Review: UV light shootout, seven lights tested

LED Flashlights – General Info
118

Teej, what are the dimensions of the optic? It looks like a Nichia NIS033, available here: Optics Nichia Luxeon Ledengin K2 OSRAM DRAGON OSTAR BOOMERANG REFLECTOR LAIKA SEOUL CREE XLAMP TINA LISA CUTE FLARE ROCKET

It looks like the NCSU033B may fit on an XM-L star too (well, the thermal pad is the same 2.8mm wide and 4.2mm to supply pads, it’s just a bit wider at 7mm vs. 5mm pads). I want to make a light with this LED. :party:

How hot does the light get? Does it have modes too?

Oh, leds.de have the €mitter on PCB (ugly square) and the Ledil optic too:
http://www.leds.de/en/High-Power-LEDs/Nichia-High-Power-LEDs/Nichia-SMD-LED-UV-NCSU033B.html
http://www.leds.de/en/High-Power-LEDs/Lenses-and-optics/Ledil-lens-21-6x21-6mm-for-Nichia-NCSU033B.html

119

Congrats on the new light. Glad to hear it is meeting and exceeding your expectations. Nice report. Thank you Teej.

If you get a chance, please look at the back of $5 (USD) bill and tell me how the scattered "05"'s and anything else that pops out looks. I'm going to try to get a refund on the fake 365 emitters I got and need something valid to compare against.

EDIT: I'll try to take a picture for you to compare against, but I don't know how well it will turn out.

120

I understand. :slight_smile: It lists for $350.00.

121

My bills were a bit beat up, but, they lit up pretty good…the pics look less bright than in person as my mouse pad was lighting too under the bills and the camera stopped down to compensate the florescent part to compensate, etc.


$5 with UV


$20 under UV

This is the first time I noticed the repeating USA printed along the stripe on the $20…I never saw it before.

:smiley:


Head on


Its square, 21.5 mm


About 14 mm tall


The parts


Better shots of inside the head/tail

I also tried it with two 18350 IMR, and they fit in (As the 18650 width would fit) but were a bit long, so the tail could not screw on all the way w/o incapacitating the tail clicky, etc…so the 18650 or 16340 IMR I have will be its load.

122

BTW, the pattern formed by those yellow “0”,s in the “20” is called the “EURion constellation”. It causes color copiers to refuse to copy anything that it appears on… like most modern world currencies. EURion constellation - Wikipedia

123

Wow, that is impressive! Thanks for the pics :slight_smile:

-Jamie M.

124

I don’t actually need to check currency, I do forensic investigations, but, the bills do provide at least a base line.

:smiley:

125

Got any UV lit crime scene photos you can share? :slight_smile:

-Jamie M.

126

No….that ain’t allowed.

:smiley:

If I see something that can’t be associated with a source, I might consider it…but the pics are stamped and p-shopping to remove that would be involved, etc…PITA.

:smiley:

127

lol, okies :slight_smile:

One of my ambulance driver friends used to send me pics of all the motorcycle accidents he responded to (in order to convince me to give up motorcycle riding), and he got in big doo doo for that too :frowning:

-Jamie M.

128

Yeah, its verboten. You really never know who might see it, and if for example if by some happenstance it involved a loved one of yours, etc…its traumatic to see something like that online.

Its like doctors discussing a case in the elevator with an unbeknownst family member of the patient along for the ride…its just not fair to the parties involved…they deserve privacy.

For perspective, the vast majority of my investigations lately involve solving environmental safety and health issues, say nabbing polluters more than bank robbers, etc.

I do a TON of investigations that actually just answer why water leaked into a building and if there’s mold, how to get rid of it, etc. I started a company just to do that on a consulting basis. I now am subcontracted as a consultant on the more traditional investigative work, so I keep busy with a variety of things. A lot of skills are very cross applicable,and I’ve been involved in one way or the other since the ’70’s…

Some things add together many facets, for example, I might measure the sound deadening at shooting ranges, and/or calibrate the range lighting for night shooting practice, so we know what scopes/sights need how many lux to shoot what…so I might be out at 3 am with a bunch of people shooting a few thousand rounds down range while I measure the lux on the targets and adjust the lighting while we chat on the radios to see who can do what with what lux, etc.

Or I might be sneaking remote control monitoring stations up/downwind or stream from suspected polluters and collecting evidence over many months to find patterns of releases to the environment that a single inspection would probably miss (Already missed typically…). One plant used a large truck to screen cameras’ views of a storm drain, and once in a while, the truck would cover the hole, they’d open it, do the illegal dumping, close the hole, and drive off again. If they knew you were onsite, they simply didn’t dump…and the fencing, etc, made it impossible to see what they were doing in there otherwise….

