# How Well Do Ball Tritium Tubes Hold Up? Real World Experience?



## seattleal (Apr 29, 2013)

Tritium has a half life of 12.5 yrs +/-. Ball claims their tritium tubes have a useful lifetime of 25yrs. That's 2 half lives, so by 25 yrs they should only glow at 1/4 of their original intensity. Or are the tubes made with enough tritium to more than saturate the phosphor, so that even after 10-15 years of tritium decay they still glow at full intensity? Any have the answer?* Asked and Answered* *Previously, tubes manufactured over-saturated with* *tritium so decay not an issue for several half lives.*

*Well maybe not. A quote from MBMicrotec* *"**Our lights follow the tritium decay. Due to the manufacturing process, we even have some minor chemical decay's. This means, that a trigalight in watch lamp size has a brightness half life time of about 8-10 years (compared to the 12.3 years half-life of pure tritium).*

*We at mb-microtec guarantee a 10 year visibility on our lamps. We however know, that they will be visible much longer.**"
**
It would help to have someone post a comparison of new versus old watches with similar tube design.
*

*Let's focus on:*
What is your real world experience? I'm new to Ball and have one 7 year old watch that is impressively bright, but wonder how it would compare to a new watch. If you have more than one Ball watch, how does the intensity of the tritium tubes in your newest watch compare to the intensity of your oldest watch? What's the age difference between them?

Thanks for responding.


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## samanator (Mar 8, 2008)

PM Sent to you explaining your question on the top if we can move on from that (That includes other posters since we've had the same discussion three weeks in a row now). 

Your second question is a different perspective so let's discuss that. I have a Ball that is 7 years old in my collection that has no fade which would support what is stated in the collective thread and what I sent you. The oldest Ball GTLS watch would now be about 10 and a half years old and the oldest I know of any one here is the quartz Chronograph that is pictured up in the photo album. Since many people saturate lume shots not a real reference since given enough exposure time you could make a dead light bulb look bright.


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## samanator (Mar 8, 2008)

This is the photo I referenced above and there are more equally saturated (And under a black light that exaggerates it more ) of the earliest Ball GTLS watch I know of (Picture by Stumpbass) here at WUS in the photo album under the Photo Contest 4 thread. The Original poster of this was on the forum a week ago, but I have not seen him here in a while. Maybe he will stop by and comment. I also sent a note to Ball asking if someone knows the earliest date they made the 25 year claim since the tubes may be different from the earlier ones. So far I can find it going back to 2006.


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## Eric L. (Sep 29, 2006)

I don't think it is possible for the tubes to not fade constantly as the total amount of tritium decays. Given a half life of 12.5 years, one would expect within that time, the intensity would be one half of what the watch was when new. Same goes - 1/4 intensity after 25 years, which is what Ball apparently deems as the minimum amount of useful lume.


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## ~tc~ (Dec 9, 2011)

Read the sticky at the top.

The brightness is due to the luminescent coating, not the tritium. It is possible that the tubes start out "overcharged", putting out more energy than the coating can convert to photons. In that case, you would not see a difference in brightness until the tritium decayed below the max charge level.


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## samanator (Mar 8, 2008)

~tc~ said:


> Read the sticky at the top.
> 
> The brightness is due to the luminescent coating, not the tritium. It is possible that the tubes start out "overcharged", putting out more energy than the coating can convert to photons. In that case, you would not see a difference in brightness until the tritium decayed below the max charge level.


Just to note this info came from the manufacture interview not speculation like everywhere else. GTLS tubes are not like the tritium paint that the decay was a factor. As I always note I can only say this for Ball watches since tubes can be configured by the customer from mb. my interview was specific toBall.

Again the tritium half life thing has been cover here nearly every week for the past month. Let's move on to the second part. Lets see your older Ball


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## Eric L. (Sep 29, 2006)

~tc~ said:


> Read the sticky at the top.
> 
> The brightness is due to the luminescent coating, not the tritium. It is possible that the tubes start out "overcharged", putting out more energy than the coating can convert to photons. In that case, you would not see a difference in brightness until the tritium decayed below the max charge level.


