Homebrew PCBs

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 2:55 PM, David Griffith <dgriffi@...>wrote:

>
>
> In my ongoing research to make a UV exposure box the Right Way, I come to
> the question of the tubes. Where is a good place to order 12-inch T8
> tubes that emit the right wavelength. According to
> http://www.turbokeu.com/myprojects/pcb.htm, a Sylvania 350 blacklight is a
>
> good match, but I can't find much on this through google, particularly if
> it's available in a 12-inch version. So, what are my options for 12-inch
> tubes?
>
> --
> David Griffith
> dgriffi@... <dgriffi%40cs.csubak.edu>
>

 Home Depot (And other chains like Lowes/Menards/etc.) carry 12-inch-ish
U-shaped bug zapper bulbs.  With a couple of those you're set and you get
the effective output of 4 lamps since the lamps are U-shaped, giving you two
bulb lines per tube.  I haven't tried "black light" bulbs before but they
don't seem as bright (totally subjective and not necessarily a useful
observation) as the bug-zapper bulbs.  I'm sure there's either got to be
more filtering on the "black light" bulbs vs. the bug-zappers or they're
putting out different peak wavelengths.  Either way I've used the
bug-zappers for years and they can't be beat and they're easy to source in
the summer, not so sure about during other months.  I would be concerned
about the "black light"-type bulbs since they may emit light that is too
short of a wavelength vs. what the Riston films seem to like.  As others
have mentioned, the films weren't really designed for shorter UV lengths
than 380-390 nm so if you can't see it it may be to deep a UV to work
effectively.

HTH,
Larry


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