Firefly Tattoos

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Comments

  • V2 is not brighter than V1. For my opinion v2 is a total let down, there are so many negatives. I would not call it an upgrade.
  • @trybalwolf said:
    I'm really hoping to get my hands on a V2, still waiting to hear more about the brightness as compared to the V1. It seems like it should be substantially brighter. I've found the recent posts rather surprising.

    My V1 is visible from about 20 feet in darkness.

    I've got a V2 for sale

  • Damn. The only thing I could see as making them dimmer is increased healing time or the lead sheet preventing half the light from illuminating into the hand. I wonder if a version without the lead sheet would be worlds better, but the radiation would have to be checked again. If another batch was made like this they could probably have the outer glass heated and pressed down so it kind of clamps the inner capsul, preventing the rattle some people are getting. That would work better than the glue I think

  • I've had mine in for months so it's fully healed. V2 looks like it was rushed. It has shit quality compared to V1. I'm half tempted to take it out, that's how disappointed I am with it.
  • Damn, he put a lot into v2 it seems like. Seems like whoever is closing off the tubes doesn't know what they are doing or made a quick job of it.

    http://www.ilpi.com/glassblowing/index.html

    This site has lots of information on scientific glass sealing procedures. Makes me think about trying to make a prototype myself if I could find the tubes.
  • @Jonny3D try whaleapparatus.com. I buy the quartz rod and tubing. It takes a higher temperature to soften but I have never had a problem.

    I am currently using a 4 mm tube and putting in Europium glow in the dark powder from United Nuclear. I am going to seal both ends with 4 mm rod using an epoxy. I will then place this in a 5 mm tube and seal both ends with 5 mm rod and my HHO jewelers torch.
  • @puzbiks1

    I'm very interested in your results of this experiment. Especially if the glow can still be seen if/when implanted. The Tritium vials I have seen are pretty bright and it seems like at least some people are disappointed with the brightness once implanted.

    The powder can handle a lot of heat and you might be able to heat seal the 4mm tube directly instead of using epoxy. I have encased some of the powder in between pieces of window glass in a kiln and they still glow good.

  • edited February 2018
    @puzbiks1 @Birdhandz how does the powder compare to a similarly sized tritium tube? It should be viable to seal one end of the glass tube, tamper in the powder so it is nice and compact, and then seal the other end using the methods on the site I linked to. This looks very promising if the powder can have the same light output, especially not needing two layers of glass and being rechargeable.

    Is quarts biosafe? I might try to dabble with some prototyping myself. I know the firefly used borosilicate, and rfid tags use the schott bioglass. If quartz is even stronger than both these and still biocompatible that would be great.
  • @Birdhandz I will have to try sealing it direct with heat.
    @Jonny3D the powder from United Nuclear is a lot brighter. I have a few of the tritium keychains. After about 4 hours the powder is about equal in brightness to the tritium tubes.
  • amaama
    edited February 2018
    .
  • Ok, I have the sample pack of all their glow powders as well as some 3mm OD 2.2mm ID borosilicate tube ordered. I sprung for the boro instead of the quarts because after some research I believe while quartz is harder, it is more brittle than borosilicate and also harder to neatly seal. The glow powder states that it is very heat resistant and can take temps up to 1200°F, so after tamping as much powder into the tube as possible the open end should be able to be sealed very well. I'll make some in each color and go from there if it works out. Interested to see how yours turn out!

  • @thetarn said:

    @trybalwolf said:
    I'm really hoping to get my hands on a V2, still waiting to hear more about the brightness as compared to the V1. It seems like it should be substantially brighter. I've found the recent posts rather surprising.

    My V1 is visible from about 20 feet in darkness.

    My V2 is really bright inside the syringe. Here is a pic of me holding it while standing in my lounge. The overhead light is on. But my back is to it so there is some shade cast. this picture does not even do it justice. I have not had it implanted yet but will provide feedback once that is done!

    That's really great! I'm just waiting on a few more reviews before I bite the bullet. I've heard a lot of complaints about the brightness and am hoping to see some positive reviews.

  • @trybalwolf said:

    @thetarn said:

    @trybalwolf said:
    I'm really hoping to get my hands on a V2, still waiting to hear more about the brightness as compared to the V1. It seems like it should be substantially brighter. I've found the recent posts rather surprising.

    My V1 is visible from about 20 feet in darkness.

    My V2 is really bright inside the syringe. Here is a pic of me holding it while standing in my lounge. The overhead light is on. But my back is to it so there is some shade cast. this picture does not even do it justice. I have not had it implanted yet but will provide feedback once that is done!

    That's really great! I'm just waiting on a few more reviews before I bite the bullet. I've heard a lot of complaints about the brightness and am hoping to see some positive reviews.

    Yeah. The poor reviews were bothering me as well. But I had the cash spare as 2 became available so I sprung for it. Hoping it works out well. IIRC @Zerbula was having some issues with brightness but it came right after much healing.

  • @Johnny3D said:
    @puzbiks1 @Birdhandz how does the powder compare to a similarly sized tritium tube? It should be viable to seal one end of the glass tube, tamper in the powder so it is nice and compact, and then seal the other end using the methods on the site I linked to. This looks very promising if the powder can have the same light output, especially not needing two layers of glass and being rechargeable.

    Is quarts biosafe? I might try to dabble with some prototyping myself. I know the firefly used borosilicate, and rfid tags use the schott bioglass. If quartz is even stronger than both these and still biocompatible that would be great.

    Tritium vial left glow powder right

    This picture isn't really similar size but the glow powder I have does seem to be at least as bright as the tritium vial. The tritium vial is not one of the implantable ones but just one I got off ebay a while back.

  • @birdhandz GE fuzed quartz has a tensile strenth of 7,000 psi and a compression strenth of 160,000 psi. The only reason I chose the double tube is the quartz becomes soft at around 1,700 C. I see no reason why it should not be biosafe.
  • Ok this stuff is pretty fricken cool. These are the brightest three colors, the others weren't bright enough to be worth it.
  • @Johnny3D that is awesome. Put some of that in a glass vile and shove it into some meat. Wondering what the results could be.
  • edited February 2018

    @Semilovr12 said:
    @Johnny3D that is awesome. Put some of that in a glass vile and shove it into some meat. Wondering what the results could be.

    Here's some of my ebay bought glow powder packed into an ink tube from a normal size ink pen. The tritium vial is not the ones sold for implanting but just one I bought off ebay.

    The length of the ink tube is almost 1 inch long but I wasn't sure I could melt it closed and didn't want it too short. I have no intention of implanting this but just wanted to see how bright it would be. I could have spent more time sealing the ends but this was just a test.

    It was charged up with a small LED flashlight. Using a black light would have made it even brighter.

    Here's one closer to the same size. This one was made from some real small tubing (unknown type) that covered the leads of an LED. It was harder to pack the powder into the tiny tube but it is similar size to the tritium vial I have.

  • How long did it take to charge and how long does it light up before you need to recharge?
  • @Semilovr12 said:
    How long did it take to charge and how long does it light up before you need to recharge?

    These tubes charge up in just seconds but the glow fades quickly to be dimmer than the tritium especially with the smallest tube. The more powder used the longer it seems to stay glowing. A tiny bottle I have with maybe 1/8 teaspoon of powder in the bottom is visible all night. The same bottle freshly charged is bright enough to read by but doesn't stay that bright all night.

    I have a feeling these glow in the dark tubes would be disappointing compared to the tritium ones due to the fairly short time they would be visible through the skin before needing charged up again. I do think they would work but you probably won't wake up during the night and see them glowing through your skin. Could probably fall asleep seeing the glow and it recharges in seconds but the tritium should last for many years or decades and never needs charged.

    The powder is cheap enough to experiment with. The seller I got mine from no longer sells it but I paid about $5 for 20 grams a couple years ago and still have a fair amount left.

  • That's cool. I wouldn't mind recharging the implant as long as it was incredibly bright. Having something that is always lit up without having to touch it is awesome but just not to the brightest I would prefer.
  • Hello to everyone,
    First of all sorry for my bad englisch, I’m from Germany and the last time i spoke englisch was in school about 16 years ago.
    My name is Flo and i orderd a Firefly v2 a few days ago. It arrived 3 days ago and i implanted it immediately.
    Last night i saw it glow for the first time, i dont understand why people in this thread need 10 days to see it glow, Its not super bright but i think it will be very bright in a couple of days.
    If i go in a dark room (not that one) now, i will not see it, my eyes have to accustom to the dark but than you can see it very clear. Unfortunately i cant take a picture of it, but i have a few from the implantation.

    The wound right after

    And this is the wound now after 3 days.

    Feel free if you have any questions.

    At least i wanna say thank you to Alex for the good service and the good work he did
    (i love the rattle of the Firefly too :D ).