My observation has been that the luminescent coating in GTLS tubes are not quite saturated with tritium decay alone - hit a tritium tube watch with a UV flashlight and it glows as brightly as any other regularly lumed watch for a brief duration - this suggests that there isn't enough tritium in the tubes to saturate the lume. In that case, the brightness due to tritium alone would be proportional the rate of decay, i.e. that within one half life, the intensity would be one half what it was originally. If there is actual documentation or claims from the manufacturer to prove otherwise, I'd like to see it.


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## samanator (Mar 8, 2008)

Eric L. said:


> My observation has been that the luminescent coating in GTLS tubes are not quite saturated with tritium decay alone - hit a tritium tube watch with a UV flashlight and it glows as brightly as any other regularly lumed watch for a brief duration - this suggests that there isn't enough tritium in the tubes to saturate the lume. In that case, the brightness due to tritium alone would be proportional the rate of decay, i.e. that within one half life, the intensity would be one half what it was originally. If there is actual documentation or claims from the manufacturer to prove otherwise, I'd like to see it.


Interview in Watch Time Magizine Oct. 2012 issue (no retraction printed to date) with Phillip Antille Ball's Chief Technology Officer talking about the tubes " What's more they maintain that level of brightness for 25 years." This has also been stated in most Ball adds. MB does not publish a spec sheet on this since it is variable (and proprietary) by what the customer specifies. Again this is specific to what Ball orders. So this statement is about as close to a document as we will get from them. Generally magazines like WT do fact checking before publishing, and again no retraction has been printed and we are 7 months out.

We did not cover the difference between light excitement and chemical excitement in my iterview. My guess is that phosphor compound is acting temporarily like conventional lume, but the compound used does not store energy like the phosphor compounds in conventional lume does. We all know light excitement is initially brighter in conventional lume and decays over time. That seems to be the case here just at a more rapid decay rate (Posibly compound related). Some have reported seeing the tubes do this coming out of bright sun light (UV) into a darker room. If I get a chance again I will ask about this.


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## Eric L. (Sep 29, 2006)

samanator said:


> Interview in Watch Time Magizine Oct. 2012 issue (no retraction printed to date) with Phillip Antille Ball's Chief Technology Officer talking about the tubes " What's more they maintain that level of brightness for 25 years." This has also been stated in most Ball adds. MB does not publish a spec sheet on this since it is variable (and proprietary) by what the customer specifies. Again this is specific to what Ball orders. So this statement is about as close to a document as we will get from them. Generally magazines like WT do fact checking before publishing, and again no retraction has been printed and we are 7 months out.
> 
> We did not cover the difference between light excitement and chemical excitement in my iterview. My guess is that phosphor compound is acting temporarily like conventional lume, but the compound used does not store energy like the phosphor compounds in conventional lume does. We all know light excitement is initially brighter in conventional lume and decays over time. That seems to be the case here just at a more rapid decay rate (Posibly compound related). Some have reported seing the tubes do this coming out of bright sun light (UV) into a darker room. If I get a chance again I will ask about this.


The reason why the luminescent compound in the tubes glow more brightly when coming out of the sun is because they work exactly the same way as conventional lume does. The tritium tube just supplies it a "constant" (but slowly decreasing) supply of high energy electrons to bump the very same electrons that visible light would into a higher energy state, and it is the decay of those electrons that gives off visible light in the form of what we call "lume." Whether the electrons in the luminescent compound (zinc sulfide in the case of GTLS tubes from mb microtec) are excited by sunlight or beta decay doesn't matter - it is the intensity of the "charge" that determines how many ground state electrons are knocked up to a higher energy state so they can decay to give off light.


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## ~tc~ (Dec 9, 2011)

My "theory" (and it is just that) is that this effect is due to charging the other "side" of the lume.

The beta particles do not have much capability to penetrate materials, so regardless of how many particles are released, the practical limitations of lume coating thickness probably amount to more lume than could possibly be charged by the tritium material.


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## seattleal (Apr 29, 2013)

Eric L. said:


> My observation has been that the luminescent coating in GTLS tubes are not quite saturated with tritium decay alone - hit a tritium tube watch with a UV flashlight and it glows as brightly as any other regularly lumed watch for a brief duration - this suggests that there isn't enough tritium in the tubes to saturate the lume. In that case, the brightness due to tritium alone would be proportional the rate of decay, i.e. that within one half life, the intensity would be one half what it was originally. If there is actual documentation or claims from the manufacturer to prove otherwise, I'd like to see it.


