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Re: Detolf Displays Sunlight
Just by way of preface, I work in culture and heritage and work with museum collections. One of the things I have to do is make sure museum artifacts remain undamaged for decades. There are a lot of potential threats, but one of the big ones is light.
There are actually two measurements for light that we use in the museum world. One is UV and the other is lux.
UV is quite obviously the measurement of ultra violet radiation, which as you've got UV film on your windows you are obviously familiar with.
lux is the measurement of light levels, literally how bright the light is. There are some museum artifacts (watercolour paintings for example) where the museum standard is, no more than 50 lux brightness exposure for a period of no longer than six months. This is independent of whatever the UV levels are. Lux will primarily cause fading of colours, especially bright colours, especially reds, but ultimately all colours will be affected. Unfortunately direct sunlight is usually measured in the hundreds of lux.
An even simpler way to look at it is, damage to a toy (except obviously dropping it) is caused by a chemical reaction which causes changes in the plastic over time. Chemical reactions require energy, and sunlight contains a lot of energy.
In short if you had museum artifacts in those Detolfs, I would tell you to move them out of the light. Plastic toys are pretty durable but not immune to damage, I honestly wouldn't help it along.
One last thing, UV film is great but it does break down over time. Often you can't tell without measuring the UV levels. In two or three years time those toys in the display cases will be receiving higher UV than you think, despite the film on the windows.
If you can, also light the room with LEDs. They emit very low levels of UV.
Hope this helps, and sorry to be a downer.
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