Brainstorming: Tritium Alternative

I wouldn’t say they are brighter than GITD, but I would say they last longer……lol, much much longer!
GITD is good for 5 minutes, then it pretty quickly drops - but it lasts long enough for me to say ‘night night’ to my FW3A :stuck_out_tongue: (GITD disc from CRX)

If what is happening with watches is any indication, mechanical energy harvesting is super inefficient and prone to failure at these little scales if you have to store the energy in a battery or capacitor as opposed to a spring, Seiko kinetic for exemple is not held in high regards, while their solar models are much more simple and work very well as is the case with their fully mechanical.

I’m just waiting for some genius to figure out that decontaminating the huge tank farm at Fukushima would involve harvesting a large amount of freshly produced, highly salable tritium that they’re currently planning to dump into the Pacific. Not that there’s any way to do that right now, but someone should come up with a good idea. Itty bitty centrifuges maybe.

Tritium costs ~$30,000 per gram. Unfortunately, even at F it’s extremely difficult to extract from seawater:

Wikipedia

Sigh. Another opportunity unclaimed by the free market.

How about LEDs built into the tail cap?

Why not? Same way to enrich UF6. That or gaseous diffusion (membranes).

We’ve successfully done aux LEDs at low enough currents that it’s literally over a year to drain a battery. While this may not work for all lights (a good counter-example is a CR123-driven emergency light), it’s fantastic for any light that’s used regularly.
Also, in my personal experience trits are vastly dimmer than GITD… as long as the GITD has been charged (like, at all).

Depends how bright you want ’em, too.

My Cometa’s backlit tail-button is so damned bright at night, I call it the Blue Lighthouse. Can’t keep it in the same room as where I’m sleeping, else it’ll keep me awake.

I’d be okay with a small trit buried in there, though.

I agree with Scallywag, aux LEDs driven off the main cell are the best option. Especially RGB.

Aux LED with coldcap? Charges from main battery, but still survives for some time after the cell is removed.

UV LED hidden under a GITD button? Could extend GITD glow by 10 or 100 times.

found this youtube vid that somewhat fits what you asked?

I am also trying to find an aux keychain fob once discussed here. Something along the lines of AAAA light powering 5mm with joule theif

If you power the aux leds (could be an illuminated tail or behind the optic or wherever) with the output set at trit levels, directly from the battery so no MCU is involved, they could last for 10 years on a battery charge. But of course the temptation is to set them brighter, because you can :slight_smile:

would EL (electroluminescent) make any sense?

it is what they use for ‘indiglo’ backlights

it can;t be all that power hungry or expensive for lights of that size

but i am too lazy to do the design and research

i just say no one mentioned it.

wle

Glo Toob I had one in red, and the battery seemed to last forever.

Another DIY light used a resistor and a 9V battery. I believe you could even skip the resistor, since the battery’s internal voltage is pretty high.

I looked at EL, but it seems they are 100v+, even if the current is low. It’s mentioned in the first post. I think it would be really cool to have an EL ring around the head and tail of the light, and cover it with frosted clear epoxy. It would look like a giant round tritium vial.

Honestly, im content with having a lighted tail switch board, and simply want there to be more compatability of it with drivers. That said i still have yet to switch over from blue to amber, or red on my kronos set, but i will at some point

It would be interesting if such a LIT module could be developed. Not sure 1.5mm x 6mm would be possible. Might need to be larger.

So the output for the LIT would be an extremely small drain relative to LED emitters.
The backing that the LIT is mounted upon would have photovoltaic properties, for charging.
The charge would go to a micro capacitor, built-in behind the photovoltaic layer.
If material specifications would allow, the LIT would output tritium level brightness, or perhaps a slight bit more. The capacitor would be capable of storing up to 48 hours of run time. If the LIT is stored inside the LED chamber, the spill from the LED would be enough to fully charge the LIT in 30 seconds, maybe less. If the LIT is in the tailcap or some other location away from the emitter, all you need to do is hit it with another flashlight LED emitter for 30 seconds or less. Of course, ambient light in a room or sunlight would charge it. The LIT would not emit while it detects sufficient light, thus always in charge mode when available light is above the threshold.

I’m not an engineer, just brainstorming off the top of my head. Does this proposal above sound viable?

i know they use a high voltage, i was thinking maybe some of them come with the booster built in now, or EL drivers are available

wle