That makes sense! I was thinking it was the name of something when I read it. Where could I find something like that? Iāve sourced pretty much everything else! And any preference on the type of grease?
Iām 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 doesnāt work too well.
Also, youāre better using white or preferably transparent tape.
Once youāve 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 doesnāt penetrate all the way through.
I have everything sourced and ready to go but for the life of me, I canāt seem to get the drilling to come out right manually. Iām 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 doesnāt 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, thatās what I did anyway.
Trying to drill the holes manually first time will lead to lots ofā¦ experience
Hereās one that has slots for tritium vials (not shown in the preview, itās 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 doesnāt 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 Iāve got it figured out with Fritzing.
I designed the linked 3D print on Thingiverse. Whilst I based my design on the Carclo reference drawings, itās far from perfect but is functional; GITD brightness/duration/colour is entirely dependent on the filament selected, though Iāve 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 doesnāt 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, Iād 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 havenāt 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?