Reply With QuoteShouldn't do anything, or at least in experience over the years has had no ill effect using modded surefires etc.
Currently a nano second on turbo with a Nitecore concept 2 does the trick for me :P
Apologies if this is a newbie (idiot) question but does "charging" lume with a torch (aka a flashlight in certain circles) prematurely age it; or burn it out/fade it long term?
I am new to this mararky and the lume of my skx is hopeless overnight in these Autumnal months, unless zapped with my 1000 lumen Fenix before retiring......!
Will doing this age it prematurely.....? And if so will a 500 lumen blast do 50% less damage.....?!
Cheers!
Shouldn't do anything, or at least in experience over the years has had no ill effect using modded surefires etc.
Currently a nano second on turbo with a Nitecore concept 2 does the trick for me :P
Great question, have wondered about this in the past and would be interested to hear others thoughts on the matter.
Google shows this inconclusive article https://timetransformed.com/2015/08/...nova-runs-out/
I'm no expert but from memory modern lume (Superluminova or Lumibrite) is usually strontium aluminate mixed with a dopant (activator) and other (non-toxic) chemicals depending on formulation. RC Tritec (makers of Superluminova) claim that it doesn't age but will degrade on contact with moisture. I assume the same is true of Lumibrite.
Would have thought that even a powerful torch at point blank range is less aggressive than direct sunlight in summer. Having said that, I have wondered if watch lume that lives predominantly in the dark lasts longer.
I have SL watches from the late 1990s which glow like torches. If SL degrades at all, then it is very very slow. Perhaps in 30 or 40 years you may discern a dimming or colour change vs new but after the 20 or so mine have been around, nothing noticeable has occurred. That article mentions people with 90s watches complaining the lume has gone beige. Many manufacturers were still using Tritium lume in the mid/late 1990s often without the telltale T markings on the dial. My bet is that some of those complaining don't realise that their lume was actually tritium, hence the beige fade and lack of performance. Certainly many Omega models used tritium up until 1997 without any dial T marks, the early Bond SMPs for instance and many other models too inc the early Dynamic Gen 3, Speedmaster Reduced etc. If your 1990s lume turns beige it is likely tritium based. Unless it got damp in which case all forms of lume will be shagged and go mouldy.
Last edited by Padders; 18th November 2018 at 10:30.
In theory the phosphorescent effect should be permanant provided the doped strontium aluminate remains chemically stable, which it should.
Had to scratch my head to remember how phosphorescence works, it’s almost 40 years since I studied this stuff! Absorption of a strong light source causes electrons to occupy a higher orbital (excited state) as they absrb energy. When the light source is removed they slowly ‘fall back’ to the original orbital, emitting light energy. This process is completely reversible. Provided the lume remains dry it should be good for many years.
The quality of the lume isn’t important for me, but I prefer modern luminova because it doesn’t change appearance with age. I prefer watches to look as they did when new, aged lume isn’t pleasing to my eye, especially when the hands and dial have aged differently and no longer match.
Had a few days holiday recently, my ‘holiday watch’ is a 3rd generation Omega Dynamic with superluminova lume and it comes in useful for telling the time in the middle of the night. Stick it under a lightbulb for a few seconds and it glows for hours!
Yep the lume on the SL Gen 3 is pretty good, not quite in the 2254 league but very useful and streets ahead of the lume Rolex used on sports watches up until very recently. As you may be aware, the reason I name checked it is that there are both tritium and SL versions out there, the tritium ones have faded orangey yellow and no longer glow meaningfully as the Gen 3 was manufactured across Omega's Tritium to SL transition.Originally Posted by walkerwek1958
Last edited by Padders; 18th November 2018 at 12:14.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-LumiNova
The Wikipedia page says it suffers no noticeable aging.
From there - "These types of phosphorescent pigments, often called lume, operate like a light battery. After sufficient activation by sunlight or artificial light, they glow in the dark for hours. Larger markings are visible for the whole night. This activation and subsequent light emission process can be repeated again and again, and the material does not suffer any practical aging. Strontium aluminate–based pigments have to be protected against contact with water or moisture, since this degrades the light emitting quality"
Fascinating stuff, folks, thanks! I guess I can charge away happily!
There are two things for certain in every physical or chemical cycle.
One, you never get out what you put in.
And two, no cycle is infinitely repeatable.
There is nothing that ever breaks these principles.
The decay in luminous performance may be slow, and it is very slow by comparison to the degradation of previous generations of luminous material, but there will be decay. It is inevitable.
