illuminate the joystick shifter?

Mixing colors would be a bad idea IMO.. simply because the blue plastic is quite overpowering against letting light out... you really need the brightest glowpowder or the whole project will be a failure..and that would be green, all the other colors has less glow power.

In fact... I'm a bit discouraged..

Its been dark now about an hour or so (about 8:30 central time) and my car is under a carport and I went out to look at how bright the shifter still was after being charged earlier with normal lighting of the sun till dark as it is now.

When I walked up to the car, I could see it glowing, but it was rather faint.. when I got in and the dome lights came on, it was unnoticeable or rather the glowpowders emitting light was drown out by the dome lights...
When I turned the power on in the car, the dome lights go off and you can see it them.. but when you turn the headlights on, the soft LED light also drowns out any noticeable effect.
I suppose you could turn down the LED, but thats not the effect I want.

Seems the only way this project really works well is to charge the powder with a small flashlight for a few seconds and then its good to go for a while.

Remember when I said it will never be "brighter" than the light charging it?.. thats the basic problem.. unless you charge it with a light brighter than the ambient lights in the car while driving at night, the powder is not very noticeable.

However, its very noticeable if charged manually.

I'm now considering other sources for powered knobs.

Don't get me wrong, the powder is better than nothing at all, just not sure its worth the trouble if you haven't done it yet.

BTW.. I said i would post pictures of daylight shots with the glowpowder installed.
I honestly can't tell any difference from stock... so it didn't ruin the daylight look of the shifter if thats what someone is worried about.

Here is a closeup shot "shaded" without direct sunlight hitting the knob.


Here is a closeup in direct sunlight "although not real obvious in the pic"


Here is one more in direct sunlight with the center console in view.

 

thanks.. that will be good to know if buying another knob too.

 

Me too... I would sure like some illumination to it though.... one challenge may be finding one that will fit.

 

Yes it would.. but those little guys are very spendy right now and they are very little.

I guess the Gov and put the squeeze on them for now since a very large allotment came up missing... "enough to charge a bomb"

So its near impossible to find and when you do, it ain't cheap.

I suppose if you didn't mine dropping a 100 bucks or so, you may could buy enough to do some good.. but you could prob put as many as 30 or so of those little guys in the shifter if you had them.. but that wouldn't be cheap.

One large one in the center may be easier, but you can't crush or damage them in any way or the gas leaks out and poof, its gone forever!.. so you wouldn't want the shaft to hit it when you screwed it back on.

Here are a few options and the only sources I know about right now.
*CLEAR* MERKAVA NiTE GLOWRINGS ~ 7 Colors to Choose From ! - CPFMarketPlace
those are about .9 inches long "the actual tritium tube inside the polycarbonate"

I'd have to do some measuring to see if you could saw off part of the polycarbonate and put the whole holder inside.. you would only have one tritium vial inside that way, but it would be well protected!

B@rt's Tritium Thread - CPFMarketPlace
These are only .19 inches long and it would take a few to do the job.. "very expensive" at 7.50 each.

FOR SALE: Tritium Cubes and a Key chain US UPDATED 7-30-09 SOLD OUT READ ANNOUNCEMENT - CPFMarketPlace
This has a cool "cube" in it... be nice to use the whole cube as a shifter! Looks like all is sold out except purple.. which is pretty dim.

Looks like here you can get just the vial for about 16 each... if you could get "say 3" of those side by side, that would be pretty bright!

 

Based on how he's making those cubes... too bad we can't figure out how to drill three holes "or more" in the shifter just big enough to slip those vials in and seal it with a touch of epoxy so they will stay in place "flush on the surface of the knob".

If you then poured epoxy "inside" the shifter from the bottom hole, once it set up, it would refract the light nicely!.. although that may not even be needed.

 

The polycarbonate holders some come in are oblong, but most are straight.. the glass tubes themselves that the tritium is trapped in are perfectly tubed... like a pipet tube.

You'll have to look at the links I gave to see all the sizes.. there are a few options.

 

Not real sure, but if you look at yours real close in the sunlight or a very bright light, it appears pretty big... I was surprised how much powder went inside!

 

The bottom of the shifter is the grey part.. I'm tempted to drill some very small holes "like 3" and insert tritium sticks "just the glass tubes with tritium.

They would then be visible from the top in a diffused sort of way as the blue plastic broke up the light... then if desired, one could pour epoxy inside to help trans illuminate the light from the tritium sticks.

I suppose one could add as many sticks as he wanted, before or after epoxy was added.

Just brainstorming here.. to help us all collectively to come up with good ideas.

 

Drilling from the bottom, the holes would be hidden "even though you epoxyed then closed" and there should be no evidence of tampering from the top.

On the sides, on the other hand... would quite possibly give a whole different effect as the tubes would be fully visible with a side view of each tube rather than merely looking from the top at the end of one.

If one case, there would three tiny dots of bright light that trans illuminated the whole shifter, in the other case, there would be a star effect and quite possibly much brighter...

thats a good idea too! What would be really great is if the blue plastic would come off so you could add epoxy inside and very precisely add the effect you wanted with tritium sticks, and then put it back on!
If I could do that, I would be tempted to go ahead and add glowpowder to the expoxy too, as the tritium would keep it energized!
"unless tritium doesn't transmit UV???".. anybody know?