Under $35 portable,weather resistant, battery powered UV illuminator.

[Camelfilter]

Other folks on here might be interested in this, for whatever reasons might fit there personal needs/wants or nice to haves.

Anyways, we bought a few UV illuminators off of Amazon to supplement the weak in camera UV illumination of our security system.

These flood light guys here:

Amazon.com : Univivi U06R WideAngle Long Range 130 Feet 6pcs LED Array Lights IR Illuminator : Camera & Photo

And a few of these, more narrow of a beam than the ones above, but not quite a spotlight:

Amazon.com : Univivi Infrared Illuminator, 850nm 6 Leds 90 Degree Wide Angle IR Illuminator for Night Vision, Waterproof LED Infrared Light for IP Camera, CCTV Security Camera : Camera & Photo

Along with some extension chords for the illumators to connect to the AC/DC power source (not listed here, as it does not apply):

Amazon.com: Hanvex HDCQ6 6ft 20AWG 2.1mm x 5.5mm DC Plug Extension Cable for Power Adapter, Male to Female, For LED, CCTV, Car, and more: Computers & Accessories

Thinking on it a little bit, all you need is a rechargeable (preffered) battery, with a 2.1 mm barrel connector outlet to plug into an illuminator above. I called a local Batteries Plus, and they weren't much help, but could cobble together a rechargeable battery pack with charger for $100. I'd still have to connect there open leads from they're battery pack to a barrel connector, as they don't have them.

Thought on it for a few minutes, and decided I might give repurposing something from my Ryobi 18V Lithium Ion "ONE" system, the portable battery powered tool system that I've used for years. There's a bunch of other companies that use battery packs, this is just the system I used, because I have it.

Anyways I have a Ryobi flashlight which was part of a combo pack as a gift, which uses regular light bulbs, and uses the "ONE" system batteries. I honestly don't think I've ever used that flashlight (we often do use the LED Ryobi area light camping & such). So it would be no loss to use as a donor, and no loss if my project failed either.

The flashlight is like one of these guys here, but an older model:

Ryobi ONE+ 18-Volt Area Light (Tool Only)-P704 - The Home Depot

Anyways, donor unit found, I proceeded to take it apart, and clipped the 2 wires which connect to the light socket. These wires I connected to one of the extension chords above by clipping off one end and stripping the the wires.

Screwed the flashlight back together, attached a battery, plugged the extension chords into an illuminator, turned the flashlight on & nothing happened... That's fine, I had a 50/50 chance it wouldn't work, so I removed the battery and swapped the wires I connected above in the previous paragraph.

Installed the battery and it worked, these illuminators have a light sensor, so cover that with a finger, and you can see the red UV lights just barely in daylight when they are connected to a power source.

Hard crimped the wires above, using barrel connectors & a crimp tool. Electronic folks, home hobbiests etc, would/could hard solder them together. I find hard crimping quicker and easier for simple connections. Electrical tape wrapped each connection, again hobbiest folks could heat shrink tube them, but this is a simple quick&easy method.

Mounted the illuminator to a plywood remnant from another project, and done:

Read More

 

[Camelfilter]

In the last picture above, you can see the UV lights "on". Digital cameras must interpret the light differently, as it comes out purple. It is, however, a light red to the human eye.

In darkness it is the same, a light red, not anywhere near as bright as a red LED.

How's it work?

Freaken' awesome!

I took it out to the ARPC range last night and set it up to illuminate at the 200 yard plate stand. Illuminates extremely well! Everything is visually as crisp as using my generation 1 NV scope at the 50 yard line (no moon), but out at 200! Quite pleased!

Note last night had moonlight, but it was obscured by heavy cloud cover.

 

[Camelfilter]

Low res security camera with integrated UV emitters:



Same camera, with that portable emitter above (trying to figure best emitter placement).



With the emitter, "bad guy" would be easily identified.

...these are cellphone pics of screen grabs, not downloads. Downloads have higher res.

 

[Certaindeaf]

Awesome contribution.. !

 

[AMProducts]

So, you called it UV, which is black-light, this is IR, which is at the opposite end of the spectrum from UV. This nomenclature difference has actually been a huge problem for me, because I ordered a bunch of IR lights, and they ended up being UV, and vice versa, really annoying.

What actually interests me... I've got a few crappy gen-1 NVGs, which work pretty good without the IR illuminators, but you get way more definition and less noise with them on. What would be kinda cool would be to hook a few of these up on my jeep, so I can drive with the NVGs on. I have some money set aside to pick up a gen2/3 unit in the next few months, still weighing options, and I've been looking at some of the new-tech that's getting ready to come out, hoping that may drive down the cost of Gen3 units.

 

[Doc In UPlace]

Nice work, looks good!

 

[Camelfilter]

Nice work, looks good!

Thanks! They work really nicely, both hooked up to the portable battery pack & on house current.

Still not sure where to bolt them up permanent, so the battery pack has been handy simply to decide on placement.

The portability is just a nifty side feature in case of meth - head - zombie - bikers apocalypse....

UV/IR, sorry for the confusion...

These would work a charm mounted up to a vehicle & using gen1 goggles to drive, I'd imagine they'd work well with newer generations, and the price point is low enough to be able to experiment with a few before hard wiring them in.