[Joel Koontz]

I have two, fairly translucent flags that I have about a foot apart. They look great in the daylight, but can't really see at night.

I have bunjies on all four corners of the flags so that they constantly have a rectangular shape.

The flags are dark blue with primarily white lettering. The white part is fairly translucent.

What could I put between the flags so that the lettering would "glow in the dark"

I would be willing to spend a good bit to get them illuminated, BUT not everyone likes my flags, so I don't want to spend too much for something that has a high risk of being stolen/vandalized.

I have two sets of the flags, one that I could run 120V to, the other would need to be battery powered.

I have dozens of AA Batteries and would be willing to change batteries every day,

[hgiv]

Why not just shine a spot light on them? You can focus the beam pretty tight with some kind of shield. I have one on a stake. Use an extension cord.

[Joel Koontz]

I would prefer them to be illuminated from inside, to make them appear that they glow in the dark

[Sirrotica]

I suspended my flag with a piece of 3/16" steel rod through the eyelets and it hangs vertically from the eves of my porch. I have 2 screw in eyes into the trusses. I ran the rod through the eyelets and bent both ends at a 90 degree angle so no one would be able to easily remove the rod. I also didn't want my flag stolen, or removed either.

I hung mine right in front of the coach lamp and leave the coach lamps on all night so the whole front of the house is lit up. I have 100 Watt bulbs in the coach lamps and 3 of them across the front of the house.

So far no vandals have tried to steal my flag. The coach lamps do shine through the white lettering at night so it can easily be read. My house is at the end of the road and when cars come down the street they have to make a 90 degree left turn to go on to the intersecting road, so they have 3 blocks to see my flag. I'm giving a bump to the guy I got the flag from.

I'm fortunate that the area I live in has probably 6 houses with his flags. The neighborhood is alright in my opinion, but vandals can still come into the neighborhood though in cars. I worry about them making the left turn in front of my house while looking at my flag. The reason I don't park anything on the street, I don't want any damage to my stuff.

[Joel Koontz]

I have two different properties with a pair of flags at each. The one at the house I can somewhat monitor. The other is at the corner of my field where there are no houses within a couple hundred yards.

I think 80% of my neighbors are on the same page with me, but 80% isn't everybody.

I went to Walmart this morning and bought a small solar landscaping light and plan to give it a try. It is only 5 lumens so probably not bright enough, but cheap enough I thought I'll give it a try.

I should be able to hang it in between the flags fairly easily so if it does work it'll be cheap and easy

[ignaro]

The two flags are back to back? You're going to want a light source that's spread out as much as possible and preferably LED since you don't want too much heat. That'll also make the battery-powered one last longer.

I would find/build/combine a few of these diffusion soft boxes between the flags, then put weather-resistant LED lights at the bottom, shining up into the diffusion box. That diffusion should be plenty to spread the light out evenly since with 1ft between, you don't have room to aim a hard light effectively. This is the technique we use on movie sets.

https://www.amazon.com/Neewer-Shooti...ronics&sr=1-21

What do your flags say?

[CraigGT37]

what about doing something like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijRUtgAsyME

[Joel Koontz]

Thanks, for the replies!

Originally Posted by CraigGT37

what about doing something like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijRUtgAsyME

If I wanted permanent and did not think it might get torn down, stolen/smashed/shot/burnt, at any moment, that might be an option, but in the current situation, that is way too much work.

The name on the Flags, does not rhyme with Hiden.

As I expected, the 5 Lumen Solar/Landscape light did not work well. Just enough light to make it look weird, but not legible.

Walmart has a 600 Lumen Solar light that should be plenty of light, but it is more of a spot light, and might be hard to achieve the effect that I would prefer. It is more expensive, but... I will probably get one and see what I can do with it.

[242177P]

Look into black light. Almost all white fabrics (the letters) glow, while everything else
remains unaffected. It might have a hint of bluish-purple, but it should do the trick
quite nicely.

[tooski]

Perhaps just a simple lantern mounted on or hanging from a post. I have a battery powered camping lantern that I don't think would last overnight; so I think a battery powered option may be troublesome. Perhaps a solar powered one for your field.

