I was reviewing some of the rimSkin pages after the post on January 26th and realized I missed a great hack that I thought I would include. Glow in the dark products need light for a charge. I remember putting some glow in the dark stickers on my ceiling as a kid and they would glow for a few minutes and then would fade.
So if you are riding a bike with glow in the dark rim stickers, how do you ensure that the glow will continue? Attaching a light to the fork blades gives you a continuous "charge." So cool.
The rimskin folks seem to be including a light for this purpose in their proposal, called the BullFrog-RS.
Do we think it might be more effective to actually point the light at the traffic you would like to see you, rather than at your rim?
Anybody know the efficiency of the rimskin material in absorbing and re-emitting light? I bet it is not high....
Posted by: Ruben | 01/31/2012 at 01:51 AM
I believe that UV LEDs are better at "charging up" glow in the dark materials. So you can use a UV flashlight you can use that on the rim strips with minimal stray light from the flashlight.
My kid has a "Glow Crazy" board with included UV "pen" that works great on GITD stuff. There are different variations of that toy available around, which is probably buying a special UV flashlight.
Posted by: Mark H | 01/31/2012 at 02:56 PM
Then again, Amazon has some pretty cheap UV flashlights- cheaper than the Knog, but you have to figure how to mount them.
Posted by: Mark H | 01/31/2012 at 03:01 PM
I just want to have a bull frog light like that. Where can I buy that?
Alvin
Posted by: mountain bike trails Philippines | 02/02/2012 at 09:27 PM
Hey guys, thanks for checking us out! Ruben, the rimSkin Glo( after a 15 minute charge) will emit it's brightest glow for the first 30 minutes and then begin to taper down over the course of about 6 hours. We are still doing final testing and will post exact time results as well as the sample we've created on our Kickstarter update soon! You can use almost any bright light source but recommend you use a UV light (black light) to charge the rimSkin. If you watch our Kickstarter video you can see we used a small fluorescent bulb and that worked fine. As far as the Bullfrog-RS lights, we include those as a way to continuously charge your Glo rimSkin as you ride. We suggest that you use a front and rear safety light as you normally would. Alvin, keep posted on our main website the Bullfrog-RS will be available for single purchases soon!
Posted by: rimSkin | 02/03/2012 at 09:53 PM
Hi Mark, you are correct about the UV light being a more efficient way to charge phosphorescent products! We are currently working on getting the Bullfrog-UV which will come with UV LEDs. The Bullfrog-UV will allow a better charge while riding! Keep a lookout on our Kickstarter updates.
Posted by: rimSkin | 02/03/2012 at 09:59 PM
is the Bullfrog-UV with UV LEDs available yet?
Posted by: jing | 08/17/2012 at 02:18 AM
Any word on Bullfrog-UV lights?
Posted by: Bryce | 04/23/2013 at 07:11 PM