mk5 adventures

Hey guys, I fell asleep last night making this post, but here's the update:

Okay, today's hike went wildly better... cruised thru Arches at sunset, plenty of cliché sunset photos of distant rock arches might eventually get posted... I was too lazy and sore to hike more than a few feet for any shot! Once the sun set, though, I was looking for an astro shot of a rock arch as well. However, not only is Arches is a guaranteed shit-show at night, but they also prohibit any illumination ("light painting") which is kind of my thing. Arches is out. I cruised into Moab to ponder my options, searched the internet for rock arches on blm land, estimated view angles for getting a nice galaxy shot. The obvious winner is the one I've already visited... doh! Oh well, at least I'd know the trail... and its not bad at all: mile and a half each way, some steep sections, a ladder and a cable section, but a cakewalk compared to last night's death march.


A glorious shit-show

Soon I'm almost there, and damn I'm amazed that my feet and legs somehow still work. (My feet are half covered in moleksin at this point!) Pause at the less-impressive arch on the way... am I losing my mind? I keep hearing distant voices. I shout hello a few times, not super loud, but louder than the tone of voices I'm hearing. Then... silence again.



Pretty sure someone's doing photography there at the main arch, there. And there were a couple other cars in the lot, but I thought they might have been illegally parked van-lifers. Anyway, I turn my headlamp to super-low to be polite, and stumble forth. Super difficult to walk the uneven terrain without depth perception, but soon I see I'm a few feet from a camera on a tripod--looks like someone's doing a time-lapse. Shit, I just photobombed it with my headlamp, at least it was super dim. And hey, at least I'm not crazy: I'm not alone up here, and I did hear voices. They just won't answer! I turn off my light entirely and tiptoe around this mystery camera, near the the edge of a ledge. Finally I'm stumbling thru the main arch, and I see a couple lights back there facing towards me. And sure enough somebody is stumbling towards me in the dark.

Hello

Hello?

HELLO?

Finally a reply. I apologize for bombing his time-lapse. He seems confused... says he's just grabbing his camera bag. Cool, I'm here for photography too, I say... and it looks like I have a good shot from here. He continues walking, so I set up my tripod there and start checking the focus.

From behind me:

What are you doing? Are you shooting from THERE? You can't shoot there, you're in EVERYBODY'S frame!!!

And that's when I figured out I had crashed a photography workshop.


I emerged from the middle of the arch, and couldn't see any of these people. Just the two fill lights.

They weren't being rude, to be clear. They thought I was part of the group, who should know better. None of them expected a random person to show up, and with so many people scattered about, all focused on their cameras and talking to one another... nobody felt compelled to answer a conversation-level "hello."

There's more to the story but this was the interesting part. I headed out after a few minutes, content I'd taken a good picture of nicely illuminated arch, so I could find somewhere else to try some of my own shenanigans.







And that brings me to now, parked on some bumpy road not far from I-70 so I can "camp." Started getting really tired there, couldn't make the next rest stop.

But with stars still up, I had to take "just one" really quick shot of "camp". Throw a LED in the fire ring for ambience:



Okay, nice, ready for bed. Oh wait... what's that bright stuff near the center?

Shooting stars? No.. I hadn't seen anything that bright. I just missed one overhead with the shutter, but no way I could have missed seeing these two bright streaks right in front of me during the shot.

I look back there for more. And realize I am seeing slowly moving lights there on the horizon. Sometimes alone, sometimes as groups moving together. The motion is unlike anything I've ever seen. Hovering, darting, changing brightness in unison.

Not sure what is going on. At least 3 hours to dawn, these are not LEO satellites, or any orbiting body, their velocity varies wildly. I don't think they could be aircraft either.

I shot dozens more of them with the fisheye, then broke out a fast 55mm and got the intervalometer going. Perhaps someday I'll post a gif to show the bizarre rate of these flying objects, which I cannot identify.


