Ultra-green-plus glow powder mixup and resolution thread.

[greenlight]

My glow powder/paint order arrived Monday, and I was excited to test it out. The pouch of glow powder had 0% charge when I took it out of the box, and a quick blast of sunlight was all that was needed to charge it up. That's some bright glow powder. :candle:

I have other glow powder samples from glow inc. that I have been using. They work well. I wanted to see for myself whether this glow powder was visibly brighter than the old stuff, so I set up a time-lapse photography experiment to test the glow fade-out.

This experiment uses a canon A620. I don't have any light meters, so this is only a visual test to determine the relative brightness of the samples. After a while the glow was too faint, so I had to decrease the shutter speed to 15 seconds, and later I boosted the iso from 50 to 200. Take that into consideration when the apparent brightness changes in the photos. The test is only to determine whether the samples are still glowing, and which is brighter. I used Picasa editor to boost the brighness of the pics so the glow would be visible. This is Not a test to determine the fade time/rate of the glow powder. We are only observing relative brightness.

I have indicated the TOTAL time lapsed between the pics. The new glow powder is on the bottom left, in a packet with a label on it. The other samples are labled pl-7 and pl-9. I have no idea what they are.

00:00:01

00:00:01

00:00:15

00:01:36

00:05:08

00:07:17

00:08:38

00:09:21

00:14:24

00:16:10

00:17:05

My initial impression was that while the powder might be slightly brighter than the previous samples, it was tough for me to visually determine how much brighter. I was hoping that taking these photographs would show some brightness difference. It seems that as the glow fades, the relative brightness of the samples is more similar. By morning I was still able to faintly see the samples glowing, but so were other items in my house.

I have a feeling that the brightness rating for this product is measured the instant the lights are turned off. It might be twice as bright, but that might be only for the initial glow. As it fades, it just looks like any other fading glow powder.

My testing system was not very scientific. If you tested your glow powder samples and got a different result, please post here. I will do some more tests to see if I can determine the difference between the two samples. Maybe a blind test with the labels covered... I'll try to guess which is which. Testing glow powder by charging the packets may not give the best results. It's possible that the particles when suspended in a clear compound glow brighter with less powder than the old product. Maybe we'll get a test like that soon.

EDIT-- 4/6/07
Glow inc. confirmed the mixup and is working on a remedy/solution. Please be patient and stay tuned to find out the latest news about their new product.

 

[LuxLuthor]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

Actually that is a very good test you just did. The only thing that I think would be better is to control for is the thickness of the powder layer. Ideally it would be best to pour some into a glass test tube so it has the same thickness volume, and expose all to the same angle/amount of light. Thanks for showing the longer term results.

 

[IsaacHayes]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

Looks like the new Plus packet didn't get charged evenly, it seems the powder moved as the center looks dimmer than the edges. I might mix up 2 glow tabs one with the new and one with the old in epoxy and compare. I should do an equal amount of powder in each, put them in a room with a light over them, then compare.

I got mine yesterday too. I usualy use the green for that wow affect right after the light source is off, so I mainly put it around power led mods. The Aqua stuff I found seems to be not as bright, but stays brighter longer after the green settles down. This may just be my eyes being more sensitive to the color. Your eyes respond to green best in day light, and at night cyan, so that maybe has something to do with it.

Sometime I want to get all the colors of GITD powder and come up with a good way to mix in paint medium and paint a picture under a black light. I think it would be cool with all the different brightness and fading times of the colors as some would be bright then fade down lower than others. Maybe a sunset style painting? Or a coral/water picture? Hmm. Maybe a green skull in fire? Or a zombie? Hmmm.

 

[greenlight]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

You're right, I think there is some powder shifting that shows some uncharged particles. I tried to keep the samples still while moving from the sun to the shade.

Maybe I'll try a smaller amount, or do a glow project with both and compare them.

The elapsed times are random because I took the pictures manually during the day/night. There wasn't much difference between the last 10 hours of pics, so the frequency wasn't as important as figuring how long to let the experiment run before running out of patience.

 

[IsaacHayes]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

You need a table lamp to charge them, that way you just turn it off and no movement occurs.

 

[greenlight]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

Another NON-scientific evaluation of the glow powder: I charged 2 samples in the sun and quickly stepped into the next room where it was dark. I tried to visually determine which pouch was brighter. The 'old' glow powder was slightly brighter/more intense than the 'new' powder. I was comparing 3g of the 'old' powder to 10g of the new powder. After fading for a bit both pouches had the usual 'green glow' that one expects from GID, both about the same brightness. Nothing to write home about there.

