Consolite Technology Limited, St.Martin's Business Park,
, who have selected us to stock and sell their products in the UK.
Consolite is located in a modern, spacious facility in southern England with excellent communications to London and regional airports. The company has full quality certification to the latest standard of ISO9001. A copy of the
Company History
Consolite Technology is well established in its field, having started in 1980 with the design and manufacture of
Design, development and test of warship, aircraft and ground system lighting products
Photometric testing of NVG and normal lighting products
Consolite supplies a wide range of filters, for all types of light source, so as to achieve the optimum balance between visible transmission and near-IR blocking, but there is no such thing as a universal, “one size fits all” filter.
Your interference filters have much higher transmission than your absorption filters. Why don’t you always use interference filters?
On paper they do look much better, and in many cases they are. However, interference filters do have some disadvantages. They are inherently reflective so they don’t work well on the front of displays or indicators where daylight readability is required. They suffer from colour shifts when the light passes through at an angle, which can sometimes cause problems. Also the IR blocking is not as effective at higher angles. The coatings cannot easily be applied to curved surfaces, so only flat filters can be produced. On the plus side they do have much higher transmission generally than absorption filters and thermally resistant substrates can be used, which makes them well suited to high temperature light sources such as incandescent floodlights. The sharp wavelength cut-off that can be achieved also means that colour retention is generally better than absorption filters, so white light stays white and red light stays red (more or less, see 6 below).
The answers are related. Red is the colour that is nearest to the NVG response band and so has the potential to cause the most interference with NVGs. In fact a red light would overlap so much with the Class A response that it is simply impossible to make it Class A NVG compatible. Class B compatibility is possible, but a sharp cut-off in the emissions is required (see 5 above) to avoid the Class B response band without removing too much of the red wavelengths from the light. Even so, in practice a certain amount of red does end up getting removed and so the light looks an orangey-red rather than a pure red. This is allowed for in the MIL-STD-3009 chromaticity definition.
Consolite can provide filters to turn visible into covert lighting, or to help reduce the impact of covert wavelengths on NVGs.
The commonest standard we are called on to meet is the US MIL-STD-3009, which covers the requirements for military cockpit lighting, as well as some aspects of exterior lighting. Its predecessor was MIL-L-85762A and that is still called up from time to time. There are also some SAE standards that specifically relate to various aspects of exterior lighting. For civil helicopters RTCA/DO-275 is commonly requested. For warship lighting STANAG1445 is the historical standard, but in the UK and increasingly elsewhere has been superseded by DEF STAN 02-587 Part 3.
Consolite certifies all its products in this way, and we can measure your light sources if you need to quantify the degree of compatibility.
We are sometimes asked – what does Consolite actually DO?
That means we can provide filters for virtually any requirement, usually on short lead times and very cost effectively.
We work with instrument, panel and display manufacturers to help integrate NVG filters into your designs.
We help you modify your in-service instruments to NVG compatibility.
We provide complete conversion kits for aircraft cockpits.
We provide a “build to print” service for your assemblies, handling your complete procurement, assembly and test activities.
We work with shipbuilders to provide equipment on new build warships.
We work with warship lighting suppliers to provide filters to convert lights to NVG compatibility.
We provide consultancy to our customers to help you interpret specifications and standards and understand the requirements of NVG lighting.
We act as consultants to military organisations around the world to help define requirements and write standards.
