I’ve been messing around with some diy solar projects involving UV lights. I received a UVbeast flashlight a couple years back and haven’t had much use for it, so I decided to scrap it for LEDs. I have tried searching for the LEDs within the wavelength advertised, 385-395 nm, but have come up short. I have bought some cheap 395 LEDs from ebay, but they do not compare in brightness to the ones I scavenged. I have a good charging circuit worked out, but I can’t seem to find the LEDs for my project. If anyone has any suggestions on where to get some, or on the project at all, I’d appreciate it!
These leds at least are cheap and have good output, at least up to 1A. They perform even better and handle more current (2A) if re-soldered on a DTP-ledboard (much improved thermal performance)
Sorry for the lack of information. I’ve posted a picture. My current circuit is rigged to run a series of these LEDS through 6 AAs. I’m not sure if those would work in that setup? I have little, read none, electronics background, so a fair amount of this is over my head.
I apologize for the poor quality. I don’t have a camera other than my phone working here.
I see they are 5mm leds, I have little expertise in those, the leds that I tested sofar were high-power SMD leds. But I do think that you can’t go wrong with Nichia. I found a 5mm through-hole UV Nichia at Ledrise, but it is 375nm, perhaps too deep into UV?
It seems that the project is with 5mm straw leds, using high power SMD leds instead has quite an impact on the design and the electronics. But if high power 3535 leds is an option, the linked LG led is 365nm so a different wavelength than asked for in the OP, while there is a very well performing 385nm version of that led for much cheaper on aliexpress (for a link see post #4).
I am open to suggestions on the design. Basically I would like a high powered LED that won’t burn out 2-6 rechargeable batteries in ~8 hours and can recharge off of a relatively small solar panel during the day. I spend a lot of time in the field and having a UV light that can recharge during the day would be very helpful!
An LG 385nm 3535-size powerled can be run at 350mA and has (in a flashlight) then 350 mW output which is more than 20 of those 5mm leds. If you put that led in a zooming flashlight with a glass lens, like this one, you will have an adjustable flood illumination with 10 hours runtime on a 3500mAh 18650 li-ion battery.
The problem is of course that you specified that you want to use 8x AA batteries, but I do not know a flashlight that uses 8 AA batteries and has a wide floody beam.
