Thanks Steve,
You are quite correct; it's a bit of a minefield out there when it comes to information & more importantly, the veracity of that information.
What got me going on this thought path was the apparent appearance of mould blooms on the inside of my SCT corrector plate.
I have subsequently opened the scope & cleaned the offending area. To be honest, I still don't know if they were in fact mould blooms but, not really sure what else they could have been.
I'm keeping a close eye on my gear; I haven't decided yet whether to try the UVC path. I by that, I do indeed mean the low frequency, sub 265nm wavelength source.
Having done quite a bit of research, I'm not yet totally convinced either & as you state, the specialised units are not cheap. To reassure you, I am very aware of the dangers of this stuff; if I do decide to go this route, I will be organising in a way that sees me set everything up then, leave the room, shut the door & turn on the source from outside the room.
Thanks for your info, it is good to get information that is reliable & not motivated by marketing.
I might just try exposing my gear to sunlight (when we get some)... costs nothing to try...
Cheers
Quote:
Originally Posted by sil
there is so much misinformation around UV especially cleaning products. how to prove your lenses are going to sprout green if you dont buy one? or that your existing care practices are fine? you wont buy two identical lenses to test over then next decade will you? no, nor will anyone else, so the marketers say whatever they want knowing you can't prove them wrong or even try. uv is not uv, uv c is not uvc either. its all ranges centered at a value, like a bell curve. UV light is invisible, it NOT BLUE or purple and the shorter wavelength end in strong amounts like emitted by the sun causes damage so you get sunburnt on cloudy days. the longwave end it up near 400nm where visible blue is part of the spectra and a small amount of uva which is enough to excite the ink in a fluro marker. but at the shortwave end down near 260nm is the dangerous high energy UVC. Its difficult to make emitters, thus genuine lamps are expensive, plus the associated health risks. security features in use often are tuned to a specific wavelength and have reader units filtered to those wavelengths. Often there are multiple security features and only one show up under the typical uv lamps consumers find, the second or third features remain invisible until the shorter wavelengths become present. its a simple method to check something and also make forgery so much more difficult as some ingredients in the inks is controlled and if the forger manages multiple inks they must be tuned to the reader devices that expect a certain strength reaction at several specific wavelengths.
there are some affordable cleaning/hygiene lamps that you can find though that may help prevent mould (but you wont know if you dont buy two lenses and usely use the lamp on one and your regular method on the other plus have a way to measure mould growth and count). some actually state this wavelengths and usually it'll be 365nm at the lowest, you need something peaking at around 265nm. many people maintain humity control is the key factor anyway. from the professions of stamps collecting/investing, book preservation, wines etc which are all at risk of ruin by mould and temperature/humidity factors to more of a degree than whatever rubbish camera gear consumers can buy. the answer universally is a wine fridge, it maintains a safe constant temp/humidity level to deter growth of micro-organisms. but if you want to insist a uv lamp is the answer than go for it, let us know your method and findings to back it up against the existing evidence.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mental4astro
Most enlightening, Steve. I have had some concerns about the "Ebay" stuff, and my suspicions were not misplaced.
In some instances, it isn't about preventing mould, but killing what is there already. And in many instances it is about killing the mould before opening up scopes and stuff to clean them. It's to attempt to control the spread of the spores before opening up the gear. Then I would have thought a decent UVC source would/could be beneficial (?).
Alex.
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That's exactly why I am exploring this Alex, humidity is such an issue up here in the tropics & it's just not practical (I simply don't have the space) for me to invest in a dry cupboard or wine fridge sufficiently big enough for my gear.
I know mould is a big potential problem up here; I'm meticulous about letting my gear dry out before caps go on (usually 24 hours drying after a session) & dessicant throughout all my storage boxes. Not a guarantee though as I think I found with my SCT; even changing EPs allows small amounts of moisture inside, especially when our night time humidity can be up in the 90% range.
Trouble is trying to sort out the facts from fiction & marketing spin... Oh, & ebay, was never going to be my source...
Cheers