It arrived today, and I’ve been trying it, shining it on rug in area that I’m pretty sure I’d find something, but basically, it just looks like fairly evenly-lit purple light.
I also tried shining it on a 20 USD bill, but again, just evenly-lit purple light. I have a small megnifying glass that I bought from Tmart awhile ago, that has a UV LED, and when I use that on the 20 USD bill, I can see bright “flecks”, etc., so I’m wondering if maybe the LED might be the wrong wavelength (the Ebay item says “375nm”) or something like that?
And, if so, is there another (fairly cheap, hopefully) P60 drop-in that would work better?
Thanks,
Jim
EDIT: Or, maybe I can just replace the emitter on the drop-in? Which LED would work?
The best thing is to get some yellow-lensed glasses to wear (I have a $5 pair of wrap-around safety glasses from wal mart). The yellow lens blocks out the purple/blue from the light and gives a lot of extra punch to any fluorescence you will see. In addition, the lens blocks the UV for a better safety margin, assuming you are concerned about viewing the UV from your light.
House plants (some leaves fluoresce a deep red) and other things sometimes show up with colors and fluorescence you won't see without the yellow lenses to filter the visible light.
I’m having a custom light built, with the option of having a UV emitter. The emitter itself is $24 so I am passing on that option. But the designer loves UV, for its novelty as well as what others in this thread have reported. Love the picture CRX posted!
Also you can add filters that pass the UV but block the visible light (or most of it).
Ask around locally for a photography or theatrical supplier who carries Rosco filters, and who can give you their “swatch book” free as they describe here: SWATCHBOOK REQUESTS | Rosco
I, uh, forget which ones I used — each sample has its transmission curve attached. Page through, look for a curve high up at the violet end and very low in the midrange. I stacked a couple and got a result that’s barely visible purple but makes things fluoresce nicely so it’s transmitting much of the UV.
The filter material for theatrical use is various kinds of sheet plastic and easily cut to fit different sorts of filter holders. I think photographers do the same thing. These aren’t the round glass filters that screw in over lenses; they’re meant to go over light sources.
The little “Swatch book” is made of small pieces of each color, separated by tabs that have the same spectrum/transmission that is on the web page. Each of those pieces is big enough to cut out a couple of Solarforce-size circles with some left over.
(Scraps are handy for dimming down the darned bright blue LEDs on everything nowadays)
Those 3M tekk glasses are great, the standard dark/smoke ones are the only sunglasses I wear anymore. Got tired of loosing / destroying Oakleys and switched to wearing those 3M safety glasses as sunglasses a few years ago on a road trip to Disney World and its great not having to worry about them, if anything does happen I’m out $9 and can pick up a new pair anywhere.100% UV and the new revision (came out around January) are even polarized now. Not sure how well the yellow will work for your needs but overall they’re great glasses. I also have a clear pair that don’t block and light but are still 100% UV for overcast days.
I wear glasses, so was hoping for something that’d work over my glasses, otherwise, I’d probably go ahead with that one, since you know that that’ll work.