Aircraft on left, UFOs elsewhere. This is a 30 sec shot. Those are NOT shooting stars. Each one lasts for about a minute, and moves with wildly varying speed and brightness.

Fuck dude.

Stayed up wayyyyy too late watching this.

???

 

Best guess is MEO satellites. They will be illuminated many hours away from dawn.

In your sample photo you can see three near the horizon with identical path lengths. Right above them are two with identical path lengths and apparently closely correlated flaring profiles. Unlike LEO the orbit altitudes and periods for MEO vary widely - hence the different rates you observe. It is also possible I suppose that you could catch a HEO, but I'm not sure off the top of my head what their altitude would be at Utah latitude.

None of the paths show any signs of acceleration or drag, so I'm guessing none of them are aerial flares or anything like that in the atmosphere.

Astrophotography folks complain about MEOs a lot these days - screw up photos (or sub frames) even far away from astronomical twilight.

Link to a post showing MEO streaks brighter than Saturn here:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/66344788

I wonder if you happened to be oriented such that the direction you are looking here is in the direction of sunrise and so MEOs are visible there and also at a good glancing angle for bright reflections and flares?

 

Wow, I was wondering what those were too! On 9/7, I snapped this photo, and was like, what are those planes all flying to the same point above the tree (on the left)? Thanks Ken, for solving the mystery.

 

Yeah anything above LEO could be lit in this direction... my best reality-based guess would be the tippy top of a busy elliptical constellation poking out of eclipse... maybe molniya, given sometime stationary appearance, but damn, some were moving pretty quick too.

But damn, that would a ton of satellites. Complex large satellites too, based on brightness variations. I'll see if I can figure it out when I get home.

For now though I'm telling everyone I saw alien UFOs. The truth is out there.

 

Yeah, it seems like an awful lot of activity for a short exposure, which was why I was wondering if maybe there was some sort of idiosyncratic viewing angle and sun angle to explain increased visibility.

 

And that's when I figured out I had crashed a photography workshop.


I laughed out loud at this one.

 

Once again I'm a day behind... wrote this last night but fell asleep processing the photos. Nonetheless:

It's funny how the mind plays tricks on us too. I have spent a lot of time in recent months thinking about spacecraft, orbits, eclipsing, etc. -- at least compared to my life prior to this year, or presumably the average person. So I figure, if there's a satellite shimmering in the night sky, I should be the guy to say "oh yeah, that's a satellite." But I've got to be honest, if it weren't for the camera, I'd be swearing up and down that these pulsating lights were darting around, literally changing course across the sky, as if to chase each other. Forming shapes. You name it.

Yet the camera shows nice straight lines, not elaborate dancing shapes.

Not to say that UFOs don't exist, but I think, especially in the night sky, it's just so easy to see behavior that isn't there--without making things up. I genuinely saw more than the camera did.

However... just to offer a bit of support for the alien UFO theory... here's a shot in the same direction taken late this morning, when I awoke drenched in sweat, baking in sunlight. There wasn't a cloud anywhere else in the sky.


Coincidence... or conspiracy???


I didn't intend to do this trip as a play-by-play, but I keep winding up with cell service at camp, so why stop now? I'm actually quite ecstatic to have found a spot to camp tonight, showing up well after midnight, in the Front Range on a Saturday night... just off pavement, and only a few miles from where I'm meeting friends for a climb tomorrow morning (wow!)... but I have to admit, this is really not a very good camp site. Actually, it's the dead-end of a washed-out narrow shelf road. The driver's door opens over a cliff, and the passenger door hits a rock before I can squeeze out. Power lines loom ominously above. To get to the back of the truck, I have to step out on the driver's-side slider, shut the door, climb over the hood to ground in front of the truck, then squeeze along the passenger side to the back. Not going to risk reversing without daylight... about 100 feet of sketch behind me. So... welcome to Camp Driver's Seat, featuring me, a laptop, and nothing better to do.