[Joel Koontz]

I never thought of using a blacklight, that might look pretty cool. Not sure how easily I can come up with reasonably priced weatherproof blacklights, but...

My little solar-powered landscaping light is essentially a small lantern but way too weak of a light.

[Sirrotica]

Most 2 side illuminated signs have fluorescent tubes inside so little heat but great amounts of white light, that is if you have access to 110V power. A shop light with the shade removed would be more than enough lite I would think.

[Joel Koontz]

I bought one of the Solar Spotlights at WM. It works OK, Not perfect, but OK. Can clearly read it when driving by, but not something that really grabs your attention.

When I was in WM the other day I asked the Associate how many Lumens and he said 600, which seemed like a lot. As it turns out, it can produce 600 Lumens, but that is for 30 seconds after motion detection, 30 Lumens when not "triggered"

The 30 lumens works OK.

If I get creative, I may try to rig up motion detectors to "turn on high" when a car is 100-150 feet away. I think that would really get attention.

I am also going to evaluate the Blacklight option as I think that might have a really intense effect. I had a blacklight for the past 40+ years, but it got broken a couple years ago. I really wish I still had it so that I could have tested the effect, using it.

[Tim john]

Good choice for a flag by the way. No, GREAT choice for a flag/s.


Tim john---

[Joel Koontz]

UPDATE: I bought some flexible waterproof LED Black Light Strips from EB and then some others from Amazon.

I ordered the first set from EB and that was a mistake. I get most stuff from EB in 3-4 days, but this took closer to 13-14 days. Once I got them I tried to figure out a way to mount them to get the best effect. I found a scrap of 1" thick "hard" Foam Pink Insulation approx 2'x4' and mounted the LED strip to that with cable ties going through holes I drilled in the foam. The foam seems to be working out well. It is strong enough and light weight which allows me to use bungee cords to support it. Each strip is a little over 16' long. With the strip that I got from EB you could see that it was lit up, but the effect was not very intense.

I ordered another set of strips through Amazon Prime and got them in a couple days. These appear to be similar to the EB strip, but the LEDs are more Purple in color. Both sets are labeled Black Lights, but they have different appearances. I added another 16' strip to the foam board and IMO this had a very nice effect on the appearance. It does now appear to glow in the dark and is very noticeable to anyone driving by.

I took some pictures, but my phone camera does not do a very good job of taking photos of Black Light at night. It probably could, but I don't know how to adjust the settings, so no photos for now.

[Joel Koontz]

Field Signs were STOLEN overnight, last night.

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by Joel Koontz

Field Signs were STOLEN overnight, last night.

I'm sorry to hear that, you dedicated a fair amount of money, and time to make your flags noticed.

It used to be a fairly well recognized custom in this country that if it didn't belong to you, you kept your hands off. Not anymore, if you disagree with someone else you vandalize "their" property. It's a sad state of affairs that we live in currently. Low life scum is who perpetuated this act.

It won't change the outcome of the contest anyway, but it is your personal property that they messed with. Cowards to boot, not enough character to confront you, they have to wait for the cover of darkness to pull their underhanded crap.

If you rebuild, I would suggest an inconspicuous game camera to at least watch over your flags. It may bring someone to justice, unless your police force won't follow up on the pictures.

[Joel Koontz]

I TT my neighbor who is closest to the field, and asked if he noticed anyone messing with them. He said he saw that they were gone, but did not see any suspects.

He has B/H signs up. He had a different set of signs up about a month ago and they disappeared. I suspected they had been stolen, but was not sure, until he confirmed it, this morning.

He said the B/H signs are "his wife's".

He told me that if I put more signs up, he would loan me some Game Cams, if I wanted to borrow them.

I probably won't at the field as there is no good place to put them, but I have options at the house(signs are still up there) so I may put some up there.

[242177P]

Originally Posted by Joel Koontz

Field Signs were STOLEN overnight, last night.

[EXPLETIVE FILLED RANT ABOUT LOWLIVES AND THIEVES GOES HERE]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHI3vqNo7sk