I need Tritium!

Just got back from a long weekend camping trip, before retiring for the night I attached doller store 2 inch glow sticks for the night. This worked great! But.. I want to make it permanent, so:
I would like to see if anyone has experience with attaching a Tritium vial to a light in a permanent fashion. I considered using a key ring style but I want to keep my lights as small as possible. It would be ideal for me to attach this to the light opposite of the clip, one for my E1L and the other for my L4.
I am wide open to suggestions.
Thank you! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Pyd.

I can't help you there, but I can tell you that my watch is a Luminox, the civilian version of the Navy Seals watch. It uses tritium vials for the hour, minute, and second hand, as well as for the number markers. It is always "On" and every time I look at the time in the dark, I smile. Definitely one of my better purchases.

I don't know what the radioative decay is doing to my "family jewels," however...

Funny to see this thread. I just wrote Surefire with a suggestion for them to make a good "glow in the dark" bezel to put on the surefire lights so they could be found in a dark tent/house/cave/etc. Maybe if a bunch of people emailed Surefire they would consider making such a thing!

YES>>>>> THAT WOULD BEE COOOOOOOLLL!!!! They could charge for it and I would pay!!! I REALLY REALLY like that idea!

-tom

Someone in the BTS forum sells those radioactive glow rod/keyrings. I think its 2 for 40 bucks. I believe you can hack it and remove the tube, but I would not unless you are wearing a suit with a postive air flow and complete protection.

I guess the alternatice is to use some floursant paint or that glow paint. Maybe one of those slowly blinking leds and a lithium coin battery?

Tritium is a controlled nulcear substance, and I don't think an individual can buy it. There's a lot of loopholes and regulatory stuff that has to be done prior to obtaining it, and that's also probably why it isn't used more.

-dan

I would prefer to not attaching anything to the lights, a keyring Tritium setup will be my last resort. I would like to have a vial inserted into the flashlight, preferably milled right into the aluminum.
I am calling out any heavy modders to make a buck or two..

this stuff should work,
http://www.unitednuclear.com/glow.htm

Couple thoughts - I'm also a fan of the tritium glow tubes, and very much like my Luminox watches for this reason. I've been using tritium-based glow rings on my keys and lights for years now, and it's been good.

I'm extremely sympathetic to the idea of keeping the lights as small as possible, but I find the key ring approach to work out much better in actual usage. The primary factor is orientation - somehow it always seems to me that whatever side of a light has a tritium tube is the one that lands down in the dark. The 360* key-ring style is always visible.

Add in that the tubes are somewhat delicate, and hard-mounting them always makes me nervous - I worry about one breaking, and then being hard to replace. When the tube in a keyring breaks, it's still contained in the plastic casing, and comes right off, no hassle.

In any case, do what makes sense to you - I know some people have gotten the Glow discs, and taken the smaller tritium tubes from inside to mount on lights - I just thought I'd share my experience.

Interesting points Deanster, definitly food for thought..

here is something I found while checking on the dangers of tritium.. "copied from a web site for info purposes only"
Tritium (heavy hydrogen with two neutrons) is radioactive, emitting beta particles with a low energy of 18 keV, and having a 12 year half life. besides being useful when building hydrogen bombs, it also has numerous other applications.
A variety of items are sold containing tritium and phosphors, which glow in the dark. Examples include compasses, wristwatches, and glow in the dark keychains, as well as emergency exit signs. The tritium betas excite the phosphors, causing them to glow with visible light. A few microns of plastic is sufficient to block the betas, so the items are quite safe. Unless you were to open one, I guess. Some of thse things have several curies of tritium in them. I don't know what the health effects would be of exposure. Probably not as bad as from the phosphors!

Update! They may not be quite so safe... I decided to place one on a pancake GM detector. The readings went from 55 CPM background to about 210 CM. I then removed the actual glass tube (with the tritium and phosphors) from the plastic holder, and the reading jumped to about 690 CPM. I suspect that the betas are hitting the glass, and creating x-rays, with a peak energy of 18 keV. The plastic absorbs most, but not all, of them.

"Tritium was believed to be a relatively benign radionuclide because of the weakness of the beta radiation emitted when it decays. The beta electron is a small particle that passes readily through most barriers. The dangers of tritium come from inhalation, ingestion, and absorption.