Picked up a 5-day license today and already started working the high lakes. Would be eating trout tonight if I weren't hopelessly penned in here--he's in the fridge ready to cook! But minor setback on the sea captain career: I was unpacking my new boat and extolling its virtues to another fisherman, who pointed out that it's actually illegal to boat in this state without a life jacket. Fuck! Sorry folks, not wearing the captain's hat yet. Gotta find a Toys-R-Us or whatever and buy myself some floaties first!



One lake in particular was so epic last year, I came back the same way this year, just to fish it again. Sadly, it wasn't quite the single-cast cutthroat haul I experienced last year, but I got a nice rainbow out of the evening... easily the biggest rainbow I've landed in the wild. Could have been two, but I managed to wade out 50 feet without a net when I hooked the first one, and I couldn't make the trek back to shore before he slipped the line. Sorry, no pictures here, I was standing in the middle of a lake the whole time. The above shot was taken as I was packing up to head over the pass at the end of the evening. Would have loved to stay and camp, but had an 8AM meet-up planned about 3 hours from here.

There's a transmission line running over this pass, I think it's actually somewhat historic, both as a very early component of the electrical grid in general, and also for it's challenging route over high mountain passes, and the difficulty its maintenance presented to early linemen. Originally from hydro station(s) in the Glenwood Springs area, over this pass to Leadville, then I think, from Leadville to Denver via Mosquito and Argentine passes. I actually wrote a spiel on it as part of my 2022 Colorado trip report, with an interesting link for background info, but I never posted it -- the photos wound up on a hard drive in storage. Hopefully someday I'll reconnect that drive and finish posting the story... because there's tons of railroading history here too!


Looking back at the lake...

For now, I found myself on the same drive this year, and stopped once again to marvel at this bizarre electrical component right at the top of the pass, around 12k feet in elevation... something here connects the center conductor to ground, and I can't figure out what it is!



I don't know much about power grid hardware, but I do know quite a lot about electricity in general. I am stumped and intrigued by this object. What is it? Why is only one phase connected? And what kind of idiot stands under a transmission line holding a pole over his head, so he can get the fill lighting just right for his photo???

Well I guess I can answer that last one:


This idiot

Wow, that's at least a ten-foot insulator... perhaps a spare, or retired component from this installation. The lines were crackling last year, keeping me far away due to sheer terror... but they were oddly silent this year. A 120Hz hum from the installation confirmed they were energized though, and just after the above exposure, a sharp series of zaps emanated from above, and I noped straight out of there. Power lines terrify me... stuff of nightmares!

Anyway my best guess is that this installation might have something to do with balancing the impedance between phases, as it affects only the center conductor.

Ken -- double bonus points if you can explain this one as well!



So many things have changed in Colorado since I last lived here... but one thing that's quite consistent is the inexplicably abysmal performance of the AT&T cellular network throughout the mountains. There was absolutely zero signal anywhere in the Leadville area, not even in the city proper. It's been hit or miss everywhere else, but more often than not, their backhaul is broken, so I can pull in strong signals but have zero actual connectivity. I had to scrounge wifi in Leadville to figure out how to get to my night's destination! (Somehow seemed easier than pulling out the road atlas in my seat pocket.)

Not that I didn't know several fantastic routes to get there by heart... I know Colorado like the back of my hand! But with one minor exception... I don't really know the highways. Just the trails. And I don't have time for Mosquito pass tonight.

Checking the maps revealed the way: Fremont pass.



Which is a bit unfortunate, I've never driven this road, and would love to have seen it by daylight. It once carried two competing rail lines from Leadville. A portion of one remains today as a heritage/sightseeing operation. And the mine up top is absolutely massive!



I'll have to come back someday. In addition to the darkness, a pair of police cars meeting window-to-window at the summit kept me from poking around too much. Plus I had to get to camp. But from the impressions I got on the descent, there's a lot of active mining stuff to see here.

