Is tritium currently available in clocks?

[mitaux8030]

I loved my GTLS (Gaseous Tritium Light Source) watches. GTLS watches have little glass tubes of tritium gas that excites a coating on the tube to fluoresce. As a result, they 'glow' without any need to be charged up by sunlight or artificial light, and they do so for many years. The GTLS tubes placed on the hands of the watch make it easy to see the time without needing to push a button to light up the face or charge it up with light first. Even if the watch has been in complete darkness for days, it's still perfectly readable. Besides, having a 'nuclear powered' watch is just flat out cool.

I say 'loved' above because my idiot dog ate the watches. Not just one, but two of them (both GTLS types)! Dog now has a healthy glow in the dark and a size 9 boot imprint on its rump. I'm not a big watch wearer anyway... but I've been looking for something a bit unique - like a tritium illuminated clock - as a bedside clock. I know they used to use a tritium paint on clock faces in the 1970s, but it seemed to fall out of favour? Does anyone know of a clock that uses tritium illumination that is currently available? I also toyed with the idea of a nixie clock - another cool / retro thing that appeals - but the HV power supply needed to run them would be incompatible with my bedside shortwave listening activities.

[eeprommemory]

i have a HP nixie counter timer that i am thinking of getting rid of.
its in a 19" rack box.
its about 1970 age and works chips inside are 74 series.

[LeroyPatrol]

what makes those nixie diplays glow?

Leroy

[eeprommemory]

they are just a ten pin neon light.
add volts to each pin and a number will light up.

[mitaux8030]

I've also had my eye on some Russian cockpit clocks, such as the АЧС-1 which looks pretty cool at night:



It comes in two versions: a B and K. From some research the B dial is possibly a tritium paint version. But it's also been said that its a LOUD clock, probably not suitable for bedside clock use.

The nixies are loosely related to neon lights, where an flow of current between a wire mesh anode and cathodes shaped like numerals causes a glow discharge around the cathode. Its a charming old technology, replaced by vacuum fluorescent displays, which were then replaced by LEDs and LCDs.

[trash]

You know you should have come to the source mitaux
Ok, yes, tritium is still used in all kinds of things and you can still buy them.

Ok, short history. Radium was the original radioactive source. It was used to excite Zinc Sulphide to make it glow.
You can still buy zinc sulphide powder and make your own glow in the dark paint. Radium, you have recycle that from old radium dials.
The radium cooks the ZnS over the years and turns it brown and it stops glowing. The radium is still very active with a 1600 year half life.
The danger of course is that radium is in group II with calcium and chemically substitutes for it. So ingesting it is bad. (see: Radium Girls)
If you handle or work with it, wear rubber gloves and wash your hands after.
The other down side to it is that it reeks small amounts of radon gas. Not usually enough to cause a concern.
Radiation wise, it's an Alpha emitter with secondary gamma. 5cm of air is enough shielding for alpha.

The replacement for Radium was Promethium 145. It's a positron emitter which leads to a 500keV gamma ray emission.
A half life of about 18 years, it's very rare to find things that glow that used this radioactive source. Highly collectable !

Tritium now replaces both (its a beta emitter). In some cases a gas filled tube with a phosphor (like ZnS) is used. In other examples like gun sights, a fluorescent plastic is doped with tritium.
I know it's been used in oil based paint with ZnS, but I doubt you'd ever to be able to buy it in this form.
You best bet is to try and find some of the larger plastic sights which don't use it in a gaseous form (chemically part of the plastic) and then cutting them up to suit.

Else... if you're going nuclear... it's back to harvesting radium

It's almost as common as dirt and easy to find enough of it to do something useful with it. Knowing of course you're working with a hazardous substance in very small quantities.

[trash]

Time to buy yourself a geiger counter Mitaux !
That way you can check your Russian dials.

Radium dials are "obviously" alpha emitters, with a reasonable gamma rate from behind glass.
Tritium should be barely detectable unless a GM tube is held very close to an open source like paint.
My tritium sources in pyrex and plastic are very weak even on some of my most sensitive GM counters.

[eeprommemory]

off to radium hill to go get some LOL.
mm what are these black pellet things dumped everywhere makes my counter go to 999.

[trash]

One doesn't dump fuel pellets eeprom
Their owners tend to be accountable for them !
If they're just plain old fuel pellets, then they're pretty harmless and wont make your counter move much. (999) is a bit meaningless without a unit like Bq.
If however a fuel pellet is very noticeably active, then it's most likely a spent fuel pellet in which case you'll notice it from about 20 metres away in air.
And you'd have to wonder how any of them could escape their containment let alone the massive arse kicking somebody would get for a such a situation.

[eeprommemory]

British accountable LOL.

i live not too far from radium hill one of my mates wanted to see the old town so we got on some trail bikes and went there.
on the way to another location my counter went stupid i have a counter logger time of exposure counter.
the highest i ever had it up to was 250mSh.
this place was on the news years ago some idiots picked up the pellets and played with them i just happen to pass the same place with my counter and the highest it goes to is 999mSh.

[kevin1341]

What an interesting post.
I recall when young saving match boxes and taking the strick sides off them and burning them on a plate.
What was left was a tarry substance which we used to put on our hands and face.
At night or in the dark we lite up like the clock faces of the day.
I wonder why I have health issues today.

[eeprommemory]

TRASH your evil you made me go find my old counter and i still works.
work related object that came home.

[mitaux8030]

Another thought came to mind: some fire 'Exit' signs used a plastic sheet doped with tritium - not seen any around here locally, but I know they're semi-common in the UK. Perhaps one could be imported, extract the glowing sheet out of it, and use it to make a substitute clock face or add a clock movement for a DIY genuine nuclear glow-in-the-dark clock. I guess that'd mean sourcing a nice steel case back & lead crystal dome to go over the face to slow down some of the beta particles trying to escape. That's if I had a preference for a long & healthy life... which does appeal somewhat!