Tritium is carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic. Human beings can receive chronic exposure to OBT through the ingestion of plants and animals exposed in an effluent pathway, in addition to direct uptake through inhalation, absorption and drinking contaminated water. Especially sensitive to the effects of tritium are rapidly growing cells such as fetal tissue, genetic materials and blood forming organs.

I hope they don't have full curies of Tritium in them.

My favorite use for tritium is firearm sights. As to surefire putting tritium vials in their flashlights, maybe the lower power lights. Definately a no-no for law enforcement/military. Remember if it looks bright to you, imagine how bright it is under NVD's for a bad guy watching you.

Most tritium vials probably have 10-50 mCi of H-3 in them.

Jeff, neat test. Though a 4 fould increase in counts per minute isn't to much. Take a look at a banana. Tritium is a fairly weak beta emitter. Often times a tritium spill is painted over, which I find odd.

The 18keV is its total transition energy, really it is more like 4keV through 6keV. I haven't used it much recently so numbers are just off my head.

I did think the post by arewethereyetdad, "Too hot to handle" that was beside this one made me laugh.

Yeah I agree.. but reading that when people are trying to insert these into fins on lights and breaking the glass vial is pretty nerve racking to me ... I am gonna stick with just painting the arear around my reflector and led with 24 hour green glo paint and being happy with that .. I do agree that night sights on firearms are the only way to go for low light sight aquasition but they are very unlikely to break in the metal sight shroud.. anyway just my .02 cents take care guys

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe if a bunch of people emailed Surefire they would consider making such a thing!

[/ QUOTE ]

They already have a quib about potential hybrid technologies in their new cataloge. They DO mention tritium.

Here in Candlepower forums, you can get tritium vials here:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=832486&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=&vc=1&PHPSESSID=

and tritium glowrings here:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=784095&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1

Check Ebay for raw vials. Orb sometimes has sold vials.

I guess I better not ingest my avitar. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif It has 5 vials embedded in epoxy into machined slots between the bezel and body. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Larry

[ QUOTE ]
Jefff said:
here is something I found while checking on the dangers of tritium.. "copied from a web site for info purposes only"
Tritium (heavy hydrogen with two neutrons) is radioactive, emitting beta particles with a low energy of 18 keV, and having a 12 year half life. besides being useful when building hydrogen bombs, it also has numerous other applications.
A variety of items are sold containing tritium and phosphors, which glow in the dark. Examples include compasses, wristwatches, and glow in the dark keychains, as well as emergency exit signs. The tritium betas excite the phosphors, causing them to glow with visible light. A few microns of plastic is sufficient to block the betas, so the items are quite safe. Unless you were to open one, I guess. Some of thse things have several curies of tritium in them. I don't know what the health effects would be of exposure. Probably not as bad as from the phosphors!

Update! They may not be quite so safe... I decided to place one on a pancake GM detector. The readings went from 55 CPM background to about 210 CM. I then removed the actual glass tube (with the tritium and phosphors) from the plastic holder, and the reading jumped to about 690 CPM. I suspect that the betas are hitting the glass, and creating x-rays, with a peak energy of 18 keV. The plastic absorbs most, but not all, of them.

"Tritium was believed to be a relatively benign radionuclide because of the weakness of the beta radiation emitted when it decays. The beta electron is a small particle that passes readily through most barriers. The dangers of tritium come from inhalation, ingestion, and absorption.

Tritium is carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic. Human beings can receive chronic exposure to OBT through the ingestion of plants and animals exposed in an effluent pathway, in addition to direct uptake through inhalation, absorption and drinking contaminated water. Especially sensitive to the effects of tritium are rapidly growing cells such as fetal tissue, genetic materials and blood forming organs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Umm...beta radiation does not magically convert into x-rays by passing through glass. Nor do beta particles pass 'readily through most barriers'. Thats a good description of gammas, not betas. Frankly, I'd be wary of anything that website says if it portrays something like this as a 'fact'.

http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/radiationtypes.html

We've beaten the tritium horse to death over and over and over and over. And its been repeatedly proven that they are very safe. Don't eat a couple hundred glow-rings and you'll be just fine.

Mark