Luce de Notte - Quick & Dirty Review

[jch79]

Instead of posting my thoughts in one of the sales threads, I thought I'd start a new thread where people can share their thoughts and pictures of Fred's unique creations.

My Luce is of the Ti variety, with an 18mm green Trit sphere in it.



While the trit's glow is barely visible at daytime, it puts out a surprising and useful amount of light in real darkness. It's enough light IMHO to read with, if you're trying not to disturb your lovely other half, and will make a great tent light for camping, again, if you're trying not to disturb anyone. If your house is really dark at night (streetlights keep mine pretty bright), it is probably enough light to navigate to the potty.. just don't tailstand it with the dome on top of the toilet! When sitting on your night stand, the polycarb dome glows just the right amount - more than my other trit-ed lights, but not enough to cast any real light.

The workmanship is amazing - awesome fit and finish, the polycarbonate is smooth as silk, and the assembly is perfect. The sphere sits really nicely on the smooth reflector, and is as close to the glass as I'd want it.

The runtime chart goes something like this:



Not bad!!

Anyways, great job with this one Fred. It's innovative thinking like this that keep me coming back to CPF.

As always, to see what comes next!

john

[Kiessling]

I have to agree here ... except mine's the budget version in SS and my sophere is smaller than yours

The only letdown is the runtime. Doesn't seem to be current regulated at all.

bernie

[HoopleHead]

lol nice runtime graph

heres my stuff from the other thread:

lovely, just lovely

its the best thing i could possibly use to look for my tritium-less flashlight nearby my orders in for a 2nd!

really do love just holding it and playing with it and staring into it from both ends. looking forward to the bigger green one. have been playing with it every night as i go to bed, although i almost dropped it on my face last night so gotta be careful lol. beautiful work, and a very unique piece.

[HoopleHead]

My Luce is of the Ti variety, with an 18mm green Trit sphere in it.

a random longshot, but is the background of your pic a black B&W speaker?

[jch79]

a random longshot, but is the background of your pic a black B&W speaker?

They're Paradigm speakers - pretty good speakers, especially for getting 'em free!

[PhotonFanatic]

John,

Your photo is making the Luce look better than it actually is. Will you do all my product shots from now on?

Loved the runtime graph!

[Edwood]

LOL, nice runtime chart.

-Ed

[jch79]

Your photo is making the Luce look better than it actually is.

I respectfully disagree here!

Will you do all my product shots from now on?

Sure... however, that would be assuming that I'd have to give the lights back after I photograph 'em?

Fred, you ain't no sloucher in the photography department!!

Loved the runtime graph!

It took me a while to make that goofy graph! (oh the things I'll do to distract myself from work..) FWIW, Tritium has a ~5.6% decay rate per year, which give it about 12 years to its half-life. This chart, although meant to be for fun, was actually a fun learning experience!

john

[greg_in_canada]

Nice review. Beautiful photos. Beautiful object-d'art PhotonFanatic.

One thing I've wondered though is if the phosphor wears out faster than the tritium. My brother had a TI tritium watch and when it was new it was very bright. I asked him about it a few years ago and he said the tritium was now too dim to read. Even after 1.5 half lives I was expecting it to be pretty bright (based on how bright it was when new). So now I suspect the phosphor wore out.

Do any of the makers of these tritium vials and spheres specify how long they work (to 50%) or whatever?

Thanks - Greg

[axd]

Do any of the makers of these tritium vials and spheres specify how long they work (to 50%) or whatever?

Thanks - Greg

Maybe this gives an indication: http://www.mbmicrotec.com/html/engl/...gie/leben.html

[jch79]

AXD - did you see my runtime chart above? I did a lot of research with half-life studies of Tritium, and averaged them out for mine. IMHO, it's a little more applicable and in a better scale for our flashaholic uses.



Thanks for digging up this thread - I love my Luce!!

john

[axd]

AXD - did you see my runtime chart above? I did a lot of research with half-life studies of Tritium, and averaged them out for mine. IMHO, it's a little more applicable and in a better scale for our flashaholic uses. Thanks for digging up this thread - I love my Luce!!

john

Yup, saw the chart -at first sight it looked rather like a simple extrapolation (which makes me think that to best show the decay effect, the vertical axis in such charts should be larger than the horizontal one ). But your reaction changes my mind And on closer inspection the chart indeed plots a 2^-T graph, as in the table here.

But it is interesting to know that various 3H sources might have *different* runtimes - because of the containers.

These betalights are intriguing me: don't forget to have a look here, because I'm trying to collect ways to describe the intensities of such lights to people who never had those before. being able to read a book sounds like a definite criterion.

-alex-

[jch79]

You've put some thought into this!

Never thought that the containers could affect (for better or worse?) the runtimes.

FWIW, I find it's very easy to read a book in complete darkness with the Luce de Notte. Then again, different colors spheres have different brightnesses, different sizes obviously do, and where they are in their "lifespan" also does. So... YMMV!

Thanks,
John

[fyrstormer]

I gotta get one of these someday.

[greg_in_canada]

AXD - did you see my runtime chart above? I did a lot of research with half-life studies of Tritium, and averaged them out for mine. IMHO, it's a little more applicable and in a better scale for our flashaholic uses.



Thanks for digging up this thread - I love my Luce!!

john

The link says their product is about 10% per year, so instead of being 50% at 12 years (due to tritium decay) they would be 28% (0.9^12). That also implies that other companies that are less careful with their ingredients may be worse.

Greg