DIY Glow Gaskets for Triples and Other Glow Stuff

Sorry for the possibly dumb question but what is the 20x2mm ID?

20mm ID x 2mm means a 20mm internal diameter x 2mm thick.
Probably not termed correctly :innocent:

That makes sense! I was thinking it was the name of something when I read it. Where could I find something like that? I’ve sourced pretty much everything else! And any preference on the type of grease?

I’m always scavenging bits & pieces of stuff that I think I might find useful when I come across them, no idea where that ring came from.
Just try to find a piece of tube the correct diameter or order a small sample piece etc.
I use light white lithium grease.
Moly is a bugger to get rid of, silicone grease doesn’t work too well.

Also, you’re better using white or preferably transparent tape.
Once you’ve used the UV light on one side you can flip the mould over and blast the other, useful if you make a thick mix as sometimes the UV light doesn’t penetrate all the way through.

You’ll figure out your own way :+1:

I have everything sourced and ready to go but for the life of me, I can’t seem to get the drilling to come out right manually. I’m tired of ruining boards! I can always wait a few months til I visit my folks and use the old mans drill press. But I was thinking maybe I could order a custom mcpcb from oshpark. So i downloaded some pcb making software but there doesn’t seem to be a simple way to just tell it to put holes in places. Does anybody have any experience with that kinda stuff that could guide me to do that? Is it even possible?

You mean drilling the template?
Drill smaller holes than needed and hand file them to the right size/ positions with small diamond files, that’s what I did anyway.
Trying to drill the holes manually first time will lead to lots of… experience :wink:

What software are you using? Eagle does make it easy to add holes. At least it seems easy to me. :innocent:

Who was it that used a 3D printer to make some glow gaskets? I’d love to get my hands on the cad/stl so I can get one made locally

Here’s one that has slots for tritium vials (not shown in the preview, it’s lying on its top side).
Though it might make more sense to print a mold from this so you can cast them in silicone + glo.
No idea what filament doesn’t stick to silicone, you might have to experiment with that.

First I tried ExpressPCB. Played with it for about ten minutes and gave up. Next I tried Design Spark but it had an error installing, so on to the next. I think I’ve got it figured out with Fritzing.

Thank you Kikko, I was going to print the entire gasket with GITD filament? Won’t that work?

Check the filament printed vs powder gasket comparison GIF in the first post.

I designed the linked 3D print on Thingiverse. Whilst I based my design on the Carclo reference drawings, it’s far from perfect but is functional; GITD brightness/duration/colour is entirely dependent on the filament selected, though I’ve yet to see a filament that can hold a candle to the handmade CRX ones, I imagine because the amount of GITD material is limited in the filament, in order that it is still able to be printed; GITD filament colour options also seem to be very limited (green or blue is about it), plus ABS GITD is even rarer; PLA GITD has more options/availability, but starts to soften at around 60c which I believe would be less than optimal (ABS doesn’t start to soften until over 100c I believe).

I printed in EICE GITD ABS green and whilst initially fairly bright, dims rapidly, though with night adjusted vision is visible well into the early hours. Addition of trit vials is the best of both worlds and to be honest, I may go back to a black gasket (as I loved the look) with trits.

If I can get away with International Economy, I’d be happy to send a few over to you, if you wish?

Where do you source your UV glue? I can't find it for a good price (except from China, but shipping is too long). So instead I combined what you and Rusty did:

I used Rusty's thingiverse STL, and 3D printed it. 0% infill, 2 shells, white PLA, and stopped the print before the top layer was printed. Ended up with an empty shell of the glow gasket without a top, which I filled with glow powder and put a layer of two-part epoxy over. This is result:

Glowtimes are probably better than GITD filament (heat degrades the GITD material), but probably not as good/dense as CRX's UV-glue-based gaskets. I say probably because there's no way for me to test it. But it seems like a good compromise between the two, especially cost-wise (at least for me).

I haven’t ever bought any, but lots of people use UV curing glue for tritium vials. If you poke around some threads where trits are mentioned, you can probably find somebody that can tell you where to get the glue.

No promises, but maybe in THIS thread, you can get somebody to help you?

I use Kafuter

Hey guys, update on my progress with these. I have successfully made it work. It’s not fantastic but if anyone is like me and doesn’t have a drill press or a steady hand for this I finally made a successful file with ZenitPCB. I sent it to OSH park and got the board i used to line everything up with in the mail. I did have to use a diamond file to get everything to fit right but it took less than ten minutes. I have shared the OSH park file if anyone else runs into issues with drilling the MCPCBs also.

Note: I know mine are ugly right now but they work so I wanted to share… I will make more until I get some that look the quality I want. Thanks so much CRX for helping me get this done!

Are those GITD?

They are. Used the UV Glue mixed with GITD powder.

Are UV glue and UV resin the same thing?