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Old 03-30-2017, 03:59 PM
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idickers idickers is offline
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Default welding helmet for color blind folks

Any color-blind welders out there? For 13 years I have used a Miller Elite auto dark helmet, and have always had trouble viewing the work area ahead of the puddle, even with work lights on the piece. I'm red-green color blind, and just heard that similarly "color-challenged" folks have had better luck with some of the newer technologies. It seems there is now a blue tint lens (Jackson Balder, Optrel) that works better for red-green color blindness. Or it could be snake oil, so I thought I'd ask.
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Old 03-31-2017, 07:49 AM
SWT Racing SWT Racing is offline
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I am red-green color blind, and the newer Miller auto darkening hoods seem better. For a passive shade lens, the gold lenses work pretty well.
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Old 04-01-2017, 08:51 AM
zekeymonkey zekeymonkey is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SWT Racing View Post
I am red-green color blind, and the newer Miller auto darkening hoods seem better. For a passive shade lens, the gold lenses work pretty well.
I've been thinking about buying one of the gold lenses. I used one once and it's easier to see a tig puddle compared to my Lincoln auto darkening. For mig, the Lincoln works great.
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Old 04-04-2017, 04:00 AM
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ekdave1962 ekdave1962 is offline
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hmm that could explain a few things as im red green as well . and just assumed it was my age as i have to weld with heaps of light and the old 1.5x reading glasses
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Old 04-10-2017, 09:00 PM
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idickers idickers is offline
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I had my helmet shoot-out, and the winner was the Optrel e684. It was just so much easier to see the puddle and the base metal. I haven't been able to clearly see the bead trailing the arc for some years now, and with the e684 I could see it again, and that gave me more control. The color in the e684 is very neutral, which made it easier to see the different shades of the puddle. The Jackson BH3 was a close second, I could see the puddle much better than my old Miller Elite, it just wasn't as clear as the e684. Plus, the Optrel just felt like it was made better, and the auto-adjusting auto-dark feature is pretty addictive. I didn't care for the Viking, it was darker than the Jackson and the puddle was harder to distinguish from the base metal. Still better than my Miller, just not as obvious for my eyes as the e684. The Optrel 2.5 Vegaview was awesome with the off-state bright vision, but the optics weren't as good for my eyes under the arc. I called the Optrel distributor about this, because I really liked the bright vision the Vegaview had (it would be fantastic when crawling under the dash to weld a roll cage), but they said they could not put the higher-res optics of the e684 in the Vegaview because they could not jump from the 2.5 shade of the Vegaview to shade 13 when the arc starts. Whereas the e684 jumps from shade 4 to 13. Optrel also sent me some blue tinted interior lens covers to try with the e684. While they did shift the color, I didn't think they made it much easier to see than the untinted view.
So there you have it. I'm sure with young eyes it doesn't matter as much, but for my older color-blind eyes there was a world of difference. My beads were immediately better once I could see, and the the LWS made me a great deal on the e684, so it was an easy decision.
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Old 04-19-2017, 08:57 PM
stout66 stout66 is offline
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i rock a speed glass 9100 series. easy on the eye, i got to were it for 4 to 8 hours a day
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