.

[mahjongg]

Won't happen!
Sorry but blue leds are more expensive (citation needed) but more importent they need more than 3.3V so they cannot be used with 3V3 logic directly.

sorry, also the RPF is not in the habit to make changes that effect only a very small percentage of users, especially if it involves extra features, an this isn't a simple BOM (Bill Of Materials) change!

Also the RPF is NOT in the habit of seeking the forum for new idea's, only some moderators will read it, and their reaction will often be to lock the thread. Speculation about new features is unwanted.

just use the same method you would use to identify traffic lights, the place where the light is relative to its surroundings. Worldwide red orange and green is used, not blue.

also colour blindness comes in different forms, not everybody would be happy with blue LED's

[LawrenceLoiuse]

Won't happen!
Sorry but blue leds are more expensive (citation needed) but more importent they need more than 3.3V so they cannot be used with 3V3 logic directly.

sorry, also the RPF is not in the habit to make changes that effect only a very small percentage of users, especially if it involves extra features, an this isn't a simple BOM (Bill Of Materials) change!

Also the RPF is NOT in the habit of seeking the forum for new idea's, only some moderators will read it, and their reaction will often be to lock the thread. Speculation about new features is unwanted.

just use the same method you would use to identify traffic lights, the place where the light is relative to its surroundings. Worldwide red orange and green is used, not blue.

also colour blindness comes in different forms, not everybody would be happy with blue LED's

Surely it is RPL responsible for the hardware ?

[salvato]

Won't happen!
Sorry but blue leds are more expensive (citation needed) but more importent they need more than 3.3V so they cannot be used with 3V3 logic directly.

sorry, also the RPF is not in the habit to make changes that effect only a very small percentage of users, especially if it involves extra features, an this isn't a simple BOM (Bill Of Materials) change!

Also the RPF is NOT in the habit of seeking the forum for new idea's, only some moderators will read it, and their reaction will often be to lock the thread. Speculation about new features is unwanted.

just use the same method you would use to identify traffic lights, the place where the light is relative to its surroundings. Worldwide red orange and green is used, not blue.

also colour blindness comes in different forms, not everybody would be happy with blue LED's

Sorry no intention to force anything...
About cost I know nothing, about 3.3v blue led I've seen they employed in other board working at 3.3V. Are you sure that they need higher voltages to work ?

[cleverca22]

under normal conditions, the power/red led should never turn off
so you can just assume the solid-on led is power and the other one is status/activity/green

if both are blinking, then you have power supply issues

if both are solid on, it doesnt matter which is which, power is supposed to be on, so you can assume status is also stuck on, it doesnt matter which one you think is status

[emma1997]

I also have a problem with those Pi LEDs. Not color though.

Human eye is supposed to be far more sensitive to green than red but I personally can't hardly see the green because the red appears so much brighter. First thing I do to any of my personal Pi's is a dab of Dollar Tree Wet-N-Wild so at least a hint of SD activity is visible.

I would suggest a higher value resistor on the red LED but I know improvements are frowned upon here. So I will not even mention that a bigger r on the red one would help perception. I'm sure if designers thought that a higher resistance on the red LED was required they would have done it long ago. So nope, I'll never even MENTION that a bigger red LED resistor could improve things. Ever.

Or maybe it's just me that has a peculiar form of Reverse Color Blindness causing increased instead of decreased sensitivity to red/green.

lol

[rpdom]

First thing I do to any of my personal Pi's is a dab of Dollar Tree Wet-N-Wild

Is that some sort of hot sauce? I'm not sure I'd put that on my Pis. The other thing that came to mind going by the name is probably not suitable for these family forums or the Pi

[emma1997]

A quick googoo will show Dollar Tree Wet-N-Wild is a nail polish brand. Admittedly that could have been mentioned but all those extra letters? Hitting those big computer keys is such hard work!!!. Anyway a bit of mystery can make life exciting.

If you can recall any of my old photos, most show nail polish is a staple here in emmaland. Red for 5v, org for 3.3v, wht for 12v, blu for gnd, etc etc etc. As mentioned before here, black to tone down ambitious LEDs. Good to lock a trimmer and/or visual indication of a previous setting. Makes those 'tact' buttons easier to see in the dark too. I've bought bottles and bottles of the stuff over the years. And that aroma....

[emma1997]

about 3.3v blue led I've seen they employed in other board working at 3.3V. Are you sure that they need higher voltages to work ?

I agree. Having purchased and used a huge quantity of blue for hobby and manufacturing, I find them quite bright off 2v and burn at 3v. White LEDs are/were actually blue w/phosphor and we all know how many of those were used in flashlights and other devices running off couple alkaline with little more than a low ohm resistor. Even higher voltage UV and indigo run pretty ok off <3v IME.

Conversely most, even experienced EEs, simply refuse to believe parts used in LED sign (including red) can have 80+ volts across a single LED w/o blowing. It's all about time vs energy.

Hard to keep up with LED technology though so who knows what's what these days.

[bensimmo]

For the purposes here Forward voltage of a Blue LED is about 3V3, Red LEDs are sub 2V

And I was an Engineer

(actually was, I use to grow wafers of these things)

[salvato]

For the purposes here Forward voltage of a Blue LED is about 3V3, Red LEDs are sub 2V

And I was an Engineer

(actually was, I use to grow wafers of these things)

Not all the blue led require 3V3. See as an example:
https://www.mouser.it/datasheet/2/216/A ... 721569.pdf

P.S. Me too a (retired) engineer.

[Anonymous]

Hi All. This is mostly a proposal for the future. I'm color blind (for me the red and green leds on the board look the same) would be possible to ask (for the future models of Pi) to change the color of one of the on board leds from red or green to blue ?

Don’t know if this is of any use, but I use Pimoroni Led-Shims for status indicators, which have 27 little rgb leds with per-component brightness control. Maybe overkill and requires I2C enabled which can conflict with other uses of those GPIO pins, but doesn’t occupy the headers and works fine with other I2c devices as long as there’s no address conflict.

Not really a fix I guess, but they are fun to play with.

[salvato]

Don’t know if this is of any use, but I use Pimoroni Led-Shims for status indicators, which have 27 little rgb leds with per-component brightness control. Maybe overkill and requires I2C enabled which can conflict with other uses of those GPIO pins, but doesn’t occupy the headers and works fine with other I2c devices as long as there’s no address conflict.

Not really a fix I guess, but they are fun to play with.

Maybe overkill... better to ask someone non color blind to identify the red (or green led) and mark the board with a blue mark (as suggested by emma1997).
I understand that RPL don't like suggestions about future products so the emma1997 hint may solve the problem.