Pigments night test (what all the glow in the dark pigment vendors won't tell you...)

The pigments are generally very hard to charge without sunlight except for yellow-green and to a lesser extent aqua.

Expect the glow in the dark effect to only be useful for playing, or in a club situation where fluorescent UV blacklights will charge the pigments and give the effect you've seen in the pictures.

Some have inquired about using the DL2000 for video projects; placing a blacklight somewhere will allow nice footage if these glow in the dark colors are used.

SUNLIGHT TEST:

5 seconds are enough to charge pigments to their full brightness; however to get maximum shine time 20 seconds are required. Move to a pretty dark room and be amazed. All pictures posted previously were NOT photoshopped and are as close as possible to what the eye sees.

ARTIFICIAL LIGHT TEST:

Only yellow-green and aqua can be recharged well with artificial lights. The bulb must be kept not more than 20-30 cm from the rubber in order to charge well. This depends obviously on the strength of the light source. 20 seconds are needed for full glow. Shine time tests were not carried out. When the rubber parts are allowed to charge from ambient light or ceiling lights they never achieve their full brightness and you need pretty much total darkness to see them glow more than a bit - except for the yellow-green color which is pretty standard but has the best recharging and glow time figures. Add to that the fact that the receiver is mounted vertically, so even if you go around the house naked, chances are your glow in the dark parts will NOT charge very well by just being exposed to ceiling lights over 1.5 meters away.

UV LED TEST:

Finally got a real UV LED (not purple). UV light charges the rubber optimally; strength is hard to define because who knows how strong those fluorescent club UV lights really are, and how strong an LED is in proportion. Expect very nice results when UV lights are present. And for events with no UV lights, you can just bring a UV LED and two CR2032 batteries (round type) giving 6V, and charge up your device's glow whenever needed.

One note: UV LEDs emit lots of purple, and even blue. So fluorescent UV blacklights are a lot better suited for playing with colors. They have little light in the visible spectrum, so the glow from the pigments stands out even more.

CONCLUSIONS:

Better than we expected, spectacular under the right conditions, not really a big deal for normal wear, and not very expensive to create compared with other color rubber. Slightly less good looking in regular light (rubber is whitish rather than black) but that's a matter of taste.

The choice is between "whitish" daytime rubber parts with wonderful neon colors with UV light or after charging, OR, regular black rubber.

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