You are confusing the two types of luminescence - fluorescence and phosphorescence. Phosphorescent materials glow for a long period after stimulation; fluorescent materials only glow when stimulated. Phosphorescent materials require periodic stimulation (charging); fluorescent materials require continuous stimulation.

Phosphorescent materials have the ability to store excitation energy for a period of time before releasing the energy. Different phosphorescent materials have different decay rates. Luminova for example has a rapid initial decay and then its decay slowly tails out. That's why it is so bright at first then dims considerably, but glows at a low level for a long time.

Fluorescent materials do not store the excitation energy but immediately release it as a photon of light. The material used in the Ball tubes ( I can't remember what it is at the moment) is primarily fluorescent, but has a minor phosphorescent ability. Thus when exposed to a UV light or sunlight, you are seeing the add-mix of both the fluorescent and phosphorescent properties for the short period the substance is phosphorescent.

Also I suspect that as previously stated, the UV more fully stimulates the exterior of the phosphor than the tritium alone can.


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## Eric L. (Sep 29, 2006)

seattleal said:


> You are confusing the two types of luminescence - fluorescence and phosphorescence. Phosphorescent materials glow for a long period after stimulation; fluorescent materials only glow when stimulated. Phosphorescent materials require periodic stimulation (charging); fluorescent materials require continuous stimulation.
> 
> Phosphorescent materials have the ability to store excitation energy for a period of time before releasing the energy. Different phosphorescent materials have different decay rates. Luminova for example has a rapid initial decay and then its decay slowly tails out. That's why it is so bright at first then dims considerably, but glows at a low level for a long time.
> 
> ...


Not quite.

Fluorescence is a type of luminescence. The type you refer to is phosphorescence (also a type of luminescence), which is the way traditional lume works - a material can absorb energy by knocking its electrons into higher energy states, and then decay over hours to release light.

The luminous pigment used by MB Mictotec is zinc sulfide, which is a phosphorescent material with a very short decay duration (it does not fluoresce per se, since its decay is on the order of seconds, not nanoseconds as in fluorescence). Zinc sulfide shares some properties with our favorite conventional lume, strontium aluminate, which is used in superluminova and lumibrite. Strontium aluminate has a decay duration on the order of hours, which is why it works so well on watches. In GTLS tubes, the zinc sulfide functions exactly the same way as any other phosphorescent compound, but it is chosen because its short decay duration isn't an issue due to the continuous charge it receives from the beta decay. The intensity of the charge from the beta decay is diminishing, since there is only so much tritium in the tube. I do not think we can determine whether the concentration of high energy electrons in a new tube actually "saturates" the lume pigment but my guess is that this unlikely. Otherwise, how would watches with T-100 levels of tritium be brighter than T-25, if indeed the tubes were already "lume-saturated" at the lower T-25 total level.


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## seattleal (Apr 29, 2013)

Eric L. said:


> Not quite.
> 
> Fluorescence is a type of luminescence. The type you refer to is phosphorescence (also a type of luminescence), which is the way traditional lume works - a material can absorb energy by knocking its electrons into higher energy states, and then decay over hours to release light.
> 
> The luminous pigment used by MB Mictotec is zinc sulfide, which is a phosphorescent material with a very short decay duration (it does not fluoresce per se, since its decay is on the order of seconds, not nanoseconds as in fluorescence). Zinc sulfide shares some properties with our favorite conventional lume, strontium aluminate, which is used in superluminova and lumibrite. Strontium aluminate has a decay duration on the order of hours, which is why it works so well on watches. In GTLS tubes, the zinc sulfide functions exactly the same way as any other phosphorescent compound, but it is chosen because its short decay duration isn't an issue due to the continuous charge it receives from the beta decay. The intensity of the charge from the beta decay is diminishing, since there is only so much tritium in the tube. I do not think we can determine whether the concentration of high energy electrons in a new tube actually "saturates" the lume pigment but my guess is that this unlikely. Otherwise, how would watches with T-100 levels of tritium be brighter than T-25, if indeed the tubes were already "lume-saturated" at the lower T-25 total level.


My understanding is the tubes in T-100 watches are the same as those in the T-25 watches, there are just more of them. The T designation refers to the total allowable emission of the watch (or more precisely all the tubes in the watch), not the individual tubes.

