Color Blindness

[wharfbanger]

Hello,

I am partially color blind (red green). I was about to purchase a Phantom when I ran into a few posts that make it clear I will be unable to read many essential color coded flashing messages. There is apparently no easy fix for this without a redesign from Phantom, which could be as simple as providing an LCD message on the controller.

I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that, for whatever reason, most Phantom customers are male. 8% of males are partially color blind. So lets say 7% of DJI's probable customers may not be able to fly without a buddy to assist with the signals.

The irony here is I have wanted to be a pilot since I was a kid, but was discouraged by the limitations of color blindness.

ANY suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and please if you are one of the 8% don't be shy in keeping this issue alive in the forums.

Happy flying,
Mark

 

[Jermz]

My understanding is that the led has two elements in it, a red and a green. Either of them is lit up for the respective color, or both combined to make yellow. So is it possible to pull that led out and have it go to two separate LEDs, with left representing green, right for red and both for yellow? I would think there would be some way, but it would involve rewiring and soldering some stuff.


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[Ronan87]

Maybe stick some tinting film to change the colors of the LED's to something you can make out?

 

[Jermz]

Maybe stick some tinting film to change the colors of the LED's to something you can make out?

The issue is the main led that's essentially one light that lights up different colors. The green and red navigation lights are easy enough to change to some other color, but the main light can be three different colors, so it would need to be more than tinting film.


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[Great Pumpkin]

My red/green color blind son-in-law was given a test set of glasses that allowed him to distinguish easily between the two colors. With them, he passed all the standard tests for color blindness. Have you looked into getting such glasses?

 

[wharfbanger]

My red/green color blind son-in-law was given a test set of glasses that allowed him to distinguish easily between the two colors. With them, he passed all the standard tests for color blindness. Have you looked into getting such glasses?

Sounds interesting. Can you provide any details on the glasses?

 

[Great Pumpkin]

I'll contact my son-in-law. Watch this space.

 

[yamilmat]

Hello,

I am partially color blind (red green). I was about to purchase a Phantom when I ran into a few posts that make it clear I will be unable to read many essential color coded flashing messages. There is apparently no easy fix for this without a redesign from Phantom, which could be as simple as providing an LCD message on the controller.

I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that, for whatever reason, most Phantom customers are male. 8% of males are partially color blind. So lets say 7% of DJI's probable customers may not be able to fly without a buddy to assist with the signals.

The irony here is I have wanted to be a pilot since I was a kid, but was discouraged by the limitations of color blindness.

ANY suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and please if you are one of the 8% don't be shy in keeping this issue alive in the forums.

Happy flying,
Mark

Hello! I am from Argentina. I have the same problem with colours. I have a dji phantom 1 and I am seeing change the back leds with 3 external leds.
If somebody have a best idea, please write it here!
Bye

 

[Great Pumpkin]

I talked with my son-in-law today about his experiences with glasses designed to alleviate colorblindness. The test pair I mentioned previously allowed him to distinguish colors in a standard colorblindness test, but otherwise out in the real world, they didn't do anything for him.

Today he had a new test pair. We hovered the P2V up about 12 feet and he said he could see green and red LED's on the P2V where they should be, even after I spun it around a few times. He thinks the glasses conditioned his eyes somehow to be able to see red and green when he took them off. Whatever the effect, it soon wore off.

The upshot here that he is the testing guinea pig for an inventor who is trying to produce glasses for color blind people, and he hasn't gotten something ready yet for marketing. I guess all you color blind people can only hope he comes up with something, and the sooner the better.

 

[iversens]

I also have strong red/green color blindness and I've been flying both a P1.1.1 and a P2Z for several months.

I've had some problems identifying the blink patterns, but it's not too difficult to differentiate between the green and red blinks. You just have to make sure you get the fast green flashes indicating GPS lock before taking off.

I DID have a hard time telling the difference between the white and green light gun during the FAA waiver test.

When trying to get my pilot's license physical in college I failed the color blindness test. They made me take the FAA waiver test in Sacramento which consisted of a FAA employee shooting the light gun at me from 100 yards or so.