Has anyone else made comparisons between the new and old glow powder? I'd be interested to know the results.

(BTW, the 'old' samples that I am using for comparison are not the 'ultra-green' from Glow inc. but a 'grab bag' that was offered from Glow inc. in this thread..)

 

[Pila_Power]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

I dunno - I think I got a mis-labelled bag of ultra, meant to be ultra plus...

 

[CodeOfLight]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

I painted a surface with the new paint right beside where I painted a strip of the old paint. I used the same number of coats so that the desnsity was the same. There was NO DIFFERENCE that I could tell in the intensity of the new paint. I sense a scam here.

 

[greenlight]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

Scam or no, we still need to know how it was tested to get the brightness rating.

 

[LuxLuthor]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

edit....now that I shook up old bottle and new, and exposed both to same amount of light, rather than flahslight which wasn't the same exposure for both, I now agree these are the same versions.

 

[VidPro]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

thanks for that greenie, i needed some powder, and was going to get the best at the time.

which brings up this idea/analisis, what if the biggest difference is not how a pack of it charges and discharges, but its "disbursement" or something. ya know like partical size similarities, ability to be mixed/blended into some medium better. some way that it achieves more active chemicals per inch on application?

 

[greenlight]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

I only have one bottle of ultra-green-plus paint, so I don't have anything to compare it to. Anyone want to take some comparison pics of the paint bottles?

 

[Skylighter]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

The 50% was determined by using measurements we got from the manufacturer at the 1 minute interval. We did a visual comparison mixed into our paint, also at 1 minute. While not very scientific, it looked about right. May I suggest that you may want to do the tests in an actual medium.

 

[Tritium]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

I painted a surface with the new paint right beside where I painted a strip of the old paint. I used the same number of coats so that the desnsity was the same. There was NO DIFFERENCE that I could tell in the intensity of the new paint. I sense a scam here.

I noticed that the new paint and powder are no different to my eye in initial brightness than the old but I may have gotten a very good "yielding" batch the first times. (I have several pounds of various powders from Glowinc. including Ultra green sand and powder as well as a pound of waterproof Ultra green and 2 bottles of paint, one is also Ultra Green) It does however seem glow longer than the older powders and paints.

What is the big change Danny? Is it less dead non glowing pixels (particles) in each processed batch?

I don't sense a scam just a difference in observational instrumentation and perception. (how it looks to me vs another individual)

Thurmond

 

[IsaacHayes]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

Yup I think the next step here is to mix equal amounts by volume of powder into epoxy or something and compare them.

 

[greenlight]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

Why volume and not mass?

I didn't state that there was a scam, just trying to find out which product is brightest. I used the glow paint and it works very well. It flows nicely, too. This is not a bad product at all. I wanted it to paint my glow stuff. I just wanted to know if it was brighter than the stuff I already had.

Once my project is dry I'll take some comparison pics.

It's possible that this product IS brighter. It's also possible that less of it is needed to achieve the same amount of glow. We'll find out.

I just want my cool flashlights to glow as bright as possible.

 

[greenlight]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

Here's another test using Glow inc. Ultra Green Plus vs. PL-9 sample from Glow inc.

Streamlight PP led bezel painted with UGP/ Infinity Ultra-G painted with PL-9
These pics were taken at iso 400 to increase sensitivity. The first pic is normal exposure. The two following are separate and severely underexposed and the images were enhanced using Picasa to see what kind of detail the sensor would pick up.

35 minutes later I took this pic. (iso 50, 6sec exposure). It is also enhanced:

The glow looks identical to me with my eye, and the images seem to show the same. Maybe I just lucked out with my grab-bag purchase. Maybe they are the actual samples for this very product. There is no way to know, but the testing is leading me to the conclusion that the product is not "NEW", nor brighter than products that were available as recently as last year.

 

[greenlight]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

Another test of the green paint bottle vs. an old bottle of nail polish with glow powder showed the same results: Equal lumenosity.

I may just be testing the same product against itself.

It's still a good product. I was just expecting something brighter.

It's still possible that it takes less of this product to make the same amount of glow... that would be great, but does it make it brighter over all?

Is there a maximum total lumenosity for this product?

 

[Skylighter]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

I just ordered a new light meter. That should settle any questions. Give me about a week to get it in and the measurements taken.

 

[IsaacHayes]

Re: Ultra-green-plus glow powder relative brightness visual comparison pics

I need to pull out my normal still sealed green from glowinc and compare. just too busy.

I said by volume because if you do it by weight, and say one is super heavy compared to the other, you've got less surface area... I figured that would be the fairest way to compare... :shrug: