The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hello there

i have a question, i read about super luminova that if it gets enough direct light it could last for hours
this was taken from wikipedia
"...After sufficient activation by sunlight or artificial light, they glow in the dark for hours. Larger markings are visible for the whole night..."

is this true? i saw some videos of superluminova around the net and doesn´t even last for 15mins


what kind of lume has the chrono avenger m1?

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Breitling Chrono Avenger Black Dial whit Pro II Ti, Diver Pro I
Breitling BlackBird Big Date brushed whit SS Bracelet, brown croco
Breitling BlackBird Blacksteel 528/2000 Whit Dp2 Deployment
Omega Planet Ocean Chrono 9300 Co-axial Ceramic on SS bracelet

If only things were as simple as Wikipedia makes it sound.......

The M1 has Super Luminova, as do all recent Breitlings. Super Luminova is also used by the majority of Swiss manufacturers.

As a compound SL lasts for a fairly long time, although the luminosity fades in a predictable manner. I have an article at home with the details, I can't recall them off the top of my head.

How long the lume remains visble is dependent on a lot of different factors:

- what colour SL is being used
- how large a surface area
- how many applications
- how thick the applications
- how long the 'charge' was
- how bright the 'charge' was
- how much ambient light remains (easeier to see lume in total blackness)
- the viewers eyes

SL is certainly capable of lasting pretty much through the night, although it will be nowhere near as bright, and it will need to be a generous amount of lume.

Breitlings are generally not particularly high lume watches relative to other SL using brands.

great explanation about this matter thanks a lot Roff

since i have a incoming blackbird big date, from what i saw the lume is much better than the M1, maybe because the batons are larger...

dying to see how long will the BB lume lasts

_________________
Breitling Chrono Avenger Black Dial whit Pro II Ti, Diver Pro I
Breitling BlackBird Big Date brushed whit SS Bracelet, brown croco
Breitling BlackBird Blacksteel 528/2000 Whit Dp2 Deployment
Omega Planet Ocean Chrono 9300 Co-axial Ceramic on SS bracelet

What pretty much summed it up, but my experience places the most emphasis on the ambient light and the viewers eyes. Think of when you walk from a light room into a dark room and cant see a damn thing, but after a while your eyes adjust and you can all of the sudden start making out details of furniture and small amounts of light here and there. The lume is exactly the same. If your eyes are not completely adjusted to the dark you will not be able to see the lume unless its just been freshly charged.

Try this:

Stick your watch under a very bright light for a minute before you go to bed. Either wear the watch to bed that night, or put it somewhere close by that youll be able to see it in the middle of the night. Check it out in the dark in the middle of the night and I think youll be surprised by how legible it is.

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-RJ

cool... will try that for sure

just forgot to ask, will super luminova last forever or in 4 or 5 years it doesn`t shines anymore like when new?

_________________
Breitling Chrono Avenger Black Dial whit Pro II Ti, Diver Pro I
Breitling BlackBird Big Date brushed whit SS Bracelet, brown croco
Breitling BlackBird Blacksteel 528/2000 Whit Dp2 Deployment
Omega Planet Ocean Chrono 9300 Co-axial Ceramic on SS bracelet

Darn, I've lost 2 long posts trying to rely. !@^TBDF corporate firewall. And now I've typed a shorter, 3rd version, only to have RJ beat me to the punch. I'm posting it anyway!

Superluminova's effectiveness beyond 15 minutes is dependent on your eyes being adjusted to night vision. I can easily read my BB after sleeping for 8 hours as long as I don't turn the lights on first. SL's ability to remain visible under night vision conditions is simply amazing.

If you leave your BB in a dark room for a while, then return to it from a well-light room expecting to be able to immediately read, you'll be disappointed. In general, tritium handles that situation much better.

As long as you understand how SL was intended to be used and keep your expectations within that use, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by your BB.

In theory, well-applied SL should last a long time since it doesn't decay like tritium does. It can, however, break down due to environmental conditions, just like everything else.

For my money, SL wins hands down.

As codeman quite rightly said, "SL should last a long time since it doesn't decay like tritium does. It can, however, break down due to environmental conditions, just like everything else."

Absolutely correct.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Someone over at WUS put some lume to the test in comparison study. Some timestamped photographs shows there is an exponential decline in brightness with time.

http://forums.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=81978

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“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” - Albert Einstein

Cool little test, although I should point out that Seiko use their own compound called Lumibrite, which initially at least kicks SuperLuminova's backside on brightness. However, I don't know whether it's a case of "burns twice as bright for half as long" as far as Lumibrite goes. It'd be interesting to see the test with SL.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Not 100 % sure either. I knew it wasn't *exactly* SL but I'm pretty sure the mechanism for most photoluminecent materials is similar. They all asymptotically approach 0 light output.

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“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” - Albert Einstein

Oh you're undoubtedly totally correct that they are very similar compounds, but Lumibrite definitely has something different going on in it, as it is way brighter than SL (at least initially).

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Driver8

Site Moderator

TOTALLY! That first shot in the timelapse is just bonkers! The whole face is ablaze! Looks like the Bat Signal!

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“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” - Albert Einstein

Useless, but interesting (to me) fact.....

Seiko was a major contributor to the development of Super Luminova. They developed it jointly with Nemoto but decided to keep Lumibrite for themselves. Seiko and Nemoto now license SL to RC Tritec who supply it to everyone who uses it.

"and now you know the rest of the story" - Paul Harvey

That test is interesting, but I dont think its very realistic considering the amount of light that a properly adjusted eye can take in and what can be captured through a camera lens. To be fair, I dont know what either of these amounts are, but I have a very strong feeling that the human eye beats out the camera lens quite handily.

a. Who says that the camera lens was even able to capture the light?
b. If it were to actually capture it, your eyes would still have to be adjusted to view the light in the photos, which is not possible since its being viewed on a computer monitor.

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-RJ