Post here if you want a UV drop-in for the Ti AAA.

Let's see if there's a market for a 375nm UV drop-in for the Ti-AAA, since Peter was nice enough to make the driver replaceable.

1. fyrstormer

Wow, this is a resounding failure. Nobody at all is interested in this?

fyrstormer said:

Wow, this is a resounding failure. Nobody at all is interested in this?

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Periodically we get people looking for a true UV light, like the one you suggest here. Ater all, there is no subsitute for a real UV light. Would this dropin fit into any low end hosts?

As far as I know, nobody else makes a host that's compatible with the Ti AAA / McGizmo Sapphire. That's not to say it could never happen, just that it hasn't happened. So no, it would only work with the Ti AAA.

Arc does make an aluminum AAA with a UV emitter, it's just not interchangeable.

1. I wonder if the sapphire window is UV transparent

2. The interchangeable modules may not be so easy to tell apart, and the UV light is potentially eye-damaging. Frankly if I had a UV light I'd want it to be festooned with laser warning stickers or something like that.

3. Arc makes a perfectly good UV light in the aluminum AAA format. I'm tempted to buy one (wish it were available with a purple battery tube) but don't know what I'd do with it.

paulr said:

1. I wonder if the sapphire window is UV transparent

2. The interchangeable modules may not be so easy to tell apart, and the UV light is potentially eye-damaging. Frankly if I had a UV light I'd want it to be festooned with laser warning stickers or something like that.

3. Arc makes a perfectly good UV light in the aluminum AAA format. I'm tempted to buy one (wish it were available with a purple battery tube) but don't know what I'd do with it.

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You can buy several models of McGizmos with UV light engines installed, and they all use sapphire lenses. I have a couple of spare sapphire lenses, so I held one in front of my UV Mule and there was a noticeable, but not significant, drop in the fluorescence of my bath towel, most likely due to sapphire's 95% transmission rate.

UV is bad for your eyes, but it's not going to blind you in the time it takes to turn the light on, realize it's a UV light, and shut it off again. Also an option is to fit UV Ti-AAAs with glow-in-the-dark O-rings, so it will be instantly obvious they produce UV light when they're turned on.

I know they make a perfectly good aluminum UV light. I was just seeing if anyone besides me was interested in a UV titanium light, but apparently the answer is no.

Perhaps you could list some situations where you think the combination of UV and titanium would be preferable to a UV light made from aluminum.

I use UV lights exclusively for checking IDs at work, and I can't see any particular advantage to using a titanium light in that capacity. With such limited experience, I'm having trouble seeing what the benefits of such a light would be.
-Winston

Well, if you already own a Ti AAA, as I do, buying a new light engine would cost half as much as buying a whole new aluminum Arc AAA, hence why interchangeable light engines exist in the first place.

Ultimately, however, demand is the only reason why something should be manufactured, and it's up to anyone who wants one to figure out for themselves why it would be useful. I guess nobody here thinks a UV light engine would be useful. Oh well.

I have a McGizmo Sapphire on my keys. I would be interested in a UV version, but I'd need a second host as the light is too useful as is to swap the emitter.

souptree said:

I have a McGizmo Sapphire on my keys. I would be interested in a UV version, but I'd need a second host as the light is too useful as is to swap the emitter.

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I was under the impression that Don's version of the Sapphire doesn't have interchangeable modules the way the Arc version does, so it may be a moot point.

I am interested in the UV drop-in. I would also like to have a red (for night vision retention) and a white optimized for throw. Since the Sapphire platform was designed to accommodate drop-ins, it would be even more valuable if a few other drop-in options were available. I rarely use UV so switching the drop-in when it is needed is a good solution.

Lumens said:

I am interested in the UV drop-in. I would also like to have a red (for night vision retention) and a white optimized for throw. Since the Sapphire platform was designed to accommodate drop-ins, it would be even more valuable if a few other drop-in options were available. I rarely use UV so switching the drop-in when it is needed is a good solution.

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Again, maybe I should keep my mouth shut about this since I don't have one of these lights yet, so Peter or someone with more experience than me would know better. But I have the impression that the drop-in feature of the Arc TI AAA was not intended for frequent swapping. The light is reconfigurable and upgradeable in the sense that you you can disassemble the head and put in a different module when a higher tech LED becomes available or something like that. But there is a certain amount of headache and risk involved, more like swapping the engine out of a car than like changing shoes. If there are different modules that you want to switch between, it's best to have separate hosts for them.

I have 3 Ti-AAAs so I wouldn't have to do a lot of switching. If the drop-in wasn't expensive having a UV available for that rare need would be nice. When I want a UV (maybe 2-3 times a year), switching the drop-in wouldn't be a big deal. I would probably keep the flood, the long throw and the red (for my astronomy) in my three Ti-AAAs most of the time. Frankly I like the Ti-AAA design and I would rather standardize to the one platform.
I haven't found that switching the drop-ins is difficult. Maybe I have an advantage because I am technically inclined - I repair smartphones and ipods in my spare time.

I have no problem building LEs with different emitters myself, having already modded a couple for my own use. Maybe I'll try to talk Peter into selling me some emitter-less LEs so I can just make them to-order.

Fyrstormer, have you got a source of those Nichia 375nm UV leds? There was a group buy on CPFMP a while back but it is over. Nichia sells the leds in bags of 100 for (I think) around $5 per led, and you have to sign a scary UV safety disclaimer to buy them (which I think is a good idea).

Not the 375s, but LEDsupply sells 400s, 362s, and 352s. I'll have to grab a couple and compare them to the UV LED in my Photon 1.