See title. I did some experimenting with cyalume chemlights to see if their performance degraded when unwrapped and from what I could find, they do. At least, this is true for green chemlights. After about a month of sitting outside its wrapper, the green chemlight was noticeably discolored, and peak brightness was noticeably dimmer versus a fresh, wrapped chemlight stored in the same conditions. Additionally, it lasted about half as long before becoming effectively useless. I also compared an opened, but still wrapped chemlight that exhibited the same performance as an unopened chemlight.

So long story longer, has anyone tested IR chemlights like this? Are they effected by UV degradation the same way visible chemlights seem to be? I notice a lot of people like to store opened chemlights on their helmets and such. Do the purple IR chemlights effectively block out harmful UV and keep them at full power? What about the clear IR chemlights? Just curious if anyone has tested this.

I am sure they would degrade especially if exposed to UV from the sun constantly.

Wonder if anyone noticed this in the sand box after keeping them on their kits in that hot desert sun.

I figured they would as well, but then again I have no experience with the purple IR chemlights. I'm mostly curious about these, and if the opaque container blocks the UV spectrum at all.

I wonder if some kind of chem light pouch (think like shotgun shell caddies, or cartridge holder/sleeves on the butt of a deer rifle) would slow down degradation. Would slow it down from UV you would think at least. But at that point you might as well just leave it in its wrapper and put it in the pouch

I've seen a guy who had IR chems stuffed in his kit unwrapped somehow crack AND puncture leaking ir glow fluid all over his gear and hands and gun and leave a little trail of ir drips wherever he went, all thr while glowing like christmas under nvg's.

Keep ur shit wrapped up

Many good chem lights are stored in an inert gas within the wrapper.
If the wrapper doesn't hold "air", I give it to kids to play with.
They go bad fast enough all sealed up. Exposed to the world they go bad faster.

They make chemlight caddies but they're bulky and don't completely stop degradation. I found one at work with a chemlight in it and it was completely dead but uncracked (to be fair I don't know exactly how old it was). They're good for controlling emission though.

chemical glow sticks work by breaking the inner glass vial, containing hydrogen peroxide, which causes a reaction with another chemical, releasing energy that causes a dye to become excited, and release light as it falls from it's excited state.

uv light and heat both will degrade the hydrogen peroxide more quickly, so that is why they are kept in foil or other light blocking material and advised to be kept from heat.