Reliable, Durable Portable UV Device

Time to replace my old high/low UV light. What do y'all like that's on the market today?

What do you primarily use it for?

I want to see phosphorescence and fluorescence in stamp vatieties.

The best battery-operated dual wavelength lamp that I've seen is the Raytech Versalume. I'll state up front that I don't have any significant hands-on experience with it though -- I've just seen a few customers of mine use one and it seems adequate for what you're looking to do. It appears to be pretty durable and has it's own built in stand to allow you to use both hands to move stamps through for quick examination. Raytech is a top-notch name (IMO the best) for philatelic UV lamps.

http://www.raytechultraviolet.com/p...ersalume.php

Just understand that "any" battery-powered UV lamp won't be particularly strong. I still recommend the higher-powered "plug-in-the-wall" lamps like the LS-7. For comparison (at 6") the LS-7 produces 230 microwatts/cm² (shortwave) and 250 microwatts/cm² (longwave) vs. the much lower output intensity of something like the Versalume (40 SW / 50 LW). If you're going to buy something even cheaper (like the $25-$50 dual-wavelength lamps offered from philatelic supply houses or on ebay,) make sure you check the output intensity specs so you know what you're getting. Most of those are only marginally useful, and only if "very close" to the stamp, like 1-2 inches.

For my money, it's better to spend the extra $150-$200 and get something like the LS-7. Those are much more powerful and open many other areas of investigation/analysis not available with the battery-powered lamps...and as long as you have somewhere to plug it in (which is just about everywhere anyone looks at stamps, just pack an extension cord :-) they're completely portable too.

Hope the info is helpful. Good luck with your purchase.

Srailkb that's actually the exact one I've had all these years! Just doesn't work now. I noticed that one can buy just the replacement tube, but how the heck does someone know that's the problem. If it's not the tube you've spent a bunch of money on the tube and still need a working UV device.

shermae, which lamp do you have? The battery-powered Versalume I mentioned, or the stronger LS-7 I recommended?

If it's the Versalume, the reason most battery-powered anythings stop working is that someone leaves the batteries in too long and they corrode. If that's the problem, sometimes you can clean the terminals w/ vinegar and get it back in working condition. I'm guessing it's something like that only because I've seen "no name" battery-powered UV lamps work for 20+ years (and I'm going on 20+ years with my Raytech LS-88 and both tubes are still going strong.) I think it's actually pretty unusual for a tube to burn out unless you're a heavy user (thousands of hours.)

Did you open it up and inspect the tube for signs of damage? A drop, etc. could cause it to stop working, although my LS-88 has been dropped several times and never hiccuped...