Arc 4+ With Tritium Locators

[Trurl]

Tritium vials in the screwholes - thanks to whoever had this idea!

The trasers are from glo-discs; I had to drill a hair deeper into the screwholes to get them to sit flush.

I mounted the trasers with a dab of Elmer's Stix-All, then filled the rest of the screwholes with a
conformal coating used for protecting computer chips.

 

[chiaroscuro]

very nice. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[PaulW]

Trurl,

I like what you've done. I'd be interested to know how you get tritium vials that small. I have seen Merkava's Glow Disks in another thread. But they are buttons 15 mm in diameter. Do you dig the tritium containers out of them? If so, how?

Also, where would I go to get that conformal coating? What would I ask for?

Paul

 

[flownosaj]

That's brilliant!

Are these the same markers as Jets22 uses? I'm assuming you got yours from the "glow-disks" on B/S/T that we're familliar with.

-Jason

 

[utomatoe]

Amazing.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif

Glow powder is nice... but tritium rocks!!

 

[this_is_nascar]

Nice. My fear has always been in how to get the vials out of the glow-disk safely. Any suggestions?

 

[Trurl]

[ QUOTE ]
PaulW said:
Trurl,

I like what you've done. I'd be interested to know how you get tritium vials that small. I have seen Merkava's Glow Disks in another thread. But they are buttons 15 mm in diameter. Do you dig the tritium containers out of them? If so, how?

Also, where would I go to get that conformal coating? What would I ask for?

Paul

[/ QUOTE ]

The tritium vials are from the glow-disks that Merkava sells. They are held in the plastic casing by a
piece of double-sided tape - piece of cake to remove.The actual vial is approx. 6 mm in length - when
put in the screwhole on the Arc 4+ in breaks the surface slightly. I used a 1/16" drill bit to drill a hole
(maybe 1mm deep?) at the bottom of each screwhole to get the vials to sit flush - actually slightly
recessed with the surface.

The conformal coating is not very easy to come by - it's sold mainly for industrial processes. I think
I probably could have used clear fingernail polish to fill the cavity around the vial. I mounted the vial by
dipping one end in Stix-all glue and setting it into the screwhole, waiting 10 minutes to make sure it set
(and was centered in the hole), then filled in the cavity with the coating. I probably could have just filled
the hole with a drop of fingernail polish or a clear-dryng glue and set in the vial. I added the extra step
to make it easier to center the vial, and I knew I could get the conformal coating to "flow" into the annular
space (I don't know if fingernail polish will do that...)

 

[sotto]

How long does this Tritium last?

Thanks.

 

[flownosaj]

If the sides and bottom of the tritium tubes were painted with silver/reflective paint in an application like this, does anybody think that the end facing out would be any brighter?

-Jason

 

[Bushman]

1/2 life of tritum is like 10 years i think.

 

[flownosaj]

Bushman is right about the half-life around 10-12 years, but don't worry, I've got a G.I tritium compass that's almost 20 years old and it's still glowing strong (just half as bright) /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

-Jason

 

[PaulW]

Trurl,

Thanks for the detailed information on how to do this. I think I now know enough to do it myself. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Paul

 

[Fazookus]

VERY nice.

Where do you get the glo-disks? Google turned up cheap plastic jewerly... hopefully nobody's selling radioactive stuff for kids(!).

Faz

 

[flownosaj]

Fazookus--Check out the B/S/T fourms. Markava sells the tritium stuff.

-Jason

 

[Atrick-Pay]

I would like to keep my clip,
Any guess if you could drill a coupe extra holes?

 

[Rothrandir]

i dont' see any reason why you couldn't drill extra holes...

 

[Trurl]

[ QUOTE ]
flownosaj said:
If the sides and bottom of the tritium tubes were painted with silver/reflective paint in an application like this, does anybody think that the end facing out would be any brighter?

-Jason

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think that mirroring the sides of the tube would help. In the screwhole you actually get quite a bit
of reflection from the aluminum, and the glow pattern ends up being a bright center surrounded by a slightly
dimmer 'halo' of light the width of the hole.