So I found some black mold (mildew?) spots on my garage wall and as a flashaholic, I wondered if someone made a UV-C flashlight powerful enough to destroy the stuff? If not that would be a great custom build.
Might be good for COVID too…
I’d stick to a commercially available mold killing product.
I can only imagine the liability the first time the UV mode is accidentally turned on while in a man’s pocket and that person decided to have kids later.
Ha true true… I remember someone came out with a USB-C flashlight but I can’t seem to find it. I have some 365 nm ones but I don’t think they’d do the trick
I’d stick to the old 10% bleach formula
Yep, just stick with Mould Killer spray and a cloth.
The issue is that UV-C LEDs are only about a week old and they are very expensive. I just made a uv-c flashlight and the led cost $75.
Could you tell about it in more detail? Which led and driver you uses?
Thanks for the advice! I bought some on Amazon and the stupid spray nozzle didn’t work. Is there a brand you’d recommend?
Clorox? 
Ya so much for blasting it with a new flashlight. I’ve been hankering for a new light too (:
I have a bunch of lasers but no UV ones.
I have one of these.
Wow nice… now we just need a 1,000 watt version
Mould can be killed with soap and water. Adding bleach can generate THM’s, but if you use dilute enough bleach the numbers will be low. Only need abut 100 ppm for the bleach. 5ml per litre.
THM’s are tri-halo methanes, carcinogenic in high enough doses.
I’d like to know too. There are now some nice UVC emitters available from Boston Electric in the US https://shop.boselec.com/collections/uv-led . Fairly expensive and shipping to Russia may be a lot. But I see they operate at 6V and 12V so we should be able to find some drivers that operate here. Just need to modify them to operate at 500mA max.
If you want to play with UVC it’s easier to do it with AC 120 volts. Look at the ctuv36 or the ctuv25. Both are available with or without ozone. The the ones that produce ozone are at a shorter wavelength so they’re not as good as the regular ones at sterilizing things through direct light contact. I don’t think there’s a cheaper way to make a lot of ozone.
UV Bulb – Coospider There are similar available on Ali if you’re on 240 volts.
Thanks! Their 5.2*5.2 Led looks very interesting. And I already have 6v*1A driver… I hope mail forward I used can ship it to Russia.
Wow those look amazing. So for a single room, you could just put it in a light socket, turn it on, let it run, say for a day, and all the mold would get killed?
Thanks!
Yes to bleach for mold. But you need to take care of the problem and not just the symptoms.
If you have mold, you have a high humidity condition that needs to be fixed.
Honestly your best bet is to cut out the drywall and patch it - this is what professional remediation companies do, and they do that for a reason. Shouldn’t need to do anything with wood studs or lath as far as replacement but do take the time to scrape and sterilize those where they are accessible and/or if they show signs of mold or water damage in that same area. If they are bad, replacement might be wise. With porous materials like this (including paint, surprisingly) if you just treat the exterior surface you won’t be killing it effectively and it’ll be free to spread…this is assuming that it’s had time to establish. It can creep down into and through the drywall and paper and before long you get spores back behind the surface that are free to do their thing when conditions are favorable. We went through some of this at work a few years ago and it was interesting to talk to the guys. Being a business we had to go the extra mile and it was a ridiculous amount of work/time for what looked like a small affected area (maybe 2-1/2 sq ft). Almost any fungicide/mildewcide is better than bleach but the real issue is the porosity of the substrate.
If it’s a small area you can cut out 4-6 inches past the edges, maybe do a simple “California patch.” Otherwise maybe easier to just replace the whole sheet.
UVC won’t address it much better…same thing: surface treatment and porosity. Gotta look up these new emitters, though…been waiting years to see if they could get some UV’s suitable for water treatment in a compact lightweight device like the Steripens. A few years ago I thought they were there and then development seemed to fizzle out.
You bought it on Amazon, that’s your problem! You can get Mould Killer in your supermarket or hardware store (well at least in Australia anyway).