…So I set up monitoring stations up and down stream IN the sewers, to compare the water going into the plant with water coming out, and measure/collect the water quality every few minutes….and every night I’d sneak back and recover the samples, swap in fresh batteries for the sampling pumps, etc, and sneak back out undetected (the manholes were under their security surveillance we discovered, they had Jeep Cherokees with bar lights and spot lights patrolling the areas, to report back to base if “intruders” were around, etc.)

Nailed’m too.

:smiley:

129

Wow, Teej. None of my UV lights even remotely compare to that. Looks great. Thanks for posting those pictures. That totally answered what I needed to know. Thank you again.

Your work sounds interesting and challenging. With the broad spectrum of projects you work on, it sounds like you need to do research at the same time you're investigating sometimes. I'm sure it has some tedious aspects at times, but it definitely not cookie cutter type work.

130

The variety is what attracts me to it. Now that I’m “retired” I can do what I want to as long as there’s cash flow. :smiley:

I don’t find research to be tedious, I like investigating things…and there’s always SOMETHING to be learned in the process, even if its not relevant to the original question.

That’s one direction that took me in search of newer UV lights in the first place…I saw something that my current light could not do, and wondered why…back in the 1980’s, and delved into the wavelengths, etc…and what reflected UV vs fluorescing UV was able to resolve, etc. After that, when LEDs came out, I started to be interested in that format. The electronics for example is not a long suite though, and that’s an area that I can delve into deeper, etc.

I have so much to learn, as relatively speaking, I am only familiar with HOW to use various lights, but relatively speaking know almost nothing about how they WORK electronically.

:smiley:

131

Brilliant! Sounds like a lot of fun and rewarding too.

132

I’ve built hundreds of UV lights in the last few years.

This is the most popular 6 watt input model:

This one is my newest AC powered with 24 input watts:

I use both 365nm and 385nm LED’s.

Overall, the 385nm LED’s provide better fluorescence,

mainly because they deliver more mw.

Power is Panasonic 3400mah cells or AC power supply.

LarryDFW

133

What model emitters do you use?
LED Engin seems more availble then nicha emitters.
I recall reading on LPF about some really pricey emitters you had a few years ago.

134

Helios;

I am using a variety of emitters in my UV lights.

I have tested Nichia, LED Engine and EpiLeds UV emitters in a variety of configurations.

It is a constantly changing scenario of who is delivering the most mw of UV per watt

at the desired frequency.

By the way in my testing, I’ve discovered that nm advertizing is unreliable.

And in talking to Luxeon a week ago, they said that NO Luxeon UV leds have been released.

They are working on some.

LarryDFW

135

Hey Larry :slight_smile: I sent you a PM.

-Jamie M.

136

I suppose it depends upon what you are fluorescing though, as some materials simply need shorter than 385 nm UV to fluoresce. IE: They don’t at 385 and do at 365 for example.

The problem is that the emitters are much BETTER at converting the cell’s power into mW if its mW of 365 than 385 nm UV light.

I use UV tracer dyes for certain applications, and dyes that work at 365 nm by design may not work at 385, whereas most of the 385 dyes also work if 365 used used to excite them.

There are rare instances where something can work at 385 and not at 365, but, typically, its the other way around in actual use.

Some minerals will not fluoresce at 385, OR 365 nm for example, its still too long a wavelength…and they require even shorter wavelengths.

The only time 385 will work better than 365 is if 1) 385 is short enough, and 2) It just needs a higher mW exposure to make it fluoresce…and the 385 can use the same power to get a higher intensity exposure, using the easier to emit longer wavelength….than the 365 can.

In practice, the higher energy of the excitation from the 365 will compensate for that, and things will generally fluoresce better. If the targets are MADE for 385 nm, say currency, sure, 385 will work better as for the same powered light, more 385 mW can be applied, etc….IF power was the limiting factor.

:smiley:

And, I may want to interest you in some future projects, as while I might use my UV differently than you do, so our experiences are different, YOU understand the electrical aspects, and, I am seriously lacking in that department. I am more involved in the chemical/biological, than the electrical, end of things.

:smiley:

137

Not from what I’ve seen… you can get much more 385 nm light out of an LED than 365 nm… the shorter the wavelength, the larger the electron band-gap jump needed to produce it… and as a rule, the less efficient it will be.