Material considerations (still in my concept phase):
1. The UV light bulb must be strong, flexible, and allow sufficient transmission of light to the water being treated.
a. Is this possible?
b. Which material gives these attributes for the lowest price?
c. Can a standard UV sterilization bulb be encased, or will it require a new kind of bulb?
d. Which bulbs are commercially available that would fulfill this role? If none, which might be adapted? If none, how do I make one?
e. What power considerations are there for UV sterilization bulbs? What is their power consumption rate, activation cost? Will the XO have enough power to activate them?
f. Do UV sterilization bulbs require any components that are difficult to acquire?
More answers for questions:
ReplyDelete1. A UVC bulb would have to be specially designed and made to fulfill this goal, which would be expensive.
1. a. Yes, it is probably possible.
1. b. I don't know. We will leave this concern to people who are better able to fund the creation of a device to meet this goal.
1. c. Yes. A standard UVC bulb could be encased in a protective layer. What material that layer would be is questionable. Also, a new consideration has arisen which is that the UVC can be harmful to students unless they are protected from it. So, we have a new question of how to keep students from handling or seeing the UVC directly when it is turned on.
1. d. Aquarium UVC bulbs may be useful for test purposes and may meet guidelines for human consumption of the sterilized water. However, we now have the question of 'what are the guidelines?'
1. e. The XO is rated at 5 watts, or volts ("In direct current (DC) circuits, this product is equal to the real power (active power) [2] in watts." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volt-ampere#cite_note-1 Wiki citation: IEEE 100 : the authoritative dictionary of IEEE standards terms.-7th ed. ISBN 0-7381-2601-2, page 23); the XO has enough power to power a 5 watt UVC bulb, unless I misunderstand the information. In one of the links that I referenced in one of my first five posts (it's cited somewhere in there), a chart is shown that indicates that efficiency of UVC bulbs drops quickly to about 80%. This would mean that the 5 watt bulb becomes effectively a 4 watt bulb, I think. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this.
1. f. The part that I have not been able to find is a connector from USB to the two-pin connector typical of UVC aquarium bulbs. When and if the device goes into actual production, this cable will have to be specially made, or the connectors on the bulb changed to accept USB power input.