selfmade glowring

[chrisse242]

Not exactly a light but it's homemade so I guess it belongs here:

I recently ordered some glowpowder for me and some members of the german/austrian mailinglist and since I got mine I wanted to make my own glowring. Now it's finished.
The parts are:
one ringscrew, one allen screw, both shortened.
Some clear plastic tubing, green glow powder from glowinc.com. A drop of epoxy secures the ring screw.

Sorry, no "glow in the dark"-pics due to the absence of high-quality darkness. ;-) I will try to post some later.

All in all it's very simple but it has a nice strong glow-effect and only costs around 2$.

Chrisse

 

[PhantomZ]

acually thats pretty neat~ /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif i think i might try doing something like that for myself.

 

[chrisse242]

Thanks, the pic makes it seem bigger than it is. The tube is only 5mm in diameter, I will take some more pics tonight.
I'm pretty sure I'll make more of them and attach them to a lot of things.

Chrisse

 

[WildRice]

If you can mix the glow powder in something to make a suspension, ie mix 50/50 in epoxy, it will glow better. When in suspension, the inner particles are able to take a charge. when in powder form only the outside bits are able to charge. NICE JOB tho, that new glow-stuff now has 1002 uses.
Jeff

 

[chrisse242]

Yeah, I just found out. No problem though, I can open the allen screw and replace the pure pwoder with a mixture. Will try it on monday, I need to get a syringe first.

Thanks for the advice, Chrisse

 

[WildRice]

be careful, try a inkjet refill syringe. I tries the fine powder in a mixture with a small syringe and it just clogged it up. If the ratio is 25-30% powder by volume to epoxy, it woark really well, and stays fluid. 30min epoxy would work best IMHO to let most of the bubbles out.
Jeff

 

[MR Bulk]

chrisse242,

Nice job. And with a self-setting suspension into which the powder is mixed you would not need the end screws, except perhaps the top ring if you need to hang it somewhere.

 

[chrisse242]

Thanks Charlie, I thought about that. Actually the tubing I have is about 30cm long, so I could fill it completely and cut of the parts needed. But for some reason I like the end screws and think I will keep them.

Cheers, Chrisse

 

[chrisse242]

The promised pic to show the glow effect and size relative to my keys: The pic is brightness adjusted.

Chrisse

 

[Codeman]

Sweet! I've got to add this to my to do list...

 

[Skylighter]

If you are going to fill a vial or other container with glow powder, then let me suggest that you use the glow in the dark sand. The larger particles allow light to bounce in and out of the center providing the appearance of a brighter glow. This is the same effect that you mention when using a medium, without loss of light due to the medium. Sand is also relatively inexpensive when compared to the the glow in the dark powder.

Chrisse, thanks for posting your project. That is pretty cool.

 

[chrisse242]

That's good to hear from the glowmaster himself. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
I should have known that a little earlier though. All the sand I ordered went out to someone else. I guess I'll stick with an epoxy mix for now. The ounce of powder I have should last a looong time...

Chrisse

 

[MR Bulk]

Hey Chrisse, I just thought of something - how about simply pulling a swab soaked with epoxy through the clear tube - and then dumping the glow powder in (with the bottom end capped) and shaking vigorously, and dumping out whatever powder doesn't stick? That way you'd coat all of the inside of the tube, and save a lot of the powder...a different twist to the ol' powder dusting method.

 

[Christoph]

I usally coat things that way using clear nail toughner(sp) why put a thick layer when only the exterior get to shine.
Chris

 

[IsaacHayes]

MrBulk, just what I was going to suggest. I'm not sure which would be brighter, this way or a mixture of epoxy. Certainly the dust method would save a lot of powder!!

I have a small via that is used in a centrifuge and I plan to make it glow, perhaps put it on a string for a necklace/marker.


Now you just need to build a small wooden box with about 50 5mm NUV LEDS or some Cree UV's to drop the vial in to charge up for 30secs or so!!!

 

[Neg2LED]

as Isaac said: now you need a Cree XLamp UV and a little wooden box for insta charging /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

neg

 

[NetMage]

How about painting the inside with the GID paint?

 

[chrisse242]

Lots of cool suggestions. Only "coating" the inside might be hard due to the very small inner diameter of the tube, but I'll try that too. If anyone comes up with another good solution just post description and pics here.

Chrisse

 

[WildRice]

I made a charger for the glow ring on my dorcy's, A small piece of PVC tubing and 4x 3mm UV's works nice and charges fast. For something small like that I would say 10x 5mm at the most is needed for a quick charge. It close range regular 5mm's work great. If you were to space 5 in a circle and make 2 'layers' like that all facing inward a few mm away from the 'vial' it would charge bright in under 1min.
Jeff

 

[Ilikeshinythings]

Very cool man. I think I'll make one for my girlfriend since her keys always end up in the strangest places...maybe this will help her locate them faster!

Keep inventing...it's sick. Invent a flashlight out of some sort of unbreakable clear plastic or glass/pyrex deal and Like have an aluminum tubing inside the plastic tubing for the batteries, but have a tiny litle bit of space between the outter plastic and the inner aluminum where you can fill it up with glow stuff and you'd have a sick looking (LUX III green shaded) flashlight that glowed in the dark from tail end to up by the bezel! I dunno...something about clear plastic, glow in the dark green, and aluminum makes me giddy...like a fat kid who loves cake. Not exactly tactical but I think it would be cool...anybody agree? Problem is I don't have any tools for fabrication, so this project is dead in the water. Actually somebody has probably already invented it!

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