UV experiencies for blood tracing

lagarto308

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Looking CSI at TV ... I had an idea. Could I use an UV led flashlight for deer blood tracing?

Has anyone experiencies about this? using UV can I damage myself or my hunting collegues or my dog? Usually you point to the ground looking for blood tracing ... so I think it is very difficult and very short times -few seconds or less- to exposure casual my eyes or my collegues or my dog. I do not imagine myself using UV glasses when I am hunting, either my dog!

I've seen UV models for Inova, Streamlight and nobrands at ebay. Any recommended?

Thanks
 

Kris

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Do not ever look into a UV light or point it at anyone, it can damage your eyes (and it can also burn skin).

A blue filter from Surefire or or a blue LED light will also work really well.
 
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Lunal_Tic

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Here's a recent thread that has some UV info and there are more links to UV info there as well.

Blood does not fluoresce under UV without a catalyst like Luminol or similar. Actually it seems to be a UV "sucker" appearing black under UV.

With all the stuff on TV about it fluorescing with UV I was under the impression that it did but after a little more research and a personal field trial I found that it doesn't. That personal field trial, a razor nick and a 365nM Nichia. :ohgeez:

-LT
 

The_LED_Museum

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Very brief exposure to eyes or skin from any of the UV and NUV LEDs currently available will cause no damage whatsoever; the disclaimers on my website for violet and UV LEDs are there primarily for legal reasons; similar to the way the television program Max-X has to censor out the faces of some of the people on that show (as they call it, "lawyer crap" - those fuzzy censor things).

To put it as briefly as possible, no, you will not cause damage to yourself, your dog, or your hunting partner(s) when using a NUV or UV LED flashlight in the manner in which you describe.
 

lagarto308

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I am a little confused.

- UV or enough with a cyan/blue led?
- Nothing about fluorescing and UV, but UV sucker and appearing as black. I suppose that it is good enough. Of course, forget to carry luminol on when hunting...

By the way, it is incredible and fantastic this web, your experiencies, the FLreviews, the led museum, there are lots of interesting and very usefull threads and information. Congrutalions for all that make it possible. Thanks. I am so surprised and enjoyed.:thanks::thanks::thanks:
 

beezaur

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Lunal_Tic said:
. . . but after a little more research and a personal field trial I found that it doesn't. That personal field trial, a razor nick and a 365nM Nichia. :ohgeez:

-LT

You know you are a flashaholic when you cut yourself shaving and the first thing through your mind isn't "Oh, I'd better stop that bleeding," but instead, "quick, I have to get my LED and check this out!"

I found the same thing when I did that. :)

My wife started her wn vet clinic recently. She is in a place vacated by a previous vet. When the place was still empty I went around in the dark looking for spots on the floor with a McGizmo Aleph UV (A19?). I found where the old guy's surgery was -- he wasn't the cleanest guy to be sure. You could see where he had piled bloody dressings on a table (since removed) and stuff dripped down the wall and onto the floor. I also found where moisture had crept up through the floor slab and caused some kind of UV-detectable discoloration in the tiles, probably fungus of some sort.

Scott
 

Lunal_Tic

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lagarto308,

IIRC the Royal Blue lights will make the blood stand out against the surrounding area by making it black not by making it fluoresce. I would imagine that you would need serious power, maybe a Surefire w/blue filter or high output blue Luxeon, to see blood in a heavily wooded area. Even then I've never used one of those for that purpose, I've only researched it.

As for the catalyst, IIRC there are others besides Luminol that can even make minuscule amounts of blood flouresce. e.g. Someone washes down the a bloodied area and it appears clean to the naked eye; this stuff would still make it show up. I think the links in the other thread talk about that too.

beezaur,
Oh yes, fungus, mold and mildew show up <really> well under UV. I've picked up a Cree 390nM to test against the 365nM Nichia and though the visible light from the 390 is much higher the mildew detection award goes to the 365. This I file under "things I really didn't need to know".

As for being a real flashaholic, the shaving test was just lucky, if I was hard core I'd have just jabbed my not-light-hand and run to the river bank, waved my testing material around then pulled out the test lights and written the findings in my own blood on the back of a leaf. <Argh me buckos> said in my best pirate voice. :devil:

-LT
 

nemul

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lagarto308 said:
using UV can I damage myself or my hunting collegues or my dog? Usually you point to the ground looking for blood tracing ... so I think it is very difficult and very short times -few seconds or less- to exposure casual my eyes or my collegues or my dog. I do not imagine myself using UV glasses when I am hunting, either my dog!

your skin and eyes will get more damage from the SUN, then anything else... ;)
 

elgarak

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Some other addition to what has been said: Luminol makes blood stains luminesce, not fluoresce (hence its name). The stains glow by themselves, you just have to darken the room first.

