What is LUMICAST?
In short: Lumicast are high precision swiss made ceramic alike parts with luminous effect.
What is inside?
The 3D ceramic parts are 100% made of Swiss Super-LumiNova®, the choice of the Swiss watch industry for the highest possible afterglow performance.
What is Swiss Super-Luminova®?
For a better understanding of Lumicast, we start about the "magic" powder, it is called Swiss Super LumiNova®. RC Tritec AG has more than 80 years of experience in the field of luminous materials and produces the products in-house. The production of these materials are completey energy neutral (Solar panels and geothermal energy). Swiss Super LumiNova® is used by almost all watchmakers in Switzerlands.
SLN is:
• Aluminate, “polluted” with rare earth ions
• Very hard(Mohs hardness of 9, Diamond 10)
• Only very small amounts for the luminizing of a watch needed
• Nontoxic, non radioactive, environmental friendly
• Available in eight emission colors of Swiss Super LumiNova® available (Green, Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Purple, White, Yellow, Pink, Orange)
The lumious pigments work like small batteries. During day time they are charging with the sunlight and whenever it gets dark, they are glowing. So the more "batteries" are placed on the watch, the better performance you can achieve.
Swiss Super-LumiNova® is available in 3 Grades
- Standard Grade
- Grade A
- Grade X1
The Swiss Super-LumiNova® Grade X1 shows a performance increase of up to 60% after two hours compared to the standard grade. By using Swiss Super-LumiNova® Grade X1, the legibility according to the ISO 3157 standard will be extended by at least a factor of 1.6 on the long term.
Swiss Super-LumiNova® Grade X1 defines a new quality standard of night visibility on your watch, which has never been seen before.
The more batteries (pigments) the better performance. This was in our minds when we designed the watch. We wanted to add as much "batteries" as possible, resulting into deeper engravings on the bezel insert and the new way of Lumicast.
More "layers" or deeper engravings result in better brightness performance. But at some point, it doesn't add up anymore. The curve of luminosity vs. deposit thickness flatens with the added thickness.
Different pigments types
Swiss Super-LumiNova® is available in various pigments. Most popular ones are the C3, BGW-9 or T-C1 because they have the best brightness and afterglow performance.
What is the difference to filled indexes?
The traditional steel indexes are shaped with a hollow middle part, where the lume pigments/varnisher mixture is filled in. Untill now, this procedure had one of the best afterglow performance.
Lumicast on the other hand is one solid casted piece of ceramic. The lume pigments are filled in a silicon mould and then dried out. The higher concentration of Swiss Super-LumiNova® in these ceramic parts results in a much higher brightness than in common luminous deposits.
How does it work?
We work with the best. RC Tritec AG, the producer of the Swiss Super-LumiNova®, and Les Cadraniers De Genève, a famous dial maker from Geneva.
01 Planning
We first designed the hour marker on our dial and created the dimensions for it. Then we submitted the design to RC Tritec AG to double confirm if it possible to do.
02 Moulding
In order to produce our LUMICAST parts, we need to have a mould, this is the first step of production. This takes up to few weeks to ensure the quality.
03 Filling
Once the mould is ready, they can start to fill in the luminous pigements of our choice. In this case it is SLN C3, SLN Old Radium or BGW-9.
04 Processing
After the mould is filled with the selected pigements, they have to dry out. The result of this process is the lumed ceramic part for our dials.
05 Placing
The lumicast parts are now ready to be placed on the dials. To assure everything is well lined up, the dial maker use a so called "matrix". This way, every single part is placed with highest precision on the dial.
06 QC
Every dial will be tested for the quality of the lume, the alignment of the lumicast parts and any other flaw.
General Questions
Here is some important knowledge