And I guess that brings us back to Camp Driver's Seat. Not going to risk death for a picture here though. Catch y'all next time.

 

Today's update:



Colorado kicks ass!



That is all.

Oh, one more thing... it's been quite difficult to find a life jacket. Something about "seasons." Was about to give up when I found this five-pack in the clearance section of the Evergreen Walmart:



Anyone need a life jacket?

Camped out near east portal tonight... but no trains

 

That first photo is great! Looking forward to the boat pics Kaptin!

 

Nope, impedance balancing is done by rotating the phases periodically along the transmission line. If you keep your eye on transmission lines running for a long time next to a highway you'll notice periodically a different tower configuration along the way that allows for rearranging the phases. That way one phase isn't always in the middle and you get evenly distributed impedance between the three phases. In addition, any sort of capacitors or inductors for transmission line voltages are gigantic and housed in fairly sizeable fields on the ground. You will see these near some industrial sites. Specifically large fields of high voltage capacitors to offset the inductance of motors within the facility (this is a massive form of power factor correction). Industrial users get charged for such impedance mismatches because it increases losses in the distribution system. Thus they are incentivized by their power bill to put in a capacitor field. But that's not what this is.

The unit on the left is almost certainly a line arrester for lightning protection. It has a corona ring on top of it which is common for such things:

https://www.siemens-energy.com/glob...lio/surge-arresters/line-surge-arresters.html

I'm not sure what the unit on the right is. Possibly an SF6 circuit breaker:

https://savree.com/en/encyclopedia/sf6-circuit-breaker

Not sure exactly what it would be used for in this configuration though. Line arresters often have a series disconnect because they can thermally overload and I can see a bar connecting the bottom of the arrester on the left with whatever is on the right. If the thing on the right is a breaker it might play a role in dealing with faults in the arrester on the left.

Why only the center conductor? Well these kinds of arrester arrangements are usually up on the tower. This is, however, an unusual location being right at the top of a pass. High points of terrain (as opposed to just a locally high object) are common points for positive lightning strokes which are vastly more damaging than the typical negative lightning stroke because they typically discharge an order of magnitude more current (90% of cloud to ground lightning are negative strokes). It is possible through empirical experience the power company has had to deal with arrester faults on the center conductor in this particular location far more than the other conductors - why isn't immediately obvious but we could build narratives if we wanted.

So my best guess is that this is an unusual bespoke configuration of a lightning arrester that has to be frequently replaced due to the location on the pass causing more than the usual grief with lightning.

There is probably a lineman somewhere here on TW that could do a much better job telling us what this really is.

 

We just got back from a 2 month road trip in Alaska, BC and Yukon plus the states in between home and there. In Alaska, and in some places in BC, there are loaner life jackets. Even loaner canoes. And the campground was free … and Federal US Fish & Wildlife to boot.

 

Double bonus points awarded!

A lightning arrestor came to mind, but I've never seen them on just one phase. The conductors here are protected by the typical pair of earth cables above them. Why the middle conductor would be hit most frequently escapes my intuition. But as you point out, it definitely isn't big enough to be much else!

Camp Driver's Seat was located a few hundred feet from this same line, on the Georgetown side of Argentine Pass. Power lines are so creepy!


After backing off the ledge

Currently sheltering from hail at 11k feet. Epic day!



Whatever kind of fish this is... I'm going to eat it:



A couple from last night:


Central City


Camp Wherever. That's Denver in the distance, lighting up the night sky

 

Yeah, it is a little weird, but my suspicion is that you might find the other two phases are also protected but up on the towers where they are more typically located. You'll find arresters even on lines with ground wires running above them. I don't have any good story why the middle phase in particular is more vulnerable, the only thought might be that for some reason arrester replacement is harder on the middle phase on the towers or that the installation on the tower makes them more vulnerable or less effective for some reason. But really grasping at straws for a motivation.

No doubt somewhere there is a power engineer with an interesting story they are happy to share if only we could find them!

