2nd Gen QuantaDose® Reusable UVC Light Test Card with UV Intensity Strip Sensitive to UVA/UVB/UVC Light

Easy instructions

I got this to determine if sunglasses (and other eyewear) actually delivers purported UV protection. The card works great. I merely covered the UV sensitive areas with the lens, and exposed it to sunlight. Quickly remove the sunglasses and check if the area is still white. You have to be quick, because the ambient UV light will affect the sensitive rectangular spaces.I am happy to report that the glasses I tested did indeed have UV protection. Even a pair of reading glasses offered UV protection. (The lens doesn't have to have dark tint to possess UV protection.)I wish the card came with a case/sheath, for protection. Otherwise, it functions exactly as expected. Great assessment tool. 4.75+ stars with a very high level recommendation.

The little experience I have with these reusable card UV detectors, this one works best for UV-A.It fades fast, but registers better than the other QuantaDose reusable card in the photo. Both luminesce under the UV light, but only this one retains it for a few seconds after the UV is shut off.

Still unknown how much uv my lighter has !!!

I ordered some items that were supposed to be UVC to sanitize things and I thought, I dont know if they are UVC or not. Well so I got this. And turns out one thing was not and one was. So I was able to return the one that was not what it said it was within the return window. GREAT to have this around

I bought this to test out a wand style UVC disinfecting light I purchased back in 2020 after COVID was raging, as well as an aquarium UVC light that I purchased to make a disinfection box for keys, phone, masks, etc. I later was wondering if they were actually UVC after looking for a box version that could disinfect several items at once. It was in those reviews I learnt about this UVC card. It works as advertised and is clear about how strong the UVC light is. My wand showed at weak to moderate. The 5 watt bulbs was moderate to high.I've included the type of box I bought at Target. I lined it with what I had left of the reflective aluminum insulation and some tin foil. Works just fine. The UVC aquarium light in it is an 8 inch 5 watt bulb. It doesn't seem to get hot but it does seem to put off an odour that is likely low ozone. This bulb can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B092QMDWGJ/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

This is good for detecting the presence of UV-C using the green fluorescent dye, but the purple photochromatic area responds to 320-400nm UVA/UVB (not UV-C) which your light source may not emit much of at all.Testing this with Philips TUV 4W FAM 4W (G4 T5) tubes, which are advertised to emit almost entirely 253.7nm UV-C, and only about 8% in the 320-400nm UVA/UVB reaction range of the purple dye, all according to the Phillips spec sheet, I get almost no reaction from the purple dye.The purple photochromatic dye obviously works in the 320-400nm UVA/UVB range though because I get a very dramatic immediate reaction in direct sunlight.So my conclusion is that this will tell you that you have UV-C, but it won't help you quantify the intensity of it. Thus light sources that are perfectly fine will appear to "fail" simply because their spectral power distribution curve is too narrowly spiked in the UV-C range and not wide enough to also produce a large enough amount of UV-A and UV-B.The only way to really test germicidal lamps though is with bacterial cultures because the germicidal function is not just the intensity of the light source, but also the exposure time and the "penetration" of the light into cavities on UV-C opaque surfaces, the amount of light reflected off of the inside of reflective boxes that actually reaches a surface, and other complicated real-world factors.That's the main problem with UV-C disinfection at the moment. A lot more testing is needed to determine what sort of sanitizer box/cabinet designs work and how well.

Bought mainly to test sanitizing ability of a project I'm working on, but to benchmark it I tried my lizards' UV lamps — and found out that they had worn out and were only producing visible light! Fortunately I had spares ready, which this card does accurately detect as a UVA/B but not UVC source, and my lizards are happily soaking up the right kind of "sun" again.(At first I thought the card was taking a long time for the purple color to develop, but when I took it outside to try it out on sunlight, found out the 15 seconds the manufacturer recommends is a generous estimate. This thing is *not* subtle.)Would also be a good gadget for a science-oriented kid, for testing different materials' ability to block UV (glass, different clear plastics, ???), or UV levels under different conditions (weather, time of day, day of year, ???), especially since it's cheap enough to toss and replace if they have the idea to test sunblock and have any issue getting it to rinse clean (I have not tested whether that would happen, might do after using as intended though).