RE: good source for UV tubes?

I personnaly bought a a Metal Halide doped Mercury Lamp of 1000 W. I expose the Cyano, Pd, Chrysotypes 50 cm from the bulb. Most of the exposure times are under 10 min. It costed me around 350 Euros ( 450 USD). I mounted it myself.
The metal halide in the lamp would prefably be Iron Iodide (Iron doped MH Lamps). These lamps do emit most of their power right in the wavelengths where oxalates do respond. See a power distribution plot at http://www.sadechaf.be/sadeen/saden3fr.htm
I am very satisfied with it. Moreover, such a bulb is a point source. This is always good for superb details.
Last but not least: DO USE protection. These are bad UVs ! I personnaly leave the room before switching it on.
 
Philippe

-----Original Message-----
From: Sandy King [mailto:sanking@CLEMSON.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 19:51
To: alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca
Subject: Re: good source for UV tubes?

Can you obtain the spectral power distribution charts for these lights? If so look at them and see where most of the light peaks in nanometers. If you find most of it in the range from about 380 to 430 nm, they should work well because this seems to be the ideal range for Pt/Pd. I have in the past not found the relationship between K temperature and UV output to be reliable.

Sandy

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one thing that you might try is ebay. There are a lot of ebay storefronts for lights. One thing that might help is doing a search for 'reef bulb' or something of the sort, because saltwater reef fishkeepers use these bulbs.

One thing that I'm interested in knowing is if the 18K Kelvin reef bulbs might be a better light source than the standard BL bulb. You can get 18K VHO bulbs which might make a more econmical light source than the NO bulbs. Additionally, you could put together a 400W 20K Metal halide light source for a lot cheaper (about $200 w/ bulb) than a Normal Output (NO) flourcent rig. I'm suspecting that a 20K metal halide 400W would print much faster than a NO florescent bulb array for cheaper, however you would need to adjust for the metal halide warmup time either by keeping the light running or using a intergater.

Additionally, it's worth picking up the more expensive electronic ballasts no matter what the bulb (the most prominant electronic ballast manufacturer is IceCap). Articles I've read confirm the manfacturers claims that bulbs ran off of electronic ballasts are more efficient and produce more light. One study I read indicated that the IceCap ballased 175W metal halide put out LUX equiv. to a 250W MH on a tar ballast.

Anyone have thougts/experiences w/ the higher K metal halides w/ platinum?

thanks

kevin

>>> wrleigh@att.net 01/12/04 01:03PM >>>
topbulb.com

--
Bill Leigh
wrleigh@att.net
> I'm in the process of building a fluorescent tube UV exposure unit, and
> would appreciate some leads to a good source for BL (blacklight) tubes.
> If anyone has found a relatively cheap source, where I don't have to buy
> 30 at a time, please let me know!
>
> Jack Reisland
>