RGMT having a GTLS tubed watch last night got me in a curious mood, which is bad, cause when I get curious I tend to turn into a right boring sod, with longer boring posts.
Anyway, Kev Reynolds takes great delight in telling us that GTLS tubes are really expensive, cause 1 gram of Tritium costs 25,000, can’t remember of the top of my head if it’s £s or $s but doesn’t really matter, so thought I would try and cost out how much the Tritium in a GTLS tube cost, roughly, very roughly.
So here my rough investigation into the cost of Tritium in a watch using Kev’s price, this could all be a load of crap, so If you see any errors, please let me know.
I gram of Tritium is $25,000 or £25,000 - source Kev Reynolds, Ideal World Vostok Europe shows.
9,650 curies in 1 gram of Tritium - Source Wiki “Tritium's specific activity is 9,650 curies per gram, (3.57×1014 Bq/g)”
1,000 millicuries in a curie.
So we have 9,650,000 millicuries in 1 gram of Tritium, which costs $25,000 or £25,000.
So 1 millicurie of Tritium costs $0.00259067357 or £0.00259067357.
There is 25 millicuries of Tritium used in a T25 GTLS tube watch {as stipulated under NRC (US Nuclear Regulatory Commission) license for Domestic use of Nuclear Material, that would be 25 millicuries total per watch, not tube, amount per tube will vary dependent on number of tubes}
There is 100 millicuries of Tritium used in a T100 GTLS tube watch {again as stipulated under NRC (US Nuclear Regulatory Commission) license for Domestic use of Nuclear Material, that would be 100 millicuries total per watch, not tube, amount per tube will vary dependent on number of tubes}
Therefore the cost of Tritium in 1 x T25 tubed watch is - $0.06476683937 or £0.06476683937.
The cost of Tritium in 1 x T100 tubed watch is - $0.25906735751 or £0.25906735751.
Ok, so there are more costs to making a GTLS tubes than just the Tritium, but old Kev always mention that Tritium is really, really expensive, hailing the 25,000 for a gram as a sign of its huge cost without ever mentioning just how much is actually used in a GTLS tube, when in fact the cost of Tritium itself seems to be relatively very little.
hopefully that didn't put you back to sleep this Monday morning.