 

Well folks, bad news, the SS MK5 II has yet to make her maiden voyage. Other than that first lake, I wound up mostly above treeline hitting smaller alpine lakes with waters cold enough to ice the shores by dawn, and where mid-day air temperatures barely climbed into the 50s with nonstop gusting winds, and all requiring a fair amount of hiking from the truck to reach them. With such a lightweight and nimble vessel, I was certainly tempted to hike her in, don the ol' captain's hat, and set her afloat... but the fact is: an unintended spill into the drink here would put me in considerable peril. And I would prefer to die of a better reason than something this stupid, so the noble SS MK5 II remains packed away in her original shipping box, next to my captain's hat and my set of literally five life jackets.

Edit -- correction: A SET OF FIVE FLOATION DEVICES INCLUDIN' ONLY FOUR LIFE JACKETS, PLUS A FLOATATION SEAT FOR ME FOURTH MATE, THE POUR SOUL!

That said, damn, what an epic trip! Hopefully someday I'll write it all up and post it. For now, here's a few more teasers:

 

Please ignore this...

I'm trying to determine what the limiting resolution is for embedded video on TW. Guess I have to actually post this to find out... the preview doesn't seem to show final resolution.

I will replace this post with a trip report or something, just as soon I can, perhaps even within this decade. That is, unless someone quote-replies it -- then I'll replace it with 50 terrible photos and a tediously loquacious narrative.





Interim update: It appears that I made errors in my estimations of bearing, longitude, and local sunrise time the other week, and was thus dramatically closer to the terminator than I had assumed, and was looking more or less directly towards its approach.

Which makes it all the more impressive that I was able to record clear photographic evidence of advanced alien UFOs. Too bad y'all didn't get to hang out with them like I did.

Post-posting update: Dammit, the video resolution is still terrible. I'm going to bed.

New update: Apparently Bob upped the resolution limits for photos and videos on TW!!! How cool is that???





Hmm... looks like videos are still in process. But check out this NEW IMPROVED IMAGE RESOLUTION!!!



This place is the best, thanks Bob!

 

Just caught up on several pages of amazing photos and trip reports. Living vicariously through posts on the interwebs.

 

Such a sweet build. Thanks for posting so much about your work on the truck.

How would I wire rock lights to the dome light to work with the keyfob, as well as work on a separate switch like an 8 gang panel?


— KI5BWY

 

I'd love to help, but first I have to ask more about the rock lights--the right solution will depend on how much current they draw, and whether or not they have internal power converters. Do you know this, or do you have the part numbers? It might also be useful to know more about the switch panel.

The problem is that the dome lights use PWM to fade in and out. That's perfect for incandescent bulbs, as originally supplied, but those draw so much power you can't really add much more load to the circuit.

Changing the dome light to a LED, draws so little current, that you can add many more LEDs to the same circuit, which is what I did. I have like 14 feet of LED strip lighting, all running directly off the dome light circuit... literally connected right at the dome light in the ceiling. This works okay with PWM (a bit of flicker but still pleasant fading without issue), but this is only suitable for direct-wired LEDs, such as 12V LED strips, or any other LED with linear ballast circuitry. By that I mean LEDs that use resistors, linear transistors, or linear ICs to limit the current. (Most just use resistors.) Those will all work fine with PWM. In this case you should just make sure to limit the total circuit current, to something on par with the original incandescent. I think mine use 2 to 3 amps total. That's a lot of light with LEDs!

If, however, your rock lights have switching power converters, they will not work well with PWM, and may even damage the body control computer that controls the dome lights. Such power converters store energy internally, in inductors or capacitors, to provide consistent output regardless of input. PWM fading is an extremely inconsistent input, and the power converters will struggle to keep the LEDs lit uniformly during the fade, potentially overtaxing the PWM driver in the body ecu. In the best case, the lights will turn on and off without fading, but more likely will flicker erratically during the fade, and might even burn out either their own electronics or those on the truck. So for this case you would need a separate driver, which senses the PWM dome light signal, and decisively switches power from a separate 12V source, to turn the rock lights on and off without fading.