Failed the first time, but luckily the FAA employee was female and I was able to turn on the charm and get the waiver.

Not to worry though, I only got to my first solo and ran out of funds.

Pull the trigger. This hobby is going to quickly change the world and coming up with new ways to use UAV's is a great use of brain power.

 

[ElGuano]

So, I know nothing of colorblindness, but I figure one of my recent NAZA mods may be able to help.

My original mod let me replicate the NAZA LED flashes to an array of addressable LEDs. They would show orientation colors (red/green, blue/purple, whatever you want) during normal flight, but anytime the NAZA LED flashes red/green/yellow, that same color would be replicated on all LEDs tied to the system.

Having the same red/green/yellow of course wouldn't really help the colorblind folks. But because these LEDs are fully addressable, I can change color/brightness to anything. So I just swapped yellow with white, and green with blue. Now, when the NAZA LED flashes green, the entire array flashes bright blue. For yellow, it flashes bright white. Red stays red for now.

Here's a short video showing how it works. The quality is not great because the LEDs are bright enough to wash out the camera sensor, but in person, blue is quite obviously blue, red is quite red, etc. For reference, the NAZA LED (the single LED in the middle of the array continues to flash red/green/yellow, and the orientation LEDs are setup as Phantom standard (red for the two front legs, green for the single back leg):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6qZcMoqMzY[/youtube]

Is this a possible solution? If so, I have a full parts list and tutorial posted at http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthre ... st28061982. Changing the LED colors to whatever you want is pretty easy if you can read the code, but I'd be happy to walk anyone through it and help test out different color schemes if it's a bit over their head.

 

[doug86]

OMG!!! Yes, I am red/green colorblind, and have new Phantom Vision 2+. the flashing LEDs are pretty much useless for me...

But, I understand they are actually single unit, 3 color LEDs. SO.... can I just solder in a differnt 3 color LED, like Red/White/Blue?

Or some version. I can deal with Red and Blue and white, or Red, Blue Green maybe. But the red/yellow/green just doesn't work for me.

I hope you can add some ideas.
d86

 

[ElGuano]

I don't know if the p2 is 3-color; the p1 is two color: red and green (together making yellow). But you can change out the emitters if you are skilled in fine soldering. That's a bit beyond most people. The easiest solution may be to find some kind of color gel that you can place over the ESC ports to change the colors a bit, or to intercept the voltage signals from the Naza and drive your own LEDs.

 

[jarance]

OMG!!! Yes, I am red/green colorblind, and have new Phantom Vision 2+. the flashing LEDs are pretty much useless for me...

But, I understand they are actually single unit, 3 color LEDs. SO.... can I just solder in a differnt 3 color LED, like Red/White/Blue?

Or some version. I can deal with Red and Blue and white, or Red, Blue Green maybe. But the red/yellow/green just doesn't work for me.

I hope you can add some ideas.
d86

P2V LED is only 2 color. i.e. Green and Red. The SMD LED is type SMD 5050.

To generate yellow or amber colour, the ESC trigger Green to be full on and red to be semi on.

I am also slight color blind and have a hard time figuring whether the GPS is lock. To overcome this problem,
I solder a 12V SMD LED (for car) in parallel with the RED LED for one of the rear ESC.
The 12V SMD LED is then glued on top or side of the arm with wires going thru the vent holes.

If anybody is interest on how to do it, I will post some pictures. You just need a soldering gun, small flexible wire (like the gimbal IMU), a 12V SMD LED and a hot glue gun.

 

[Larry L]

Welcome to the forum. Hope you are do not get discuraged. Hopefully everyone gave you some good suggestions & info. It is a blast & you will enjoy it.

 

[Larry L]

Welcome to the forum. Hope you are do not get discuraged. Hopefully everyone gave you some good suggestions & info. It is a blast & you will enjoy it.

 

[Happyflyer]

Many, many years ago the military told me I was a little color off and other tests through out the years have also shown that. Since I have just too hard of a problem seeing the colored lights I just follow the satellite count on the tablet. With 6 holding I fly up and short distance away, check home lock, and fly.