question: home built reflector

[miczim]

Most likely this questions has been asked many times on the this forum. Hope this does sound to repetitive or too dumb.

Most flashlight reflectors seem to be made from plastic and have a chrome coating applied to them. Is there an easy way to apply an efficient reflective coating on a plastic reflector?

I also noticed that you can buy metal reflectors. I'm assuming these are polished to obtain the reflectivity. What type of metals can be used? What is the polishing process?

Thanks in advance.

 

[gadget_lover]

The key word is efficient. To get really high efficiency it requires a material that reflects the wavelengths well, and that coating needs to be protected from the air somehow.

I understand that the good reflectors have a vacuum deposited coating, where a metal is vaporized in a vacuum chamber and allowed to settle on the surfaces,

Someone else can address the polishing processes. I don;t know them that well.

Daniel

 

[65535]

AFAIK most plastic reflectors are molded and plastic safe chrome plated (I think generally there is a copper plating then chrome over that).

Metal reflectors are usually aluminum and can be chrome plated (cheaper) or deposition coated. Aluminum being common and other metals for certain applications. It's not really feasible to make your own reflector to be anywhere near as effective as a proper manufactured reflector.

Lately there have been a lot of reliable sources for any size reflector.