[Gooserider]

I know that in the past there has been discussion of trying to kill off the beasties with aquarium type UV sanitizer lights. Seems to me like there are several problems with these.

1. BIG - The things are big enough that it would be a serious hassle to get them inside the case for many setups.

2. OVERKILL - Even the smallest units seem to be rated at far higher flow rates than what we use in the typical WC system

3. EXPEN$IVE - At $80-100 U$D they seem rather dear in terms of the cost for the amount of performance help they provide - you can buy an awful lot of *sol for that kind of money.

4. Hookup hassles (need mains current) and heat input to cooling system.

As an alternative, has any one investigated using UV LED's? I'm not sure if they make them in the right wavelength, but Electronics Goldmine's latest paper sale flyer had a 'UV LED' listed that they caution against allowing skin / eye exposure when powered up.

If there are such LED's available, it would seem like they would be a much better alternative.

1. Easy to fit - I was thinking a short length of Cu or PVC pipe, drill holes in the side of it, stick the LED's in and seal with silicone or equivalent. This would reqire negligible space, be easy to hook up since all one would need would be an appropriate resistor and a connection to 5 or 12 VDC off the PSU. An LED only draws milliwatts, so there would also be no real problem with adding heat to the system.

2. Obviously an LED isn't going to have the killing power that a light bulb would have, but one could scale things with multiple LED's and get a kill potential appropriate to our actual flow rates.

3. LED's are pretty cheap, even in low number quantity, on the order of a dollar or so max. Likewise the resistors and the rest of the stuff that would be needed to do a hookup....

Has anyone tried this, or have a reason that it wouldn't work?

Gooserider