Next we can talk about integrating the dome light power with your switch panel, so that the rock lights come on both with the dome lights and manual switching. A likely problem here is that most switch panels switch the positive (12V) line, which is intuitive. However, the dome light circuit switches the negative (ground) line, which for various reasons makes better sense when you are using a microcontroller to PWM-fade a light. So you would need a way to "or" (combine) power from these incompatible switching topologies, which precludes the easiest solution of using diodes. It's not impossible, I have done this many times on my truck, but usually by making my own PCB modules with the necessary electronics. There might also be commercially available components you could wire together without having to solder your own circuit module.

Anyway, if you can post more details about your switch panel and rock lights, I'd be happy to offer a specific solution. Theres a chance I might even have a PCB that would work for you, in which case I'd be happy to solder it up and send it to you for free... I always wind up with spare pcbs and parts from these projects.

I'll also mention that I tackled this problem by having separate circuits for rock lights and courtesy lights. I have a simple mechanical switch for rock lights, installed in the wheel wells, side mirrors, and other locations. My courtesy lights, including LED strips running the length of the body on both sides above the sliders, come on with the dome lights only, no way to turn them on independently from cab lights. But when it comes to lighting I am kind of crazy.

 

Stupid project: license plate markers


So while we're on the topic of crazy lighting stuff, here is a fun little project I tackled several years ago.

It started with one of those whim purchases on Amazon. God I hate Amazon... but low and behold, this recommended product showed up on my screen, and I had to buy it:

$16 VIPMOTOZ Red OLED Neon Tube Pure White SMD LED License Plate Light Tag Lamp Assembly Replacement For 2005-2015 Toyota Tacoma & 2000-2013 Tundra Pickup Truck

https://www.amazon.com/VIPMOTOZ-Assembly-Replacement-2005-2015-2000-2013/dp/B07NF9J8L8/

These are LED license plate markers, but they also have red LEDs facing rearwards. How cool is that?



Well, not as cool as I hoped--I decided I didn't like them! Why not?

1. The red lights are pointlessly dim thru the smoked lenses, and come on only with the tail lights (not brakes or turn, which I think would be more useful).
2. The white lights are obnoxiously bright--like 100x more light than stock incandescent. So much I'd worry about annoying other drivers with glare.
3. The white lights were those ultra-blue, colder-than-cold white, which is great if you are a high schooler drug dealer. But if you're a grown ass man, then there's no reason to put something so profoundly regarded on your car, unless you want a drug dog called next time you get caught blowing a stop sign.

Sorry for using the R word there... but I'm a product of my generation, and the vocabulary I learned to describe this Tokyo Drift bullshit is "fucking regarded."

Anyway... I figured I could swap out the LED SMDs to get the colors and brightness the way I wanted, and to separate the red from the white, to make the former more useful as an indicator.


Original circuitry

But it didn't work out that way. There was no way to separately bias the two LED blanks, and the reds were already running at max current... which was too dim.

So naturally I doubled down and spun my own PCBs, running high-power 100mA modules for the reds, and pleasantly non-drug-addicted 3000K whites for the plate markers, both with linear transistor ballasts.


3000K is plenty white for me.

If I haven't yet convinced you that ultracold-blue lights are stupid, let me introduce you to the Kruithof curve:


What this means is that, if you think 6000K leds look good on license plate markers, then you are addicted to drugs.

Even then, I wound up cutting the current to the whites by 10x vs. my original design, just to match the brightness to the normal incandescent look on these trucks. They are really dim!



Here are my new pcbs, epoxied in place...



Now we're going to reassemble everything with silicone, so that they last many years instead of a few weeks, which is what you'd nornally get from cheap shit like this on Amazon.