  • your hole looks the exact same as mine did hahaha

  • edited February 2018
    So here's my first prototype. Same dimensions as the v1 firefly roughly, single layer of good Corning borosilicate glass (Pyrex). It is 3mm with a .6mm wall and ~18mm long. I may make them a little shorter for added defense against breaking. The area of powder inside is around ~38mm^3 compared to the firefly' ~9mm^3, about 4x the capacity! It also seems to have about twice the surface area of glow, 40mm^2 compared to 80mm^2. The Europium glow powder was rated for something like 1200 degrees and had no problem being in contact with the red hot glass. I even got some of the powder red hot and it didn't effect it. However if you really torch it it slightly effects the duration of the glow, but to reach those temps I had to overheat the glass quite a bit. The powder was pressed into the tube as well so there is the added strength of it pressing on the glass from the inside.

    The picture of it glowing is in a semi dark bathroom after about 30 seconds of direct light from a cheap led flashlight. The iPhone flashlight does the job as well. To test, I charged the tube with the flashlight and then placed under a certain thin skin located um.. somewhere on my body. No pictures for obvious reasons. But the light was visible in semi dark conditions through two layers of that skin. I was also able to charge the tube through both layers of skin, it should have no problem when under just one. Please not if I end up producing these for people they will not be tested in this manner, they will be clean.

    My next step is to get some syringes and an autoclave to sterilize, and I will implant it in myself. I may forgo the needle for mine initially and just use a scalpel. If people are interested after my results, it should be no problem making a bunch to send out. I have like 100 feet of the tube and have got the sealing procedures very clean, nice round ends and clear straight glass.

    This one is the green, I will also make one with the cyan and post pictures later. I think it would also work well.

    https://imgur.com/a/vcyHt
  • @Johnny3D Nice prototype, how well did it glow prior to implantation with just ambient light? I think it would be interesting to try sealing some of that powder on one side of a pair of opaque eye contacts to see if the glow interferes with vision with a concept of developing glowing iris implants.

  • Hm. Been a while since I've been here. I'm about 18 months since implant on my v1 and it never got particularly bright. I can only see it in situations where there are almost no other light sources. Lying in bed with a dim lamp on the other side of the room is okay, but the street lamps while driving (SoCal) are too bright for it to be seen.

    My theory as to why is that either my skin is a little thicker than the statistical majority, or that its under a layer of collagen as I'm not a particularly thin person.

    I'm sorry to see the poor reviews on the v2, as I am 100% interested in getting another one. I'll have to keep a closer eye here.....

  • @crucible it glows about as bright as a green glow stick right after cracking it (after fully charging the implant) without charging the powder it hardly glows. Now I do have the powder sitting under a lamp and it glows half strength just from sitting there. I'm going to say that this is going to end up being a charge when you want to show it kind of thing, whip out your phones flashlight for a minute and glow for 20-30 minutes.
  • UPDATE!

    Incase any of you thought the tritium got me. Hehe ~3~

    It seems to be dimmer and brighter on some days more so than others. The exact conditions that make this so aren't being obvious. :l

    In any case, it is pretty clearly visible in complete darkness with relative ease. I will say as a definitive *yes* on my own end; the trauma to the implant site WILL need time to heal, seemingly because of the larger amount of trauma.


    It does flip occasionally without intention. The backsheet completely hides the V2's light emission, flipping it immediately reveals it. It has not been any issue in regards to distractions or functionality.

    I would suggest in a location visible with both eyes. I cannot see this at times because of blind spots with my own face in tandem with a dimness thats masked in vision. >3<


    I feel confident in saying this is successful! :D

    I would suggest removing the Lead backsheet to facilitate better performance, as I have never found a need or desire to want to obscure my own from sight; It is often a hinderance with it flipping as occasionally as it does, with as dim as it is, it only is corrected if I am paying attention to it. x-x

    I do not know how this compares in comparison to a V1, but I have never been able to capture a picture of it using a Kyocera Brigadier... Even in total darkness. I would highly suggest investigating lighting output differences and the more exact science and mechanisms as to why there is output comparison flaws.. If this can be more than it is, would much more so prefer. :3
  • The parylene version never was actually released, right? That would address the flipping issue. I think the lead back plate was for safety on the one side and that the other side was going to be reflective to send more light forward, IIRC

  • I have no doubt in saying that the v2 is definitely not as bright as V1. I wish an implant test of the v2 was done prior to being released instead of me being disappointed.
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