Looking for a powerful UV/Blacklight LED light. Sub-$100

Hey guys, I'm looking for the biggest, baddest, meanest, "Brightest" UV/Blacklight LED flashlight for around or under 100$.

What can you suggest?

I'm not against performing a mod on an existing light. My only real requirement is LOTS of output. Heh, it's hard to call one "bright" when most of the light is invisible, but I think you know what I mean.

CR123's are a plus. I'm looking for something handheld, but doesn't have to be tiny. Hell, 2D maglite size would even be fine. I just want lots of output and at least a solid hour of runtime.

You cana do it with LED as long as longwave UV is ok. LEDs don't produce shortwave UV.

Yeah, that's fine. While I'd love shortwave, even longwave is acceptable for mineral hunting, etc..

I have DX sku 10709. I picked it up for a P60 host, but the UV has been fun to play with. Probably not the most you can get for $100, but for 20 it works pretty well. I have no way of measuring the actual output, but it will light up everything in my room when I point it at the ceiling FWIW. Runs on 18650 cells as well, which gives you some extra runtime. I haven't tested the total runtime though.

Streamlight makes a couple different versions, Brightguy has them use the keyword search on the left side of the main page shows 11 different lights. there was a builder that posted here regularly I have`nt seen him in a while be he specialized in UV lights xenopuselectronix.com . Theres a couple of places to look at. Good hunting

allthumbs

Try the iNova X5. it runs on 2 CR123's

You should pm LEDite he has 1watt and 3 watt uv(395nm)lights.If I remember they where under 80 dollars each.Hope that helps:wave:.

If you are willing to mod, you can probably also swap a white LED light's LED to a UV one.

If your after total max UV output, like I was, this is what I have done.

Buy the 3W uv lead from KD
Buy 7882 Driver from DX
Buy p60 drop-in OP kit from DX
Buy a p60 host of your choice.

Solder it all together and tune driver to wanted output (it has a pot). You can even crack it up to around 1.3a.

UV output is just huge!

Here's a thought; we just had these made:
http://batteryjunction.com/uv-led-aaaa.html

MattK said:

Here's a thought; we just had these made:
http://batteryjunction.com/uv-led-aaaa.html

Click to expand...

Curious, do you know what wavelength those LEDs are? I would guess 395 since they seem to be easier to find. Though, "easier" is relative - I'm having a hard time, even from large suppliers, finding UV LEDs of any shape, size, or wavelength.

Edit: Ooh, actually I just found LEDsupply from another thread. yay.

395nm peak, I think they're like 390-405 or similar. 395nm is the sweet spot in our market. Lately we're contract building UV lights for a few forensicis companies and I built this one on spec for a customer already carrying 3 models from us figuring they'd want something bigger - they already carry our 41UV LED model and unsurprisingly they liked the sample and placed an order.

We've explored the 'high wattage' led approach but since Cree stopped building the 1W pretty much everything else 305nm or less (mostly Nichia) is so expensive that going to multiple 5mm's was the most economical approach. The high output Nichia UV LED's are $40-100 per emitter depending on the wavelength which is prohibitively expensive for most customers. We also looked at some Chinese emitters but they tended to peak at ~410nm which limited their appeal.

Wow, thanks for the info. I have seen the datasheets for the high power Nichia but most places don't even carry the low power stuff! I didn't realize they could get so pricey but I guess it makes sense. Prices go up for more output, and for lower wavelengths.

My dad has a couple of single LED UV lights around but I haven't a clue what their wavelengths are. I don't really have a use for UV but I'm curious to do a direct comparison with some lights of different wavelengths to see how differently they light things up. I edited my post above as I found a source.

tsask said:

Try the iNova X5. it runs on 2 CR123's

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+1 on the Inova great bright UV and you will get 40 hrs of operation.