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PaulW said:
Trurl,
I like what you've done. I'd be interested to know how you get tritium vials that small. I have seen Merkava's Glow Disks in another thread. But they are buttons 15 mm in diameter. Do you dig the tritium containers out of them? If so, how?
Also, where would I go to get that conformal coating? What would I ask for?
Paul
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The tritium vials are from the glow-disks that Merkava sells. They are held in the plastic casing by a
piece of double-sided tape - piece of cake to remove.The actual vial is approx. 6 mm in length - when
put in the screwhole on the Arc 4+ in breaks the surface slightly. I used a 1/16" drill bit to drill a hole
(maybe 1mm deep?) at the bottom of each screwhole to get the vials to sit flush - actually slightly
recessed with the surface.
The conformal coating is not very easy to come by - it's sold mainly for industrial processes. I think
I probably could have used clear fingernail polish to fill the cavity around the vial. I mounted the vial by
dipping one end in Stix-all glue and setting it into the screwhole, waiting 10 minutes to make sure it set
(and was centered in the hole), then filled in the cavity with the coating. I probably could have just filled
the hole with a drop of fingernail polish or a clear-dryng glue and set in the vial. I added the extra step
to make it easier to center the vial, and I knew I could get the conformal coating to "flow" into the annular
space (I don't know if fingernail polish will do that...)