Of that you can be certain.
D
That was kinda my first instinct - hence the post. But if that degradation is "slow" or "very slow"; then hopefully it'll be unnoticeable......?!
I have early 2000s watches with lumiova that would be considered really disappointing if the lume were (when sold) as it is now.
But, as above, I know of other ones that are still pretty impressive at this 15-20 year old point.
So I think the decline is real, but decline from something that was "just about good enough" dips it into the territory of "not good enough at all".
If, however, it was "exceptionally good", then a 10% (for the sake of argument) decline may take it into the "still pretty impressive".
What I mean is that it is easier to see the difference due to decline on a dial/hand set that had less of it than one one that had loads.
And it also stands to reason that artificial charging (UV or LED torch) on a regular basis will decay it faster than leaving it in a dafe/box or anywhere else that doesn't cycle the lume.
But I suspect the difference will be small
Sorry, but I don`t see why the performance should degrade unless the strontium aluminate itself changes or degrades. I don't see that happening in any timeframe that will concern us, it's a very stable material.
If anyone wishes to really get into how it works, have a read about crystal field theory.
Too draw a simple analogy, if you were an electron it's like having your arse kicked so you run up a hill very fast to a higher level. You then descend to your original level (which you prefer) and as you do so you dissipate energy in the form of light.
I see this as infinitely reversible unless the chemical itself actually degrades, and I don`t think the process of absorbing light in this way will cause that. However, if the surface of the material degrades or becomes damaged to a significant extent the effectiveness will be compromised.
There is no analogy whatsoever with the degradation of tritium lume, a process that's well-understood and observable.
Fascinating stuff - I reckon in 15 - 20 years my own eyesight will have deteriorated by a greater percentage than the lume in any event......!
Buy a UV torch off ebay or amazon that charges the watch better than torch light.
My science is good enough to know that there is absolutely no such thing as infinitely reversible (or infinitely repeatable). Nothing. There is always something that causes decay.
In simple terms, the third law of thermodynamics has the inescapable result that
"It is impossible for any process, no matter how idealized, to reduce the entropy of a system to its absolute-zero value in a finite number of operations." Excuse the american spelling.
Meaning that there is no single process, ever, where entropy is zero. And entropy is (crudely) the measure of disorder, the arrival of unintended consequences. And if it cannot be zero, then every process has decay built into it.
It may be that a million of those electrons are arse kicked up the hill. But the third law dictates that a million will not go back to the original state. Maybe it is 999,999, but at least one will go awol, die, get lost or otherwise not performa as wanted. The likelihood is that it will be more than one that does so.
Dave
What was the point of posting that load of pseudo-science? Those of us who listened at school know that entropy will always continue to increase.
Let’s get back to context. Forget all about your theorising and your third law of thermodynamics, the weakness with luminova doesn’t lie with the active ingredient, it lies with the matrix in which its incorporated. Luminous compound is mixed with a binder and lacquer to form an enamel, this has the potential to become opaque and degrade over time. Luminova relies on light being able to reach the strontium aluminate...........think about the effect of cataracts on eyes, or headlights through fog, if the amount of light reaching the compound is limited the effectiveness of the lume will be impaired. Realistically, this is likely to take many years, so the lume will continue functioning effectively for a long time.
I think that’s good enough for most owners.
Does it? Might achieve the same end result quicker, but not better!
I think it possibly actually does does since the spectrum of light the UV torch kicks out includes wavelengths not present in visible light which allow for additional energy absorption and re-emission, though I doubt there is much in it.
The earlier entropy comment from sweets was all well and good but rather pedantic since if the photoluminscent effect takes hundreds of years to significantly decay (and it might since it is a quantum rather than chemical phenomenon) then it is as good as permanent. As Paul says I would expect the the binder to fail long before the luminescence.
Last edited by Padders; 19th November 2018 at 22:27.
Strontium aluminate is unstable in contact with moisture. It hydrolyzes to produce aluminium oxide and hydrogarnet, neither of which glow in the dark.
And the entropy of quantum systems isn't quite as simple as the laws of (classical) thermodynamics might suggest. For example, an atom or molecule in it's ground state has zero entropy. You can even have negative entropy in quantum mechanics.
Last edited by Groundrush; 19th November 2018 at 22:48.
Ahhhhhh........ now you've got me researching that, as well.
Thanks!
Eh?
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Had the misfortune to be subjected to the teachings of science many years ago. Some of it was interesting, some of it was useful, a lot of it was neither! 40 years later it makes my head hurt to start thinking too deeply about it!
