Replacing Trit on Ti Piston. How to?

[jumpstat]

Hi all,

What is the correct method for replacing the existing trit in the PD piston.

What tools, materials etc do I require to safely remove, clean and reinstall a trit?

Reason I want to do this is that the original trit in red is so faint compared to the green trit in my PD-S. I could easily see the PD-S in the dark not so the Mule.

TIA for all the help. :ironic:

 

[beach honda]

Norland 61 Optical Adhesive (UV) is going to be the "epoxy" you will fill and cover the trit depression with. As far as removing the old material, I am not sure other than chipping away at it and scraping it all out. Maybe there is a solvent out there that will eat away the old Norland?

Contact username: B@rt for all your tritium needs

 

[TxTroubleMaker]

To be fair to the red trit in your Mule, I used one of B@rt's green 1.5x5mm trit vials for that HA PD-S of yours, and those suckers are crazy bright!:devil:

A tip I picked up form Don a while back was to use boiling water to soften up the Norland 61. It has worked great for me in the past, as I have swapped out more than a few trit vials in my various lights. You'll also need a straight pin or something similar to poke or chip out the Norland.

What I do is use needle nose pliers with tape wrapped around the tips(so I don't scratch the piston) to hold the trit end of the piston into the boiling water. A good minute or two of the piston submerged in the water will get the Norland soft enough for you to start picking it out. Take your time doing this part, this is not a race, the trit vials are very delicate! After a couple of dunkings, you should be able to get enough material out of the slot for you to get the the pin underneath the trit vial so that you can pop it out. Again be very patient doing this, it will take time, but it is worth it. I was able to save the trit vial in four of the five lights I've done, using this method.

You're also going to need some Norland 61 to seal your new trit vial in the piston. When done correctly, that stuff dries super hard and crystal clear. I don't think anyone has found anything better. Anyway, hope this helps...

 

[darkzero]

To be fair to the red trit in your Mule, I used one of B@rt's green 1.5x5mm trit vials for that HA PD-S of yours, and those suckers are crazy bright!:devil:

A tip I picked up form Don a while back was to use boiling water to soften up the Norland 61. It has worked great for me in the past, as I have swapped out more than a few trit vials in my various lights. You'll also need a straight pin or something similar to poke or chip out the Norland.

What I do is use needle nose pliers with tape wrapped around the tips(so I don't scratch the piston) to hold the trit end of the piston into the boiling water. A good minute or two of the piston submerged in the water will get the Norland soft enough for you to start picking it out. Take your time doing this part, this is not a race, the trit vials are very delicate! After a couple of dunkings, you should be able to get enough material out of the slot for you to get the the pin underneath the trit vial so that you can pop it out. Again be very patient doing this, it will take time, but it is worth it. I was able to save the trit vial in four of the five lights I've done, using this method.

You're also going to need some Norland 61 to seal your new trit vial in the piston. When done correctly, that stuff dries super hard and crystal clear. I don't think anyone has found anything better. Anyway, hope this helps...

Thank you for the very helpful info. I'm not happy with how my trit is installed in my PD-S. I feel much better now knowing I can fix it. :twothumbs

 

[JohnnyDeep]

A safe way to remove an old trit without getting scratches on the piston is to submerge the piston in boiling water for 10 min (o-ring removed). You can then use a toothpick to scrape out the now soft epoxy.

 

[jumpstat]

To be fair to the red trit in your Mule, I used one of B@rt's green 1.5x5mm trit vials for that HA PD-S of yours, and those suckers are crazy bright!:devil:

A tip I picked up form Don a while back was to use boiling water to soften up the Norland 61. It has worked great for me in the past, as I have swapped out more than a few trit vials in my various lights. You'll also need a straight pin or something similar to poke or chip out the Norland.

What I do is use needle nose pliers with tape wrapped around the tips(so I don't scratch the piston) to hold the trit end of the piston into the boiling water. A good minute or two of the piston submerged in the water will get the Norland soft enough for you to start picking it out. Take your time doing this part, this is not a race, the trit vials are very delicate! After a couple of dunkings, you should be able to get enough material out of the slot for you to get the the pin underneath the trit vial so that you can pop it out. Again be very patient doing this, it will take time, but it is worth it. I was able to save the trit vial in four of the five lights I've done, using this method.

You're also going to need some Norland 61 to seal your new trit vial in the piston. When done correctly, that stuff dries super hard and crystal clear. I don't think anyone has found anything better. Anyway, hope this helps...

:twothumbs Thanks for the heads up. Now I know where the trit comes from :thumbsup: Like you said, its crazy bright and more useful. Cheers mate.
Went to a few good hardware stores and could not find one that have the Norland 61 locally. Got a few more stops this afternoon....Wish me luck.

 

[TxTroubleMaker]

:twothumbs Thanks for the heads up. Now I know where the trit comes from :thumbsup: Like you said, its crazy bright and more useful. Cheers mate.
Went to a few good hardware stores and could not find one that have the Norland 61 locally. Got a few more stops this afternoon....Wish me luck.

If you can't find any, I've got some Norland 61 and I can spare enough for you to get the job done shoot me a PM so we can work out the details...

 

[jumpstat]

If you can't find any, I've got some Norland 61 and I can spare enough for you to get the job done shoot me a PM so we can work out the details...

:thumbsup: But I just checked B@rt's sales thread and he is all out :sigh: I'll wait till he get some more in. Thanks :twothumbs

 

[TxTroubleMaker]

:thumbsup: But I just checked B@rt's sales thread and he is all out :sigh: I'll wait till he get some more in. Thanks :twothumbs

He should have some in September some time, I need a few as well(probably shouldn't have sold the ones I had). Just let me know when you're ready.

 

[jumpstat]

He should have some in September some time, I need a few as well(probably shouldn't have sold the ones I had). Just let me know when you're ready.

Can't wait. AFAIR I bought the Mule form Don and thinking why not have the trit different from green at least I can distinguish them both in the dark. In fact one night last week, we had a close encounter (animal kind) where we live, woke up and tried to look for the Mule which was on my nightstand next to me, couldn't find it and so had to get the PD-S which was in the bathroom. To cut long story short, I couldn't find it when I needed it most, and I think its high time I changed the trit so this sort of things won't happen again........(I knocked the coffee table in my room on the way to get the PD-S, and broke my wife's reading glasses :green

 

[TxTroubleMaker]

Sorry to hear about your wifes glasses, hope you're okay as well. I know where you're coming from, the red trit on some of those lights was a bit dim, but in all fairness red is down towards the bottom of the list in terms of brightness compared to green. I swapped out the red trit in my wifes mule with an ice blue one and it is very visible in the dark.

We get animal encounters over here as well, and the trit in the piston has come in very handy when trying to locate my light in the middle of the night in a very dark room. For a while my nightstand looked like a nuclear reactor, a couple of lights with tritium and a Marathon TSAR watch thrown in for good measure. It was all so bright that I would make it hard for me to fall asleep sometimes, gotta love that trituim...

 

[RocketTomato]

Norland 61 Optical Adhesive (UV) is going to be the "epoxy" you will fill and cover the trit depression with. As far as removing the old material, I am not sure other than chipping away at it and scraping it all out. Maybe there is a solvent out there that will eat away the old Norland?

Contact username: B@rt for all your tritium needs

Methylene chloride (A.K.A. Dichloromethane) will dissolve the Norland but it takes a 12-24 hour soak. Methylene chloride is hard to find however. You can check your local hardware store and see if they have any acrylic adhesive. On the back of the bottle check to make sure that methylene chloride is the first listed ingredient and that should work well.