Optimal Charging of GID Material

[jlomein]

For things like TAD Gear's glow in the dark Ranger Eyes, made of GID plastic/rubber material, is there an optimal way to charge them using a flashlight to maximize brightness and glow time? Some factors I'm interested in finding out what is optimal:

-LED vs Incan
-distance of flashlight to GID item
-flashlight brightness (diminishing returns?)
-period of time spent charging

Overall I've personally found that brighter flashlights work better, and the longer you spend charging GID, the longer it glows. However I haven't been able to determine if there is a point where additional brightness or charging time is redundant. I personally use LED lights only, as I'm afraid of melting GID items with a hot incan light.

Also, does the ability of GID material to glow diminish if it is used too much?

 

[Th232]

Light as close as possible, the more light hitting the target the better, for me this translates to putting the object right in front of the light and moving it around, rather than trying to shine the light on the object all in one go.

Regarding the light source, I seem to recall that GITD absorbs short wavelengths better, hence for a given brightness, LED *might* be a better choice than incan, with a UV source being ideal. That said, I could be wrong, or the difference could be negligible.

 

[greenLED]

jlomein, the absolute best light source to charge GID materials is a dedicated UV light. Short of that, incandescent lights, and then a white LED.

A "full charge" can take up to 15 minutes, but the nature of the charging curve is such that the return for those extra 10 minutes are basically nill.

You won't damage the GID by shining an incan light on it (unless you use an über bright, and thus hot, light source for a long time).


All that said, unless they've changed the product since I last evaluated it (unlikely) those "ranger eyes" have horrible glow properties (to put it nicely). :green:

No amount of UV light will make them glow intensely for a long time. The glow material they're made out of is not the new generation GID stuff, so the performance is lacking. You're almost better off painting the patch over with glowinc.com's paint.

 

[jlomein]

Thanks for all the great info. These v.5 ranger eyes are decent, as the GID material itself seems to be better, and it is thicker being a 3D mold. The v.4 ranger eyes are flat 2D graphics and seem to be made with an inferior GID material.

Reading about those glowinc.com paints makes them sound fantastic, although they may not be suitable for fine detail work such as these ranger eyes. Still, seems like it could be an interesting addition to flashlights or other items. I might try out the water based glowinc paint since its the easiest to ship, but it sounds like its less versatile than the acrylic version.