I posted this a few times in various threads. I take it that no one has any experience with the Solarforce UV drop in? It is a low voltage 3-4.2v drop in designed to run best on a single 18650, RCR123, or CR123 battery.
Yes, I’ve got one. I’m fascinated by the differences when you bounce UV light off things.
The drop-in is very good for what I bought it for - charging up Glow in the dark objects, strong enough to light your way at night, about a 20ft. beam, there’s quite a lot of “normal” light emitted along with the UV.
I’ve just ordered one of these, it might be better still.
I use 550 paracord a lot and some of the colours fluoresce strongly under UV light, they look strange having two colours on a strand of camo with 3 or 4 colours shine brightly.
I’m using this 365nm drop-in. 3-18v in a Solarforce L2P host and 2 extension tubes with 6x3v CR123A Lithium Primary batteries it gives the best UV output I’ve had yet.
I’ve tried Solarforce and other Kaidomain UV drop-ins, I’ve got 5 or 6 from various sources but none of them perform like this one.
It’s not bright, that is to say your eyes don’t see the spectrum as well down in the 365nm regions of the spectrum, the UV markings on U.K. currency leap out at you like none of the other drop-ins.
It’s not cheap at $15.81 and I already had the Solarforce parts and the batteries but it does perform.
I’ve just swapped it into some of my single 18650 lights, the 18v set-up is the only multi cell light that I run.
With 1x18650-
The drop-in has an orange peel reflector so it spreads the beam a bit so at 3 feet I can just about see the visible light on my hand. The UV will light up anything that fluoresces at about 6 feet but glow in the dark stuff needs to be at 2-3feet or closer to charge up. this is in a room at night with just a low wattage fluorescent bulb and a laptop screen.
It is dull enough to see the pattern on the emitter easily. I’m aware of the dangers of UV and wouldn’t look directly into the LED if it was at all bright enough to do me damage. The 18650’s I have are Nitecore 3100mAh and are fresh off the charger (about 20 mins use) and will light a wall 4 foot away too bright to comfortably focus on with a 800lumen drop-in.
The 18v (6x3v WF Lithium primarys) set-up puts a visible circle on a wall 6 feet away and a bright spot on my hand 3 feet away, I can look into the reflector, over the lip, from the side but I wouldn’t want to look directly into the LED at close range.
The effect on GITD painted objects.
I have painted the end of the handle of my Hultafors Heavy Duty knife, green handle brown sheath don’t lend themselves to being found at night if dropped etc. So the end of the handle is now painted with GITD paint that is creamy-white until charged up with a bright or UV light. The bright white light reflects back until it puts coloured spots in your vision then the end of the handle glows red. The 18v set up makes the GITD paint glow red with none of the white reflection, straight away red glow. The single 18650 has the same effect, just not as bright and not as strong a glow.
The higher the voltage that you feed it the better it performs.
At the moment Solarforce Sales HK have an L2 body plus 2 extension tubes for $18.99 + $2 shipping
I’ve just ordered 12x3v Nitecore 123A’s for under $20 from FastTech .
The 365nm 3-18v UV drop in from Kaidomain is $15.81 so in all a complete set-up for about $58.
Tank007 do a range of 365nm lights from $40-$80 I already had the Solarforce parts so I took that route.
There are other UV drop ins that I’ve had but the Kaidomain 3-18v is the best so far, I’m sure there are better but I haven’t found them yet.
EDIT……The 365nm drop in also picked up detail in the U.K. banknotes that the other brighter ones didn’t.
The L2P is a what I’ve used as well, I have enough Solarforce parts to make about 9 lights, over 20 drop ins (not all Solarforce) but only 5 Nitecore 3100mAh 18650s, I have a few Xenon drop ins 3, 6, and 9v so I also had the 3v Lithium 123As.
The extension tubes aren’t HAlll anodized though.
I’ve got a pair of Trustfire flames on the way from Manafont so that’ll give me a few more options.
They were an impulse buy, I bought some AR coated lenses and started looking what else they had.
I’m spending a lot of time at FastTech recently and it looks like continuing, thanks for the link.