Comments on: Halloween prop: portable black light

By: octel

octel — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:58:56 +0000

have fun getting retinal burns

By: Jesbus

Jesbus — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:01:58 +0000

But why isn’t the power the switch relayed through at least 17 arduinos? How can it possibly function?

By: anon

anon — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:26:01 +0000

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/8646/46841070978666126654016.jpg

I did the same thing and build the UV tubes in to a shirt for a party. Worked delightfully. You can’t really see how bright it was in this photo, but there’s a tube on either side and a tiny backpack under the shirt with batteries and inverter.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:39:28 +0000

I bought a whole string of near-UV LED’s. These things are AWESOME and VERY bright. Much brighter than the traditional blacklight brought to this event by some other poor sap. I bought mine from:

http://superbrightleds.com/specs/WFLB96.htm

They’re not cheap at $27 for a 38″ long strip. On the plus side they’re supposed to be waterproof. I powered mine w/ a small, portable 12v battery pack. They drew very little current and lasted for many hours.

By: SSP

SSP — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:21:09 +0000

Nice Job, Much better then running power around a yard with extension cords like I used to do. The long tube is great for outside, little black lights just don’t do the job.

By: emilio

emilio — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:09:09 +0000

great quick n’ dirty hack, especially sourcing the inverter!

if someone has more forewarning, 1W UV LEDs are now available for reasonable prices. they’re not super efficient with their wavelength output – a lot in visible deep violet/purple – but they’d probably be way more power efficient, durable, and portable.