The instrument needles on my old Rover disappear at night. They are white during the day and show up ok - but at night with the green lighting all but vanish. I presume they have some form of luminous paint which has failed?
Luckily, it's pretty easy to get at them to re-paint. What would be the best stuff to use?
Fluorescent green?
Forgot the ;-)
Radium paint ... no? OK, how about this instead
Whatever metal paint you've got lying around?
NT
Are they painted or is there supposed to be a lamp at their base that makes them "glow"?
Still available, it seems, even if it is old stock:
OTOH, an Indian company is offering a product that is described as radium paint, which, they say, makes walls look attractive in the dark and contains no harmful components:
That would be my guess as well. Certainly on any car younger that about 30 or 40 years. I don't think Daves Rover is that old.
Fairly standard instrument lighting for a car of this age - except it is green. The green numerals on the black faces are still perfectly clear. Just the needles that aren't. They used to be, so the only logical explanation is their paint. Except that it looks ok in daylight.
The car dates from 1985. I was wondering if the original paint would still be available - or fallen foul to some H&S legislation?
Not sure you can still get luminous paint. I tried to get some about 12 years ago to put dots down a door edge, but was told elf and safety mate, its radioactive innit.
Brian
That sounds like the makers of exploding paint who never had anyone come back to complain!
I wonder if anyone makes an affordable radiation detector. IE not a dosemeter, but something that one can hear and see and run over stuff to see what is coming off it. I always thought the old trimphone dials were clever. IE radioactive gass in a container with a phosphor on the top. Brian
Yes I had a Pioneer hi fi that had more bulbs in it than transistors once, they too put a bulb in pointers and strange forms of plastic light guides etc. Therewas even a Philips once that changed colour as you tuned it, the dial and pointer that is not the unit itself.The main issue with all of those was that it was a real pig of a job when the bulbs died. Brian
Can you tell if there is a UV or blue exciter diode to make them fluoresce? If so any dayglo red/orange/yellow felt tip will do the job.
Otherwise if you can find it the plastic stuff they make GloTorch cases out of is brilliant for glowing for hours after dark. Buying one of the keyfob ones and dissolving it up to make a paint perhaps?
(or a sliver of plastic from its case)
I have never seen any other luminous paint I would rate at all.
Tritiated fishing float lights or plastic is another possibility but their weight might affect the readings and MOT certification.
I doubt it, it is more likely the bulb illuminating them has failed. BL/Rover were enthusiastic users of bits of fibre optic to illuminate instrument pointers so the lamp driving those may have gone or the fibre fallen out.
These people have an interesting range of products, including some refurbished cold war relics:
I like their comment about the PDRM 82 Portable Dose Rate Meter:
'Straight away we have to say that the likelihood of it ever registering anything on the 4-digit LCD display is very small, and if it does, congratulations! You?ve just survived a nuclear blast.'
A wartime invention by Saunders-Roe, to illuminate flight instruments.
Err, I'm talking about 5 instruments, all exhibiting the same symptom, but to differing degrees. Which once was ok. And if one of the bulbs fail it is obvious as you then can't read the numerals.
The dial faces are clear plastic with white on black lettering. So the numerals are white in daylight, but have green lighting from behind at night. There are clear plastic light guides to illuminate the odometer numerals. No fibre optics here - only on the heater controls.
The outer casing is white plastic which would reflect the green light coming through the numerals. At one time this was enough to illuminate the needles - but not now. In daylight, the needles appear to be a decent clean white.
My guess is some instrument lamps have failed.
I'd have thought you know me well enough to be aware of this possibility. Having owned the car for some 25 years I know of the results of a bulb failure here.
In 1985 blue LEDs were stil a pipedream.
Strontium Aluminate activated with Europium is what your looking for, `Strontium Aluminate` should find plenty of hits
These people have been OK to deal with in past:
Traser is the big name in Tritium vials nowadays.
Anyone wondering why Radium is out of fashion should probably look up Marie Curie, The Radium Girls and Dalgety Bay...
No. They were very inefficient SiC substrate and incredibly expensive faint pale turquoise blue rather than royal blue but visibly blue.
Some high end early 1980's hifi used them as power indicators.
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