In any case we can discuss the theory all day with no resolution. The reason I asked the question in my original post was to find out what was happening in the real world.

So- how about some posts where new and older watches with similar tube configuration are subjectively compared for brightness?


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## samanator (Mar 8, 2008)

Eric L. said:


> Otherwise, how would watches with T-100 levels of tritium be brighter than T-25, if indeed the tubes were already "lume-saturated" at the lower T-25 total level.


That's easy they are not brighter. For some T watches the the tubes increase in number (example spacemaster Xlume 80 tubes) others length and width (ie volume...example EMII Aviator) or a combination of both (Stormchaser DLC Glow). All three are T watches but get to the higher limits in different manners. Actually the one with the smallest tubes the X-Lume allows it to come closest (easier to get closer with a high number of small incremental steps) in the Ball line to the 100mci limit. The extra surface area of the larger tubes just have a larger surface area at the same intensity as the small tubes. MB does not sell 25 and 100 tubes. The they just measure (or calculate) the Tritium volume based on the pressure specified for the tube by the customer. Color affects apparent brightness and maybe improved phosphor compounds in newer tubes make a minor difference, but there are absolutely no difference in the tubes. You just have to use less of the larger tubes on a T25 watch but can use the same tubes. Most T/T100 watch never really come close to the 100mci limit. There are a few that one or two tini tubes take them over the 25mci lower limit(look at the Arabic and the Lady Arabic..3 very small tubes between T25 and T). With regards to Ball there is no difference between a tube of equal volume on a T-25 watch and a T watch and I'm 99% certain this applies to all other brands (Based on what they specify). This (the three cases I give above) appears to be the case for Deep Blue also. No one publishes actual tritium volume for their watches and you have 75mci to play with at the upper level. Looking at tube sizes my guess is most T/T100 watches actually are probably at the 45-60mci level. Standouts in the Ball arena like the x-lume, SC DLC Glow, Aviator Dual time, Aviator, Ti Diver and Nighttrain DLC are the ones that go to the upper limits. Ironically I think the x-lume that supposedly goes closest to the 100mci limit is the least bright of the list above since it uses mostly smaller tubes.

The above I defiantly confirmed with MB and Ball since it was the primary reason for my call. The tubes are the same, only size and number make the difference. Everything else in just either the effect of color choice (Wave lengths with Green highest and red lowest and others somewhere in the middle) or just in peoples heads. As an example there is absolutely no difference between the tubes in the hands, pip or numbers in the spacemaster and the spacemaster x-lume yet one is a T-25 and the other is a T watch. The only difference in the 5 minute markers is color (blue or yellow). Now the other 61 tubes are what make a difference between under 25mci and near the 100mci limit.


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## Balldy (Jan 14, 2009)

Interesting technical debate, but we need to remember that our eyes deteriorate over time so even if the lume stays shining as bright as new we will probably all think it looks a bit faded after 25 years!

Balldy


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## stevenkelby (Sep 3, 2011)

Balldy said:


> Interesting technical debate, but we need to remember that our eyes deteriorate over time so even if the lume stays shining as bright as new we will probably all think it looks a bit faded after 25 years!
> 
> Balldy


But the rest of the world will look faded too, so we won't notice


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## Eric L. (Sep 29, 2006)

Right off the Ball Website. I think we have the official answer to the question. Usable light, for 25 years, but it will diminish as the actual energy source (the tritum) also diminishes.

 The BALL solution to the problem of reading time in the dark is the Self-Powered Micro Gas Lights (3H). This Swiss technology safely captures pure tritium gas in a mineral glass tube coated with luminescent material. The light is produced when the electrons of the tritium strike the luminous phosphors on the inside of the glass. Our 3H micro gas lights glow up to 100 times brighter than luminous paints for up to 25 years. They do not require charging from any outside light source or power source. *The brightness of 3H micro gas lights will deteriorate over the years. *The encapsulated tritium gas poses no risk to the wearer over the life of the watch.


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## samanator (Mar 8, 2008)

But again this is the marketing web team (How may years were other things wrong there with continual reporting of the errors) where the engineering team gave the details I provided. I admit it is confusing and would agree that there are mixed messages. What I do know is the one 12year old watch we know of has no perceivable fade. Based on the other beliefs it should be at half power and it is not. So this would tend to support what the engineering side of the house said to some extent. How detectable it is at half power even visually should be perceivable. I can't answer why some companies that use MB tubes give 12,15, 20 and 25 year life periods?


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## ~tc~ (Dec 9, 2011)

samanator said:


> I can't answer why some companies that use MB tubes give 12,15, 20 and 25 year life periods?


Probably a combination of marketing and tube quality. I doubt many people consider a Traser an "heirloom quality" watch, so it's probably not as big a deal with consumers to have long life. (Although, those watches being made by mb microtec, they should know better than anyone...)

I always think its funny when people get so up in arms about tubes fading and totally disregard that regular lume fades also.


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## stevenkelby (Sep 3, 2011)

One thing to consider is that it is accepted in flashlight forums that doubling or halving of brightness (lumens) is the minimum step that is noticeable to the human eye. so after losing half it's brightness, it will just barely be noticeable that it's dimmer. 25 years sounds reasonable to me until it's obviously much dimmer than new.

Perception of hundreds or thousands of lumens is probably quite different to the tiny amount of light that even the brightest tritium watches emit though. 

The only tritium watch I have it a Deep Blue T25 and I do like it's readability all night long. A Ball Diver is the first watch I would but at it's price point


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## Eric L. (Sep 29, 2006)

Hey, I actually received a reply from the MB Microtec after sending them my question. Now we can end the speculation, and let science dictate the facts.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Dear Mr. Lee,

Regarding your question.
You are of course correct. Our lights follow the tritium decay. Due to the manufacturing process, we even have some minor chemical decay's. This means, that a trigalight in watch lamp size has a brightness half life time of about 8-10 years (compared to the 12.3 years half-life of pure tritium).
We at mb-microtec guarantee a 10 year visibility on our lamps. We however know, that they will be visible much longer.

Best regards,

Daniel










mb-microtec ag
Mr. D.Jakob
Head of Marketing and Sales trigalight®
Freiburgstrasse 634
3172 Niederwangen
Switzerland

phone +41 31 980 20 20
fax. +41 31 980 20 21

www.mbmicrotec.com
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


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## samanator (Mar 8, 2008)

So this is speaking to the gunsite tubes which is consistant to the claims those manufacturers for life periods. The Watch tubes are a separate line and while there are inconsistant claims of fade over time this does not align with the consistant claims of what the life expectancy is for the watch tubes. I will add this note from mb sales to the notes from the interview with the engineers at mb told me (and apparently what Ball engineering told Watch Time). I'm leaving both since we have a few sources for the info including Watch Time. Thanks Eric for a more technical query to mb, I just wish they would answer to the watch tubes and not the gunsite ones since it still leaves questions for me?

We'll keep an eye on the 12 year old watch since it is showing no fade and is still glowing. Maybe we can get reports of tube performance from other owners since that was the other point of this thread. 

We do have one 8 year old Ball watch (2005 model) in our house that appear to be as bright as when we first got them.


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## samanator (Mar 8, 2008)

I've added Erics note to the collective in the lume post.


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## Eric L. (Sep 29, 2006)

samanator said:


> So this is speaking to the gunsite tubes which is consistant to the claims those manufacturers for life periods. The Watch tubes are a separate line and while there are inconsistant claims of fade over time this does not align with the consistant claims of what the life expectancy is for the watch tubes. So read into this what you will and I will add this note from mb sales to the notes from the interview with the engineers at mb told me (and apparently what Ball engineering told Watch Time). Thanks Eric for a more technical query to mb, I just wish they would answer to the watch tubes and not the gunsite ones since it still leaves questions.
> 
> We'll keep an eye on the 12 year old watch since it is showing no fade and is still glowing. Maybe we can get reports. We do have two 8 year old Ball watches in our house that appear to be as bright as when new.


My exact question to MB Microtec was in regards to the tubes used in Ball watches and not gun sights or any other application. Trigalights is what mb calls their tubes used in watches.


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## samanator (Mar 8, 2008)

Eric L. said:


> My exact question to MB Microtec was in regards to the tubes used in Ball watches and not gun sights or any other application. Trigalights is what mb calls their tubes used in watches.


OK, thanks. I thought they only used that name for the sites.


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