And yes, UV and blue light make blood appear as black spots. That means that everything that's not blood has to reflect or luminesce. In most cases, a blue light works best for that (since you have to see the blue reflected). However, a UV light could be used for instance on bed sheets, since they typically contain bleach from detergents (which makes them appear nice hygienely white under sunlight), so they luminesce (except for the blood). Some TV shows like all CSIs, Crossing Jordan or Bones get this mostly right (except that the glow from the luminol is lately a bad special effect, looks like somebody throwing a switch, too bright and wrong color), but they do not explain all the details always, so it gets confusing if you don't pay attention. I have to mention Bones, since they did NOT identify a suspect by zooming in into surveillance camera footage (and even explain that zooming onto a few pixels does not give you an identifiable picture), which most other shows do, including CSI, which otherwise is pretty good scientifically.
 
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billw

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So does anyone know of a someone reasonably-priced source for
luminol? I've wanted some ever since I read some "science project"
books on chemi-luminescence decades ago, but always ran into
availability issues and sticker-shock...
 

Icebreak

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Test your lights on the steaks or hamburger meat in the fridge. It's less painful. Geez LT, what a magnificant mental video!

UV to blood is not black there is just little return so it might appear to be black.

RB to blood is not black there is just little return so it might appear to be black.

Blue...same kind of deal.

Cyan...same kind of deal. However cyan rips the greens away from the browns then rips the greens apart. Cyan also has some fluorescing capability.

I am one of only a few that think that a 5W cyan is a good navigator in deep woods.

Red finds red. I don't own this light but this guy is always factual and a member of CPF.

Zenobloodtracker
 
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lagarto308

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Icebreak, very illustrative the link to www.uvflashlights.com (www.xenopuxelectronic.com). Thanks: The solution for blood tracing is clear and it seems very good. Red flashing combined with withe leds and by reflection the blood back red (near blue 410nm by absortion the blood back black).

So, I have two options:
a) To Buy there the flashlight (not cheap: 120$ + shipping), too big flashlight, but I sure the performace will be OK.
b) Test it before using self-made solution (my first time!)

My idea is to purchase some economic flashlight, like
- http://cgi.ebay.com/41-LED-UV-2-MOD...Z5829856055QQcategoryZ294QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
- http://cgi.ebay.com/New-4-Mode-25-2...21837311QQcategoryZ106987QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
- http://cgi.ebay.com/Red-White-Green...21040783QQcategoryZ106987QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

and after that to change the original leds for others, like following flashing red leds or normal 5mm leds.
- http://www.besthongkong.com/product_info.php?cPath=8&products_id=91 - http://www.quickar.com/prodview.php?session=SFLgoMtS&id=8

Other options is to use the nite ize minimag 3 led bulb replacement.

I know that new leds must be similars or equals to the old ones and perhaps I will get on problems.

By the way: if I purchased a 5 mm led with 2,4 V, I can use it directly on a minimag with NiMH, only cutting their "pins" and replacing the original mag bulb. Other voltages will required the corresponding resistor connected in serie. Is it OK? Can I do that with other kind of leds like luxeon or apollo?

Does someone encourage me to begin?
 

Icebreak

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lagarto308 -

Seems like I've read from guys that actually hunt that a blue filter on an incandescent light was thier tool of choice.

I don't know that Xenopus' solution works by experience, I'm just saying that I would tend to believe it because the theory sounds correct and he's never posted a thing I can recall that was not a fact.

Yes, I'd test the theory first. Power up some reds (I don't have any), place a little chunk of bloody steak on a green leaf and see how it reacts.

When you get into building and modifying LED lights I'm not a good source for guidance.

However, if you were to state your plan in the Homemade and modified forum, some of the fellows there could probably help. Who knows? Maybe they know of a circuit that would smoothly strobe 1 group of whites, 1 group of reds and 1 group of blues or UVs. This might trick the brain and cause fresh blood to really stand out.

I'm OK at ideas, it's the actual doing that is the thing.

Sure. I'm encouraging you to try your idea. Most of the best flashlights made were because someone needed something they couldn't find readily available so they built what they wanted.
 

Amadeus93

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Icebreak, I'm curious what you mean by this:
Icebreak said:
However cyan rips the greens away from the browns then rips the greens apart.
Do you mean that it heightens the differences between green and brown, and between different hues of green?
 

Icebreak

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Yes, that's more accurately stated. It's a perception that's not shared by many. IIRC most people just see it as monochromatically greenish like a black and white photo with a green filter.
 
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