3W UV LED WITH STAR HEAT SINK

Good, bright "UV" LED

I got one of these to use as a bug attractant for a portable insect killer I built. As far as UV LEDs go, this thing is awesome. It is painfully bright despite being at the edge of the visible spectrum. It does lack the high ratio of UVA to visible light output that is achieved by fluorescent blacklights - main line of 337nm - but all the usual suspects - clothing, money, paints, etc. - will fluoresce when exposed. I used the buck driver sold by All Electronics to power mine and found it to reach full brightness around 6.5-7 volts. At 12 VDC it pulls ~200mA, more at less voltage. For heat sinking I attached it to an old heat sink from a video card GPU with some thermal epoxy. You'll want to sink it to something, as the heat generated after only 30-40 seconds is substantial.