Suffice to say that luminova is a whole lot better than previous luminous systems, and it's likely to stay that way for a lot longer.
I much prefer the practical stuff thesedays.....my workbench is knee-deep in watches again. 9 years since I left the chemical industry, do I miss it....NO!
Please don't make this a personal argument. What I posted is totally relevant. The pseudo-science you deride me for is less pseudo than you used yourself.
Your "infinitely reversible" is total conjecture, a false assumption. There is nothing that is infinitely repeatable. As such, my remarks about entropy are totally within context, and do not deserve your contemptuous response.
You make a perfectly good point about the substrate being the potential weak link, and Groundrush's argument that moisture content degrades strontium aluminate (which iwas not aware of) is also a potential cause for degradation.
We can be sure that it does degrade, and that the rate may not be an issue for most ownership. But I repeat that I have watches (particularly a late 1990s Lorenz) with Luminova lume that is significantly weaker than I suspect it would have been at the point of sale.
Ultimately,
Charging the luminova of your watch is going to make zero difference.
The sun chucks out alot more UV than even you're most average flashlight, a second in bright sunlight gets just as good a result as a flash from a 10,000 lumen torch.
Or are we going to start wearing long sleeves on holiday in case it wrecks the lume, or even avoiding windows on a sunny day :P
You win Sweets, can’t be bothered squabbling with you any longer.......you’ve never forgiven me for saying the Lemania 5100 is a shite movement, a view I still hold!
Have a think about the ageing and degradation of polymethyl methacrylate (aka perspex), a material used in a key component of the Lemania 5100, far more of a concern than the decrease in efficiency of luminova! Definitely the wrong material to use in a watch movement......must’ve seemed like a good idea at the time, or maybe seen as an easy way to cut manufacturing costs.
Last edited by walkerwek1958; 20th November 2018 at 15:15.
Similar question, does the length of charge affect the length of the lume ?
When i charge my Hamilton khaki field for 5 mins its back to nearly invisible in the dark after about 20 mins !! Its only a year old and lume has always been crap.
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That is a good question.
Why is lume on some new watches so awful, while others shine like a torch all night?
M
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Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
Seems reasonable to suppose that the longer the charge, the longer the lume will last. I'd imagine there's a max saturation though and I daresay it's reached quite quickly, so you may be wasting your time charging for 5 mins...
Hamilton lume is notorious for being less than optimal (or, to use your correct adjective, crap). If it's white in natural light it's probably Superluminova C1 which isn't as bright when charged as C3 (greenish in natural light).
Because as we have already ascertained, age has nothing much to do with SL Lume potency. If it was poor when it was applied then it'll stay poor. Put a big enough plot on thickly enough using good quality lume and you'll get a good effect, use a dot of coloured or lower quality stuff and you won't. I would suspect that wrt Hamilton, Swatch are deliberately building the watch to a price to reflect that brands place in the Swatch pecking order ie at the lower end next to Tissot. The reverse doesn't seem to work though since Blancpain and Breguet don't seem to use a lot of lume!
So the amount of lume determines how much it glows (and for how long)? Not the chemical make up?
Is it really so expensive that watch makers fail to put enough on to provide more than a few seconds visible glow?
My Sinns glow all night long and so does the Helson I just bought, whilst a number of Seikos have decent, but less long lived, brightness, but my Longines last no time at all and I was convinced my Tissot had no lume at all (examination in total darkness reveals it does, but not much!).
Perhaps some brands just consider it a bit uncouth to have bright lume?
M
Maybe it is uncouth but I quite fancy a Nite watch for the novelty and maybe a holiday watch.
Both makeup and amount matter but I think design and range positioning considerations have more to do with it than cost. Chemical makeup matters but even the most potent Superluminova isn't that expensive. Even within Omega some are poor and some are great. The 2254 is great, the Speedmaster poor, same stuff AFAIK, just the plot size is tiny on the Speedmaster vs the diver. The retro Omegas using coloured lime are less bright than the whiter lume models and this is due to the colour pigment presumably.
According to the often seen graph on this article, C3 is brightest for a given amount, C1 is way down.
luminosity-watch
Last edited by Padders; 28th November 2018 at 12:10.
Very useful and educational!
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I totally forgot my seamasterwith luminova right under the halogen lamp to charge.
After one hour the whole watch was hot like that scene from raiders of the lost ark.
Years have paasedand the watch and lume are as good as always, I figured too that can't be as bad as staying in the sun the whole of summer.
BUBI 0_0
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