UV Lamps

I've read all the previous posts on UV lighting and tagging and I am still a little skeptical as to which lamp I should purchase. The L85 shortwave lamp looks promising and is not to expensive. My question is, can this lamp detect tagging on the different tagging variations of scott #2194?

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It works, but I am not very happy with mine because it does not seem strong enough!
I use a small hand held unit sold by http://uvtools.com , phone# 512-775-1416. This is the unit available from Amos but at a somewhat higher price.
My main complaint about the L85 is that it does not work well with rechargeable batteries. The uvtools unit works great with rechargeable batteries!
I went to their website just now and found that they offer a 6 watt unit. The 4 watt unit works great for stamps!


Peter

Is the 6 watt lamp you are talking about the m100ex from uv tools.

Yup, thats gotta be it. They only have one variety of each. Thanks

Yes, both units are filtered -- and that's what counts. The filter is pretty standard on units of that price-range. Both units mentioned above should work fine.

With the cheaper ones, you always have to check the specs. Even with the filter, the cheaper ones are often so small that you have to turn out the lights in a room -- totally useless outdoors.

For foreign stamps I use a UV LED flashlight I picked up in quantity from China for $10 each. They are easily bright enough for using on a show floor. Unfortunately the short wave LEDs are still pricey enough that I haven't yet found the equivalent for US stamps.

That's because there is no commercially available LED that is strong in the short-wavelength UV spectrum (at least not that I'm aware of). It's not trivial to produce an LED into that energy range. It's really quite amazing how far the consumer market as come -- I still remember during my research days, trying to push LEDs from the green into the blue range was still on the drawing boards.

I believe in the 2 units discussed above, the long-wavelength UV is actually supplied by LED instead of lamp. However, the short-wavelength UV is still from a lamp-source.

I use a Raytech Versalume (dual band) but seems to be out of production. I also have two lighthouse units (long and short) but not very useful in medium bright rooms. I had started using a light box to help shield ambient light.

I ordered the M100E shortwave/longwave Light from UV tools. It is the 6watt version. I had seen that it was on sale from $99 to $69, but then it was on special so I got it for $59 plus about $6 for S/H. It used 3 "D" size batteries. It is for fluorescent minerals, but puts out same wavelengths we need for stamp tagging detection. Since it is for mineral detection, the deal I got also includes samples of 12 different minerals that react to the long/short wave UV. I ordered it one day and it shipped the next. I'm excited to get it and try it out.

Dave N.

Well Dave, having rock sample might invite you mounting the small geological treasures in a frame and a few world-wide postal stamps of the same mineral or such under each.

I'm contemplating replacing my dual-band 110v unit from the 70's with something with more intensity. Or at least create a spreadsheet with different models and manufacturers as a prelude.

Has anyone created such a spreadsheet they can share? I've no problem creating one from scratch the sharing.

Hey angore is there a model label on yours? My Raytech circa 1970 has a model LS-7. A handheld REAL metal boxy thing. Works fine but wish it would be a bit stronger on SW side.

ebay has one of the RayTech metal cased dual lights for $14.95 plus shipping from Illinois. It's the LS-4 model not LS-7. Looks like new condition, manual and even several rock samples.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RAYTECH-ULT...AOSw1h5XQJuQ

I asked for a certain SW/LW UV lamp for my birthday for looking at fluorescent minerals. So far, none of my specimens glow much, BUT I totally forgot about my STAMPS!

THIS website -------- >>> http://www.ultraviolet-tools.com/index.php

... has lamps from about $40 upward. I was hoping to take some photos of glowing stamps today, but I want to recharge the batteries first so I get the most glow possible!

:-)

I picked up another Raytech sample. Gotta look the heavy metal case.

My old Raytech LS-4 works on electricity. I hate batteries ! It must be 50 years old, belonged to my father.

I believe they all work on electricity Renden! :-)

Peter