[Bibliophile]

i have a HP nixie counter timer that i am thinking of getting rid of.
its in a 19" rack box.
its about 1970 age and works chips inside are 74 series.

I am interested and have sent you a PM.
Cheers

[eeprommemory]

how about this idea get one of these clear $2 clocks and a heap of map readers and pull the tubes out of them and stick them on the back.

[trash]

this place was on the news years ago some idiots picked up the pellets and played with them i just happen to pass the same place with my counter and the highest it goes to is 999mSh.

Sorry, for being a bit pedantic about it, but the values you're using don't make sense and need some clarification.
mSh isn't recognisable as any sort of units. I'm guessing you're trying to say uSv (mircosieverts).

If it were 999mSv, this is a very high dose. 4000mSv will cause severe radiation sickness and some fatalities.
Just to put things into perspective, that 1000uSv (1mSv) is about 1000 times the normal background radiation in Australia.
It sounds like a lot, but it's not. Background levels are very low.

There should not be any "pellets" of any kind at Radium Hill, the site was a mine site and no ore was processed there.
Some waste was burried there but that too won't be lying around on the surface.

It sounds like they found some harmless but good samples of Davidite. Which just makes me want to go there myself and fossick for some.
If I have time tomorrow, I'll pick out some of my Davitie samples and report back the radiation in Sieverts for Beta/Gamma radiation.
You can bet that the alpha emissions will be easily 20 times worse

I'm going to have to visit eeprom and you can show me the mine.
Just don't tell Brewdog or she'll want to come too !

Ok.... just saw you're picture of your dosimeter. Excellent. Yes, it looks like mSv, but I suspect it's uSv. 0.53uSv is about right for background radiation.
If you want to confirm it's uSv or mSv, if you have an old smoke detector, rip it apart and not the measurement.

Mitaux ... hehehe... you won't need to shield the beta rays from tritium. They're so weak sticky tape will stop them !

If you've got any doubts about how trivial tritium is, have a look at the radioactive stuff we've been collecting.

[eeprommemory]

with a radium dial clock with glass removed i can get it to .010mSv.
at mine site where we were told NOT to go because it was HOT i got it up to .250mSv.
going from mine site to a telecom tower is where we came across these black round pellets.
this was nearly 20 years ago scrap metal scabs and site cleanup there is not much to look at now.
this counter has a heap of modes rate/dose rate/time dose/time 3 levels of alarm and the forth is just angry .999 (over) displayed it's also 20 years old.
becuse it's the "outback no one will know" attitude shit gets dumped all over the place from burra to broken hill is just holes all over the place.

[trash]

0.010mSv for a radium dial, well that does sound like millisieverts. Because it would not be 0.01uSv
That would be way too low for a Radium dial

Radium Hill is on my list of places to visit, and hopefully in the not too distant future.

[mitaux8030]

Mitaux ... hehehe... you won't need to shield the beta rays from tritium. They're so weak sticky tape will stop them !

If you've got any doubts about how trivial tritium is, have a look at the radioactive stuff we've been collecting.

Thanks for that Trash. Recalling my physics classes, I thought that alpha particles were stopped by a few cm of air or thin piece of paper / cling film, then beta needed something a little more substantial like a few mm of glass or sheet steel, and then gamma was the most energetic. That was 25 years ago now, perhaps the neurons have soaked up a bit too much RF in my lifetime.
Hmm, mum has some orange glaze tableware...

[Uncle Fester]

I loved my GTLS (Gaseous Tritium Light Source) watches. GTLS watches have little glass tubes of tritium gas that excites a coating on the tube to fluoresce. As a result, they 'glow' without any need to be charged up by sunlight or artificial light, and they do so for many years. The GTLS tubes placed on the hands of the watch make it easy to see the time without needing to push a button to light up the face or charge it up with light first. Even if the watch has been in complete darkness for days, it's still perfectly readable. Besides, having a 'nuclear powered' watch is just flat out cool.

Does anyone know of a clock that uses tritium illumination that is currently available? I also toyed with the idea of a nixie clock - another cool / retro thing that appeals - but the HV power supply needed to run them would be incompatible with my bedside shortwave listening activities.

Would these be any good?


Don't seem too expensive. I says they use 7 tubes, obviously for the hands and 3 6 9 12 positions only.
Would make a nice B-day pressie but I am still some months away.

Another question is if our nanny customs could block it because it might be slightly more radioactive than the background radiation, if measured at a few milimeters distance. Might be the reason why we don't see them here.

I actually have a WW2 altimeter that still glows and makes my dodgy Russian geiger counter ( Чернобыльская Mark 2) tick like there is no tomorrow. Unfortunately the LCD readout of the counter has gone black.

I built a four stage nixie and dekatron counter with a small 240V transformer in reverse connected to 12VAC and a voltage doubler. Dekatrons need 400V. It makes no noise and AM radio reception is clear right next to it.
The first dekatron divides the 50Hz first to 5HZ, then spins the second one @0.5Hz but I take off the signal at step 0 and 5, which gives me one pulse per second to clock the nixies without using a semiconductor. After that I cheat with a cmos counter because I don't have enough dekatrons for a full scale clock but that does not create any RFI.

The Russians sell dekatrons and nixies (and lots of other cool stuff like tunnels diodes) on Ebay for a song.
Look out for sellers that offer the nixies together with sockets and Russian diver IC in one deal. Saves money and the driver IC makes the design so much easier and neater.