windscreen tinting

[ThomasG]

What are legalities of tinting/restricting light flow on the windscreen?

Specifically in UK vs the rest of Europe.

I'm researching an idea of covering entire screen with around 87% transparency (13% of light blocked, visual equivalen to another layer of clear glass) projector film.

Possibly hohofilm, example below:



Technicalities leave to me.

I'm asking about legalities at this stage.

Thank you.

[hennabm]

From the windscreen company website;

Tinted front windscreens and front side windows are subject to legal restrictions. Cars that were first used on or after 1st April 1985 must let at least 75% of light through the front windscreen and at least 70% of light through the front side windows. Older cars that were first used before 1st April 1985 must let at least 70% of light through both front windscreen and front side windows.

Many drivers and owners mistakenly calculate that this means a window tinting of 30% is acceptable. This is not the case as windows without tinting do not let in 100% of light; even clear glass only lets in around 70% to 80% of light.

Applying 30% window tinting will then drop the light passing through to well below the legal limit and this will be picked up by police or DVLA light meters.

[ThomasG]

Right..

So a decent light meter, and a sample of that material for starters..

Measure ambient, ambient trough screen, ambient trough screen with film on..

I can do that

Would you know, is that regulation UK-specific or Euro-wide?

I wouldn't want to be caught using something that's legal in UK but not in, for example, in Germany..

Thank you.

[ThomasG]

For the record, I'm gathering info on recreating capabilities of this:
[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/3uuQSSnO7IE[/YOUTUBE]

But I intend different software

If I ever get to that stage

[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

[MikeGMT]

Dragons Den, here I come! This time next year Thomas you'll be a millionaire. Bye the way hows that phone cradle progressing.

[ThomasG]

Originally Posted by MikeGMT

Dragons Den, here I come! This time next year Thomas you'll be a millionaire. Bye the way hows that phone cradle progressing.

Its... Not.

It is hard to explain how do I progress these things.

Most of my time is occupied, obviously, by work.
Within that I do sometimes have few minutes to search for this or that, but not much.

Then private life. With pretty much same outcome in regards to research/making things time.

So in the end, I run several private(as- not work related) projects, all of them somehow tie together at the far end.

New phone.
Cradle for phone
Windscreen display aka HUD
On board system
Mapping USB devices
Wireless charging of devices
Bedside cradles for two different phones with wireless charging
Altering display settings (for example morphing normal desktop into kind of trapeze with semi-round edges)

Few like that.

And there is no way, at least no way that would work for me, that I could finish one thing and then get on with next one.

Its a step.forward on cradle, then two steps on HUD, then some about rotary mapping to USB..

And so it goes.

Btw: I wentvtrough "roadcraft".
Interesting read, and it will take me a while to turn some ideas from it into a habit..

But they still very specifically avoid any information on skid control.
And that was what set me off onto course to gain more knowledge, if you remember: micro-skidding on A2 motorway, on snow, ugly dangerous.

Grr!

[MikeGMT]

Just watched that video, the filley driving that car should of had Pilot Assist.

[ThomasG]

Originally Posted by MikeGMT

Just watched that video, the filley driving that car should of had Pilot Assist.

Just watched video with pilot assist..

How many times this guy had to look down onto dashboard just to scroll trough menus to turn the PilotAssist on...

Unbelievable!

I'm of opinion that looking down even once is once too many.

Thus HUD.

[badonkadonk]

I would guess that the "display off" light transmission would have to meet the tinted window transmission legislation. But you have also got a system that could be potentially dangerous if it malfunctioned putting images in the driver's view blocking or at least distracting the driver. Other car electronic systems that have potentially hazardous effects (electric power steering, ABS etc.) have a lot of design consideration to make sure that they are "fail safe". That is, if they don't operate as intended they will switch to a safe state. A lot of analysis and design time and added components are added to ensure this. Something to be aware of.

[ThomasG]

Originally Posted by badonkadonk

I would guess that the "display off" light transmission would have to meet the tinted window transmission legislation. But you have also got a system that could be potentially dangerous if it malfunctioned putting images in the driver's view blocking or at least distracting the driver. Other car electronic systems that have potentially hazardous effects (electric power steering, ABS etc.) have a lot of design consideration to make sure that they are "fail safe". That is, if they don't operate as intended they will switch to a safe state. A lot of analysis and design time and added components are added to ensure this. Something to be aware of.

That's a good one.

Thank you.

I didn't reply sooner to give myself some time to think about it.

And as it is, as I see it at the moment, the only two dangerous situations that may occur, would be:

Film coming off the windscreen.

Projector throwing white or bright picture onto windscreen, blocking my view.

First one simply needs good quality material, I cannot think of any other way of securing it.

Second, on the other hand..

Fault of projector:

First failsafe would be making sure that projector by itself, if error occurs, goes in low power (dimmed all the way down) and projects black (aka nothing) image.
As a supplementary, an independent system of light sensors (one for outside brightness, one for internal brightness of the car, especially area of my head, and brightness sensor on projector output) set in such a way that if projector throws too bright, too much light for given inside/outside conditions, power is cut.

Then there is possibility that the image system would present something bright for projector to display.
Separate thing, software stuff. But I think I would be capable of finding error images within system and replace these with dark versions. Also setting colour theme to dark tones might help. Either something similar to below or I can even make my own.

Beyond that..
It will take some time, me thinks