GITD DOG TOYS!

That's right. My dog LOVES her glow in the dark ball! Since winter hit, it's dark when I leave for work and dark when I get home. We play fetch daily.
My dog can track a glowing ball in the dark WAY better than a regular ball during the day anyways! :twothumbs

So I'm on a mission. I want the best glowing ball and I plan on making a "charging station". I live in an apartment, so we carry our toys a few blocks to a small local field. I keep a nice LED thrower on hand to spot things (to be replaced soon with a ROP). My dog wears an Photon on her collar (to make her visible). I charge the ball in my pocket with a small EDC light.

I bought every glowing ball I could find. of the 3, only one (made by chuck-it) actually glows decently. The others only faintly glow and are quite useless...

My first question: Can I make the balls glow brighter? Maybe line the ID with glow powder? I want some thing that is safe, health wise, for my beloved dog. Maybe I can mold my OWN balls??

Second Question: I want to make a charging station. A box (for lack of better words), with UV leds on the inside, to charge a spare ball. It needs to be portable and obviously battery powered. Any ideas on where to start?

http://www.dogtoys.com/glowindark.html#ptop

That site has some glow in the dark dog balls/ footballs you can check out

Well, it's not technically GITD, but I've got a nite-ize meteorlight led K9 dog ball, and my dog and I love it.

http://www.niteize.com/productdetail.php?category_id=33&product_id=167

it takes 2 x 2016 batteries, which you probably stock already for the Photon -- comes in various colors, I chose red. it glows nice and bright, is solid rubber of some kind (with a core that comes out for the module), bounces well. seems pretty tough.

they're online at batteryjunction, amazon, others. Our local brick and mortar Mclendon's Hardware stocks them too for some reason.

I also recommend their Spotlit or Droplit (I can't remember which -- difference is the hardware it hangs from - one is a tension clip thing that I probably wouldn't recommend as it can pop out) as a pet light. nice glow, 2 x 2016s, I find it easier to see than a photon shining on the ground or wherever it ends up shining from his collar.

and now as I preview my post and I follow Brett's link I see they have the metorlites there, so this ramble was probably not necessary anyway. well, hth

Can't help imagining your dog with teeth now glowing in the dark, meet the Cheshire Dog!

• http://media.photobucket.com/image/cheshire cat/MotherFuckingFrogQueen/Cheshire_Cat_3-2.jpg?o=17
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/marc_smith/3402994037/
• and finally ... CPF people, do you recognise yourself? http://www.flickr.com/photos/83863469@N00/125898116

-alex-

sometimes blue LEDs do well with glow in the dark stuff if that helps as UV LEDs are considerably more expensive.

I'd be afraid to use any kind of GITD stuff for a dog toy unless it was specifically made for dogs. Even if GITD stuff is considered "safe" for humans, that's usually assuming that you just handle it. Dog toys get chewed, slobbered on, and bits even get eaten.

As far as charging, do some experimenting. I'm thinking a fluorescent light source will do well. I suspect that you will quickly reach a "saturation" level and more light won't make it brighter. I would also suspect that even if you manage to charge it to a higher than "normal" level, the "extra" charge level will quickly decay down to "normal" level and the light level will decay along the same curve from then on.

If you want to experiment, try covering half the ball with something like aluminum foil, charging it with one "mega" light source, then remove the foil and hit it with a "normal" light source. See how long the brighter spot stays brighter.

A cheap rechargeable million candlepower light may well do as good a job as anything for recharging the toys.

keith p said:

So I'm on a mission. I want the best glowing ball and I plan on making a "charging station". I live in an apartment, so we carry our toys a few blocks to a small local field. I keep a nice LED thrower on hand to spot things (to be replaced soon with a ROP). My dog wears an Photon on her collar (to make her visible). I charge the ball in my pocket with a small EDC light.


My first question: Can I make the balls glow brighter? Maybe line the ID with glow powder? I want some thing that is safe, health wise, for my beloved dog. Maybe I can mold my OWN balls??

Second Question: I want to make a charging station. A box (for lack of better words), with UV leds on the inside, to charge a spare ball. It needs to be portable and obviously battery powered. Any ideas on where to start?

Click to expand...

I dont think I'd be putting any products on the ball unless they were specifically intended for oral ingestion. I'm not saying they are dangerous, but none that I am aware of state they are safe to eat!

Regarding the charging station, that would be totally doable. Check out this 'charger' a member over on the glow forum made: http://glowforum.com/showthread.php?t=938&highlight=lambda

It is for charging rods, but you could pm him and get the details about it and adapt it for use with balls. It uses UV LED's and is solar powered which is a plus. It stays charged for a long time, and will charge his glow rods over and over many times before it needs to be recharged itself.

The guys name is Lambda and I'm sure he will be of help.

ab