Gaze in awe mere mortals, at my Creepy UV Sun Jar! This new twist on an old idea is awesome, eye catching, and kind of spooky all at the same time.
I'm the kind of instructabler who makes a lot of sun jars, as well as other solar powered LED devices. I've built several of these with UV LEDs in them, as I like the weird purplish glow, but they're very dim. Now with the simple addition of some glow in the dark paint, the full power of the UV LED is revealed!
As with all of my instructables, if you make your own version of this, be sure to post a picture in the comments and I'll send you a digital patch!
I'm the kind of instructabler who makes a lot of sun jars, as well as other solar powered LED devices. I've built several of these with UV LEDs in them, as I like the weird purplish glow, but they're very dim. Now with the simple addition of some glow in the dark paint, the full power of the UV LED is revealed!
As with all of my instructables, if you make your own version of this, be sure to post a picture in the comments and I'll send you a digital patch!
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Signing UpStep 1: SCIENCE!
If you're not interested in how this works, feel free to skip to the next step. Stick around if you're awesome and want to learn about ultraviolet radiation, the visible electromagnetic spectrum, and fluorescence.
Human beings can see in a very narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum, about 750nm (red) to 390nm (violet)--do you remember ROY G. BIV from gradeschool science class? This is just a tiny chunk of the spectrum, which ranges from radio waves (longest wavelength) at the very bottom all the way up to gamma rays (shortest wavelength) at the very top. Just below the human visible sprectrum is infrared light, far infrared being heat and near infrared is what people use for active nightvision and remote controls. Here we're more concerned with the other end of the spectrum, ultraviolet light. This is the stuff that gives you a tan (or skin cancer) if you get too much of it, though we're working with very safe levels so don't panic.
An ultraviolet LED will put out most of it's light in the invisible near UV range, with it's major output around 375 nm, just outside of our range, but with a smaller output around 400 nm, or just within range. For this reason, to the naked eye an UV LED or a blacklight looks pretty dim, but really they're pumping out quite a bit of light that you can't see. Here's a chart from wikipedia to clarify.
So what good is a bright light that looks dim? Well, UV light has an interesting property, in that it causes a number of chemicals to fluoresce. Fluorescence is when a chemical absorbs light of one spectrum and emits light of a lower spectrum. In this specific case, the high energy UV photon strikes some glow in the dark paint, causing it to emit a spooky green glow (around 540nm, at a guess). Thus, spooky sun jar!
Human beings can see in a very narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum, about 750nm (red) to 390nm (violet)--do you remember ROY G. BIV from gradeschool science class? This is just a tiny chunk of the spectrum, which ranges from radio waves (longest wavelength) at the very bottom all the way up to gamma rays (shortest wavelength) at the very top. Just below the human visible sprectrum is infrared light, far infrared being heat and near infrared is what people use for active nightvision and remote controls. Here we're more concerned with the other end of the spectrum, ultraviolet light. This is the stuff that gives you a tan (or skin cancer) if you get too much of it, though we're working with very safe levels so don't panic.
An ultraviolet LED will put out most of it's light in the invisible near UV range, with it's major output around 375 nm, just outside of our range, but with a smaller output around 400 nm, or just within range. For this reason, to the naked eye an UV LED or a blacklight looks pretty dim, but really they're pumping out quite a bit of light that you can't see. Here's a chart from wikipedia to clarify.
So what good is a bright light that looks dim? Well, UV light has an interesting property, in that it causes a number of chemicals to fluoresce. Fluorescence is when a chemical absorbs light of one spectrum and emits light of a lower spectrum. In this specific case, the high energy UV photon strikes some glow in the dark paint, causing it to emit a spooky green glow (around 540nm, at a guess). Thus, spooky sun jar!
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All the voltage change is handled by the electronics that came from the garden light--I've seen "Joule Thief" circuits that step up the voltage from a battery to run an LED, but I didn't build one of my own. The circuit board from the garden light does all that, while charging the battery at the same time!
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/5mm-uv-led-emitters-20-pack-2398
Thank you!!!! I want to make them for my son's spooky themed costume birthday party!!!
http://www.futurlec.com/LED/LED5UVULBpr.shtml
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/5mm-uv-led-emitters-20-pack-2398
I'd love to see some pictures if you build these!
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/14000mcd-25packs-white-5mm-led-1106
http://www.robotbooks.com/Muscle_Wires.htm
Thanks
Great Project thought
Cameras will pick up both IR and UV rays, thats why they have built in filters, but cameras will still pick those rays up.
I'm glad you liked the project!
My daughter likes the one I made with regular spray paint and an un-altered white led lamp
Thanks for posting the pictures, your patch is on the way!
Thanks for the comment!
Do you have any other pictures or is it just a really small paint brush?