First Purchase of LED lights - BAD

My first purchase of LED lights has been disappointing. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

I just received my cmg ultra and arc aaa from one of cpf's advertisers...i am not happy. both display an ugly violet beam, with the cmg ultra having a "crab nebula" effect in the center (not sure what term you guys use). do i contact the manufacturers or the place i purchased from?

Can you post beam shots of each for us to see if they're normal or defective?

not to completely discourage you, but 5mm leds tend to be bluish/violetish and with crappy beams in general. some are better of course, but i hope you aren't expecting sunlight...

i don't have a digital camera; but this shot seems to look similar, but it's more violet and has another outer yellow halo in the corona.

If you want an awesome beam from an LED, get the LSH-P. None of the crap you get with 5mm LEDs. My Arc AAA has a very bad center spot, but in actual use i don't notice. My Infinity Ultra has a much nicer, more uniform x shaped hot spot.

I second Pi is Blue, The LSH-P is awesome. I am satisfied with my AAA LEs. I have bought 4 to date and have not had a problem yet. They also have a nice white color.

I hate to say it Ducati, but that looks like a pretty normal pictures. I haven't had much luck either with 5mm LEDs.

1 watts are much brighter, and whiter than 5mms. IMO, 5 watts are even whiter. As you move up in power, it seems the LEDs get better and better.

Do you have any luxeon star lights? If not I suggest you try one out. I think you will be impressed with luxeons, as they are much better than the 5mms.

A broad, even, white beam with a bluish center is still much better IMHO than a dull yellow, typical of a Maglight Solitaire AAA, which is a realistic apples to apples comparison.

Sorry you're not happy with the LED beam patterns, but in general I still think they are far superior to most incandescent beams. Maybe it's because I'm not a flashlight purist, but I just want something that gets the job done. The two LED lights you have each do a great job of task lighting or lighting your way if you don't need a bunch of light. Give 'em a chance, they may grow on you.

Get an Inretech 2AA if you don't want to spring for an
LSH-P. My Inretech on lithiums is at least 2/3 maybe even 3/4 the brightness of my LSH-P. The colors: LSH-P is pure white with a very thin blue ring at the edge of the noticable spill light. The Inretech: bluish center hotspot, and the spill light is SLIGHTLY yellowish. For all practical purposes, the Inretech appears white. When shined at a white wall next to the LSH-P, you can notice all the color differences.

I know where you're coming from. Maybe your lights are defective; the light definitely shouldn't be violet. It should be white. But maybe you're not used to LED lights either.
When I first started buying LED lights about 4 years ago, I had the same reaction. Part of the answer was just working my way through the different models and features, trying and seeing which I liked.
One good idea may be to start with something more mainstream, something that looks and feels like a "regular flashlight", something that throws a lot of light.
I notice that you started with two of what I'd refer to as "specialty" lights, that is, small, concealable, but not much power or "throw".
Try a Streamlight 4AA 7-LED, or one of the Lightwave 3000s. They both have good output and have fairly pure white light output.
Remember that an LED will put out pure white light, not the yellowish light that an incandescent produces.
good luck with it, let me know how you make out. Feel free to PM me if you want to try out a light. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

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Rothrandir said:
not to completely discourage you, but 5mm leds tend to be bluish/violetish and with crappy beams in general. some are better of course, but i hope you aren't expecting sunlight...

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Rothandir, I've got to lodge friendly /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif disagreement with your statement. Over the past year I've purchased several 5mm LED flashlights, from the TurtleLite II to Opalec NewBeam to CMG Infinity Ultra-G to SL Prop 4AA LED. I also have several 1W and 5W Luxeon lights, from CMG Reactor 2AA to EverLED and Epieon bulbs to LGI to EL Blaster VI and SNII. In my experience the 5mm lights as a group tend toward blue, but the Luxeons tend toward yellow and/or green. Comparatively speaking, the 5mm lights tend to look closer to "white" than do my Luxeons. Out of all my lights, the SL Prop 4AA LED tends to be the most white of all. Maybe my eyesight's really bad or I've gotten extremely lucky with my lights -- who knows? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I have noticed, though, that the more recent, brighter Nichia 5mm LEDs do indeed seem more blue than their predecessors. Did Nichia start overdriving (well, overspec'ing) their LEDs in the interest of selling "brighter" ones, or perhaps change their manufacturing process? My CMG Infinity Ultra-G of 6 months ago, for example, gives a beautiful white beam with perfect shape; my brand new CMG Infinity Ultra-G is clearly brighter, but also clearly blue-tinted, with clearly visible defects in its beam pattern. The loose Nichia 5mm 9200mcd LEDs I have around here look similar to the newer Ultra-G.

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milkyspit said:
...In my experience the 5mm lights as a group tend toward blue...

...I have noticed, though, that the more recent, brighter Nichia 5mm LEDs do indeed seem more blue than their predecessors...

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err...care to look at those points? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

my point wasn't necessarily that luxeons tend to be whiter than 5mm's (though i have found this to be true in some circumstances, especially 5watters (as you know, this depends completely on the led)).
my point was that they do tend to shift towards the bluish part of the spectrum...which you seem to have noticed yourself.

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Rothrandir said:
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milkyspit said:
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Rothrandir said:
not to completely discourage you, but 5mm leds tend to be bluish/violetish and with crappy beams in general. some are better of course, but i hope you aren't expecting sunlight...

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...In my experience the 5mm lights as a group tend toward blue...

...I have noticed, though, that the more recent, brighter Nichia 5mm LEDs do indeed seem more blue than their predecessors...

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err...care to look at those points? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

my point wasn't necessarily that luxeons tend to be whiter than 5mm's (though i have found this to be true in some circumstances, especially 5watters (as you know, this depends completely on the led)).
my point was that they do tend to shift towards the bluish part of the spectrum...which you seem to have noticed yourself.

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My writing certainly wasn't 100% clear, was it? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif What I meant was that all 5mm LEDs seem to have a natural inclination to move toward blue, but the older samples I've seen didn't tend to move very far at all in that direction -- just a pinch! The more recent samples, though, seem to have a pronounced increase in bluishness (did I invent a word?) despite their increased brightness in general.

I still think -- again, only based on the lights I personally own -- that Luxeons as a group exhibit more color shift than do the older Nichias. This certainly seems true for 1W emitters. For the 5W, my SNII looks pretty darned white! My Blaster VI shows noticeable shifting toward green/yellow, although that light as a whole is probably my absolute favorite flashlight even with the color shifting.

I actually started a separate topic regarding peoples' experiences with color purity for various LED flashlights. You might want to offer your choices if you have a moment. That topic is right here.