[SML] High Output UV Sources?

[Joe D]

The UV tube is definitely the cheapest way to get a lot of true UV light.  But, the beam spread is so large, that you need to keep them fairly close to the action. Across the front edge of the stage is an easy way to do it.  I fashioned some L-shaped reflector troughs using some insulated board that had aluminum on one side.  The back side was black with some printing, but a little solvent took care of that. I trimmed the edge with gaff tape and simply laid the fluorescent tubes in the trough.  In my case, I just used the cheap ($18) 2ft long ones just because they feel more rugged than the 4ft fixtures.  Then, spaced them about one every 4ft.  The reflector trough provided more light than if I had used 4ft ones without a reflector.

I just visited WildfireFX and saw that they are selling a new VioStore LED based UV source. They claim that this is a true UV source.  It seems impressive.  Though, they still tout their fluorescent tubes as having more output.  Note that, while they do sell the cheap UV tubes, their VHO fluorescent tube series is brighter than those.

I did some investigation into some cheap LED based UV light sources.  The reality is they are NOT UV. Rather, they are almost  UV. They do cause things to fluoresce, but they emit a very prominent deep blue light.  It sounds like that may be acceptable for your situation.  Regarding the cheap "UV" LED strips from E-bay [$16 for 5 meters].  They may be low profile enough that you could put them across the front of the stage and hardly notice them.  But, you would have to mount them in some sort of holder, since the light emits from the surface.  I even tried some RGB strips, and was surprised to see that the blue was a high enough frequency, that it also caused many materials to fluoresce.  The LED strip sold as a "UV" source did do a better job and was not quite as visible as the blue source.   But, again that Wildfire LED fixture sounds great.

Another issue is figuring out how much UV light you want.  And that is really hard to know without experimenting.

The cheap
Joe Dunfee
jdunfee12 at yahoo.com