# UV Led+Superluminova= Bye Bye tritium ?



## xochi (Mar 24, 2006)

I'm just wondering if some of you might now the answer to this. How practical/feasible/whateverable would it be to strategically place some small UV Leds inside a watch and have them strobe on for a second or two every 30 seconds to a minute (during dark hours) for the purpose of automatically charging superluminova markings?

I know that UV charges glow powder quick and that superluminova is bright and lasts a decent length of time I just don't know if the UV Leds could be used in a way that would at least equal the brightness of tritium tubes without gobbling up too much power.

I just moved this from flashlight electronics. 

Comments would be appreciated.


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## eart (Mar 24, 2006)

Perhaps I'm missing something. Aren't you just adding a redundant step? If you have electronics and power to "charge" a glow substance, why can't you just skip the intermediate step and just illuminate the face of watch? Seems like you want to illuminate glowstuff to illuminate your watch. Why not just illuminate the watch?


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## Mike Painter (Mar 24, 2006)

eart said:


> Perhaps I'm missing something. Aren't you just adding a redundant step? If you have electronics and power to "charge" a glow substance, why can't you just skip the intermediate step and just illuminate the face of watch? Seems like you want to illuminate glowstuff to illuminate your watch. Why not just illuminate the watch?



I've though of the UV light solution also. The problem with just lighting the dial is that you have to add something that keeps the light on in all cases I'm aware of. I've looked a lot for watches with an on/off switch rather than a momentary contact and have not found any.
Two or three seconds is not enough most of the time and when it's not, for me at least, I don't have a free hand to turn the light back on.
The Timex "break your wrist" light works but if I'm taking a pulse I have to guess when to flick.


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## twentysixtwo (Mar 24, 2006)

I actually did something not too unlike this - I used a UV LED in a "Tirefly" where the LED was painted with glow paint - very interesting, it "pulses" insterad of blinking. Very nice effect.


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## Lee1959 (Mar 24, 2006)

I am not sure how feasible this is, but I DO know that Uv leds make superluminva and seikos lumes glow better, and stronger faster than any other type light I have seen. I use one every night to charge my watch face.


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## xochi (Mar 24, 2006)

eart said:


> Perhaps I'm missing something. Aren't you just adding a redundant step? If you have electronics and power to "charge" a glow substance, why can't you just skip the intermediate step and just illuminate the face of watch? Seems like you want to illuminate glowstuff to illuminate your watch. Why not just illuminate the watch?



By using an ultraviolet LED that is programmed to come on at an interval to charge the superluminova the net result would be hands and indices that are always readable without any form of user activation. By using uv/superluminova you have the potential for much brighter luminosity, deactivation of lume (I've seen a few posts from military types who worry that tritium could give away position ), a lume that doesn't fade through it's usable life (first 2 years or so have alot of fade), isn't quarunteed useless in 12-15 years, isn't radioactive , is more durable.

I just took a 14 led UV light and shined it on a superluminova watch face for maybe a 1/4 second and compared it to a marathon trit watch made in november 2003. The superlum was at least 10 times brighter (maybe as much as 100 times) and even after 5 minutes (I was satisfied here so stopped) was still much brighter than trits. Granted , the volume of light from this flashlight is way beyond what could be expected from smaller leds mounted in the watch but the glow from the superlume was phenomenal. Depending on how the UV's are scheduled this method of lighting the watch could be superior to trits in many uses.

I think that during the peak activity/darkness hours the highest rate of use might be like 1 second uv "on" per hour or so. With an activating /deactivating ambient light sensor and scheduling the use of the UV could be 6-12 seconds per day for some folks. I have no idea what the real numbers would be like but I think this might really be a better solution for alot of watches . Judging from the degree of lost brightness from my marathon, tritium really ain't that great. Perhaps with solar powered watches feeding the uv leds may even be a complete non issue.


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## Bravo25 (Mar 24, 2006)

You might look at a Quiglight. They make a 2 led version, and one is UV. It is a pocket clip light that has an adjustable light head so that if you turn it on, and then hold your watch up to read it, you would be able to see the markers quite well.


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## John N (Mar 24, 2006)

I think this would be interesting, but might be hard to implement without looking yucky. 

Something like small surface mount LEDs around the chapter ring, perhaps with a ledge or something preventing you from seeing them directly.

My guess is you would be better off picking some constant PWM freq. and just leaving it there rather than trying to sense the amount of light, etc. 

Are you going to need a coating to protect people's eyes?

How are you going to deal with the power? It seems like it would be difficult to retrofit and you are going to be limited to very small batterys.

How kind of runtime could be achieved?

Would small surface mount LEDs have enough "throw" to activate all the parts across a 40mm watch?

Hmm.

-john


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## BF Hammer (Mar 24, 2006)

I think this is an excellent idea.

There are already Casio watches that use LED's to directly light the watch. Some added custom circuitry to pulse the LED's automatically for 0.25 to 0.5 second every 15 minutes would keep Superluminova charged quite well. A photosensor could also be used to check ambient light levels and pulse only when in darkness to help save battery even more. UV LED's can be mounted so they don't directly shine outside of the watch case, only reflect. I've found in personal experimentation that blue LED's will charge Superluminova almost as well as near UV LED's

The drawbacks that come to my mind are that the blue and UV LED's draw more current, thus shorter battery life. The flashing would also be distracting after a while IMHO.

I also believe that tritium illumination is going to come down in price even more over the next couple of years. More and more companies are offering tritium than ever before due to the expiration of certain international patents regarding tritium gas lume. The complaints listed in this thread about tritium are very overstated, as I have 2 tritium watches. One is a 15 year old Marathon military watch and the tritium illumination is still better on that watch than on many watches that don't use Superluminova or Lumibrite on their dials.


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## MessalineApghar (Jun 6, 2010)

I have a watch with Painted-Lume (unsure if it's SL or not) and a UV LED to illuminate it. the LEd has a manual pusher, like most lighted watches. 

The night visability is incredible, but the watch is overly thick, like 20mm thick to accomodate the power cells. Green lume at 3-6-9, purple/uv LED at 12, hot pink hands....

this was a low-end watch, designed as a novelty item, $3 retail, $20 list...but it's a great proof of concept .


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## terrhaus (Sep 1, 2010)

MessalineApghar said:


> I have a watch with Painted-Lume (unsure if it's SL or not) and a UV LED to illuminate it. the LEd has a manual pusher, like most lighted watches.
> 
> The night visability is incredible, but the watch is overly thick, like 20mm thick to accomodate the power cells. Green lume at 3-6-9, purple/uv LED at 12, hot pink hands.....


 
Hi, I'm new to this thread but have some questions on UV and the use of the superluminova pigments, but can you tell me what the values are above that you mentioned in your post?? Green lume is 3-6-9 and UV is 12?? I'm not familiar with this and could use some information. Thanks in advance. ....terrhaus....08/31/10.


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