I bought one of these the other day. It says scorpion finder on it. I know scorpions fluoresce, and when the weather gets warmer, this place is full of them. Other uses are listed, one of them antique analysis. Does anyone have one of these, and what do you use yours for? What do professional contractors use them for?
And just for the netnannies, I know the light isn't actually black, but rather UV, and "black light" is just an inaccurate term.
Steve
I've heard it can be useful in identifying counterfeit paper money. But if you have supernatural powers, you can just hold the bill up to your...
Very commonly use for leak detection by adding UV dye to the coolant/oil/refrigerant/etc. Also used for inspecting security features on currency, IDs, etc.
Years ago, about 1967, there was a bar in Parkersburg, WV called the "Purple Pussycat Lounge". They had a great array of UV lights and several times during the evening would turn off regular lighting and turn on the UV. It really showed cotton items, or lack thereof, beneath the outer garments of the ladies. They especially used the UV on amateur go-go night. It was a very popular place.
I use them for leak detection in stationary and automotive AC systems. I have a few UV flashlights and a 120 vac powered 100watt UV floodlight in my leak detection kit. I use the big light to find leaks on big systems like a 30 ton compressor rack operating a freezer the size of a basketball court at a bakery. I have one very expensive UV flashlight with a rechargeable battery that cost's $50 to replace. I use UV dye in cooling systems for cars and trucks to find leaks and if there are a large number of leaks it can be like looking at a star filled night sky. You should see what a steel accumulator on a refrigeration system looks like under UV when it has hundreds of pinhole leaks. ^_^
TDD
Usafretcol wrote the following:
Ah, the black light and strobe era. If you had any dental work done, do not open your mouth, :-) I liked the glowing gin and tonic drink.
I have a black light fluorescent lamp about 15" long. I also have a plastic articulated skeleton that I hang on the inside of the garage door so that the head and arms show through the glass panel. The skeleton is of a glow-in-the dark plastic, you know, the kind that glows green after a light activates it, but only for a couple of minutes. I put the lit black light fixture on the garage floor just inside the door and the skeleton glows continuously.
re: "Ah, the black light and strobe era."
The era is not over!
Ever try Midnight Bowling?
Black Light and Strobe Lights are very common.
short wave uv light is used to detect the tin side of float glass. normal uv flashlights won't work for this, but germicidal uv flashlights do.
Steve, I too have scorpions (Fort Worth)as my home sits on a rocky hill. I've fought them bastards for years, with a wide array of chemicals, DE powder etc. no help. Best thing I found was a couple of cats that LIVE to hunt scorpions. I think the first one got bit on the chin by one and now it's a vendetta, which has been communicated to the new cats as they assimilated. Scorpions in our house have a rather short life expectancy. Then the challenge was to stop them before they got inside. So I read that scorpions flouresce under UV. Bought a UV flashlight off ebay for $16 IT WORKS. Those things light up like the proverbial dime in a goat's butt!. The first night I walked around the house about 10:00 with the UV light and a can of raid. Killed 6 of them inside of 10 minutes. Gave me the creeps to see how many of them were around! That was 3 years ago. After the first month I rarely found any, but I do still find about one a week during the hottest weather. Try it. It's actually fun. We had dinner guests over shortly after I discovered this. I told them about it over dinner. That night they spent more time outside than in. I'd hear the women squeal with delight when they found one LOL. Since then I've bought extras for neighbors. My spare went to Mom a few weeks ago. Seems bedbugs flouresce also, according to the entomologist that treated her house. Haven't verified that.
reply:
After living here nearly five years now, I know we have them here. We live on a sand dune with lava rock, the perfect habitat.
I knew this would show them, but had never gone out at night to seek them. It is too cold now, but I figure this spring and summer there should be a lot of them. This will also make it easier in the house to find any. We have had a few in the house, but they are drunk from the bug spray. A couple laying right out in the open.
I've been bitten twice, both times one crawled up my leg inside my jeans while working outside. Quite a cramp, and a little bruise the size of a dime. I haven't been bitten in the 9+ years I've been on coumadin since heart surgery, so not sure how that's going to go.
We have a cat, but I'm not sure if she does anything except sleep and eat. I think she'd keep them cleared out. My terrier/poodle would be something else. She's fierce with anything that moves, and I believe she'd shred them. She's hell on jackrabbits, chipmunks, and gophers.
We'll see how it goes when it warms up.
Steve
When I was a kid growing up in the hills of North East Alabamastan, scorpions showed up on the walls of our rural farm home quite regularly along with all sorts of other critters most notably a particular type of lizard common to the area. ^_^
TDD
Black Light is a term that was created by Hippies on Drugs. They cant all be wrong!!!!
We used to use them to look for signs of rodents in warehouses. The urine would fluoresce with a black light. Seems to be a lot of uses for them,
"Mr. Austerity" wrote
Someone wrote to go look in my own bathroom. Urine fluoresces great! I didn't know I was big enough to splash that far. I have seen TV programs about health, and they do public bathrooms, and it makes you want to go behind their businesses and do your deed by the dumpster.
Steve
Wonder if all blacklights work the same? Nothing in my bathroom (other than normal stuff washed in laundry detergent and some paper products) fluoresce at all!
Erik
Look at and around the toilet. Carefully. On the walls. If you have nothing on your walls, floors, or toilet, I commend you or whoever it is who is doing your cleaning. They are doing a mighty fine job.
Steve
I do the cleaning... and although I'm no Martha Stewart, I was surly expecting to see at least something. But no, zilch. Even waited a minute in the dark for my eyes to adjust, but still nothing. Strange...
Erik
Erik wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.dslextreme.com:
different "blacklights" have different spectra,and lamps are filtered differently. Short-wave UV can harm the eye,cause it to cloud up,so most UV lights are filtered to only pass long-wave UV.
"UV" is a band of wavelengths.
Makes me feel like a pure D slob .............
Steve
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