I want to buy UVB LEDs in approximately the 293-298 nm range, but I’ve been having a very hard time finding some. IIRC, I saw one (unavailable) option for around $90/led (hopefully I can get them for less).
I’ll be building the light around the LED since they are so hard to find, so please assume I can drive at any voltage.
Do you know of any options?
Which companies should I contact?
Try Thorlabs (245 nm on up) or Boston Electronics (265 nm on up).
Seven4s
Kaidomain has some very cheap sub 300nm leds. Not sure if they are within your narrow wavelength range. And the shipping can be slow from china.
Really appreciate it, guys!
LED295W – 295 nm LED with Window, 1.2 mW
https://www.thorlabs.com/thorproduct.cfm?partnumber=LED295W
$214.21 each. Ouch.
I was hoping that would be a pack of 10 or 100.
Why are UV LEDs so expensive?
UV LEDs for anything below 365nm are very new and specialized, so older technologies may be cheaper if you can adapt the power source and reflector.
If you’re on a budget, you could try a UV-B fluroescent tube and suitable filter.
I saw that Kaidomain has some 310nm at a very attractive price. Unfortunately, that’s outside of my range, and that 10nm difference makes the light about 8x less useful to my application.
I’ll consider the tubes option. Any suggestions on where to look for tubes and filters? This isn’t my area of expertise.
If you’re wanting this for Vitamin D purposes, may I politely encourage you to drop it straight away. Unless something very recent has been published, the work on this was done I think 5 years ago or more, and it was never tested on live human skin. Remember that UVB is quite the contributor to serious cancers and skin conditions (not to mention eyes) and it penetrates very quickly through the dermis. What you get outdoors is safe enough and effective in a short enough amount of time that sun exposure should not be a problem for the majority of people.
Snooped around a little because I was curious (I’ve been waiting patiently for some good germicidal UVC emitters for backcountry water treatment that don’t need a ton of power or aren’t so large and fragile as to be totally impractical). Most of the big guys aren’t offering midwave emitters at all…wonder why. But I did copy this passage from part of a research paper (I think this may have been the one out of the small handful that were published which gained traction in the….“supplement industry” and bastardized before being spread around as fact). I don’t imagine any of these are inexpensive if you can even get samples from them. I can’t remember the name of the German emitter manufacturer but it’s possible they’d have one (and if I remember, like almost everything they had was super expensive anyway, even basic whites).
“The 293 nm LED was obtained from RayVio (Hayward, CA, USA), 295 nm and 305 nm was from Sensor Electronic Technology, Inc (SETi, Columbia, SC, USA), and 298 nm was from DOWA Electronic Materials Company, Ltd (Chiyoda-Ku, Tokyo, Japan). The LEDs were powered with a power supply (supplied by RayVio) set to 50 V and 10 mA for all the experiments.”
Note the power feed info. The majority of the UVC emitters need a lot of power while being very sensitive to both heat and overpowering them…not difficult to fry ‘em and I don’t think any off the shelf flashlight drivers would be suitable, whereas some are fine for our UVA emitters.
Speaking of Vitamin D, I don't get enough sun, so I take a Vitamin D pill daily.
How to Post Images on BLF // Many knives for sale (USA only)
How to move a thread // raccoon's light reviews
Good morning and thank you @correllux I actually found the stream because I too am seeking this light however I am seeking for Vitamin D purposes so really thank you for expounding on your thoughts in this area. It’s new research to me and I know that there has to be some race correlation to it because I am half African-American, I work out regularly outdoors because that’s my preferred method and as a training Naturopathic doctor I am well aware of the goodness of the sun and saying that, I focus on actually sitting in the sun a bit with the intention of gathering the Vitamin D so when I did lasts years studies of my own health the only issue is my minimal Vitamin D ratings and mind you I eat a very healthy diet so I’m eating as much vitamin D as I can and although aside from lack of vitamin D the only medical issues that I have is a neurological disorder which is what led me to finding alternative ways to build up my Vitamin D because taking just a general Vitamin D pill has done nothing for my levels so thank you again for sharing your thoughts on this and I am sadly I do agree with you that Research is still new not 100% confirmed and it’s gonna continue to be high cost I think until more companies are involved because this sadly the spore is not a tool did the average individual can build out to use.
Ty!
This one maybe
Greetings! There indeed is a lot of info regarding how UVB light causes cancer. I read it increases probability by 75% relatively which absolutely still is well below 1% and I believe this method of obtaining vitamin D can be used safely, after all, light is just light regardless of its source, isn’t it? (don’t use it as regular light pls)
I’ve found some Chinese guys who produce 293nm LEDs and sell for almost nothing (but I think you will need a few to get significant results) and am willing to share the link!
https://bit.ly/3CLaRb4
As you can see there are a few in the same lot, I think you simply should specify which model you want. I even enquired them saying that I want to buy a few hundreds (I do not) and got a catalogue with technical sheet of the 293nm model. And I am sharing!
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/w8tY/mEy5ZGSiz
The wavelength range is very narrow!
Please tell me if you try these lamps because even if I decide to, it will only happen in a few months!