I 3D printed a replacement for the wiring connector. The original one fit up to the stock connectors, but that provides only one circuit for illumination. I wanted to power the reds and the whites separately, hence four wires coming out. Everything got thoroughly sealed with silicone.

I was originally planning to run the reds off the brake lights, to serve as auxiliary brake indicators. The more brake lights the better, right?

Note that what I didn't say is that its okay to install a brake light flasher module. It is not. That is obnoxious... and fucking regarded. If I ever rear end someone--and I strive not to--but of I do, I pray its one of these insecure ass-clowns with a shitty brake light flasher module. I'm sick of being stuck behind you in the fast lane. What you need is to stop randomly slowing down in the fast lane, not a brake light flasher, you self-entitled piece if shit.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, what I finally decided was to power the red LEDs from the trailer indicator lines. That way they light up both for turn signals, and for braking. I decided the markers are sufficiently spaced to serve as auxiliary turn signals as well. The trailer hitch lines essentially XOR the brake and turns, so they always light up for braking, and always flash for turning. I thought that was pretty damn clever.



I lopped off the oem 2-wire connectors, and installed watertight 4-wire connectors instead. It's been working great for several years.

I guess I don't have a photo of the completed assembly, but hopefully I'll take one soon and post it here. In any case, this took way too much time and effort, but I got what I wanted.

Edit, here are the brake indicators in daylight... they are dramatically brighter than the original red LEDs, and provide similar intensity to the actual brake lights:

 

Less stupid project: side turn signals

This one was motivated by a driving blunder, also several years ago. And to be clear, the problem was my poor driving, and this is not a solution to that. However, I think it is beneficial improvement, to reduce the risk of such blunders leading to collisions in the future.

What happened was that I was #1 to turn left at a stoplight, from a 2-lane road to a 4-lane road. And I would need to turn right, off that 4-lane, at the next intersection. When the light turned green, I turned left into the nearest lane, then merged right to prepare for the upcoming turn. However, the car behind me had turned into the outer lane and was overtaking me, and I didn't see him. Or her. Either way I nearly hit that car, it was my mistake, and I feel bad about it. It was the other driver's defensive driving that prevented collision, and I am thankful for that.

On the other hand, I had checked my mirrors and signaled my turn. This was a small car that I just couldn't see, even with the convex reflector glued to my side mirror, and a fisheye camera wired to an LCD rear-view dashcam. I believe it was a smart car, so very short and low. It was raining and dark as well.

I've since installed an even more convex mirror on my side mirror. But something else was bugging me... Toyota put the front turn signals inboard of the headlights on these trucks. So if you are driving in my blind spot, and I signal a merge into your lane, then there's no way for you to know.

That's not to say that signaling gives me a right to merge into another car's lane. But I'm human and I make mistakes. And I think it would be safer if that other car could at least see my turn signal, to know in advance that I might be making a mistake.

So with that in mind, I installed these side marker turn signals, in a position to be seen by small cars driving in my blind spot:

$9 FXC 10x 3/4" Round LED Clearence Light Front Rear Side Marker Indicators Light for Truck Car Bus Trailer Van Caravan Boat, Taillight Brake Stop Lamp (Amber, 12V)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01IR3G474



They are not intended as legal turn signals, apparently the front facing bulbs Toyota installed on these trucks already meet that criteria. These are auxiliary signals, to offer visible indication to small cars in my blind spot. To be clear, I should not be merging into lanes occupied by small cars, no question there. But this is something that I believe offers improved safety in real driving conditions.


Note how the oem corner marker isn't lit here... it is not a turn signal!

I 3d printed the mounts, to space them outwards for better visibility. They are wired in parallel with the front turn signal bulbs.



They're not visible from high up, which is a shortcoming of this install location. Others have mounted lights more prominently on the side of the body, which is better, but also more work. I am not worried about merging into a semi truck, so this location works well enough for me, where my concern is small low cars I might not see in the mirrors.