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High CRI Nichia 119 Haiku is ASTONISHINGLY GOOD!!

run4jc

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Just received the above-mentioned light engine for my old faithful Haiku XPG. Did a heart transplant and compared it to my XML Haiku and my Warm Haiku...of course, I own a high CRI Ti Mule, but that is a different beam, so I didn't include it here.

Everyone has seen a Monopoly board, right? Sadly, these are only iPhone pics, but you can see the difference even in these.

First up - the 6V Haiku XML - I love this light, but there is definitely a slight green hue to the board
PicasaUp.jpg


Then the Warm Haiku - one of my favorites - but a slight brown hue...
PicasaUp.jpg


Now the High CRI Haiku - I didn't quite line the photos up the same, but the corner of the board tells the story. To my eyes, the color is dead on the money.
PicasaUp.jpg


I wonder if this light gets enough respect? Who knows - I don't know how many Don sells...oh, sure, it's 'only' around 80 lumen...in this day of 'flamethrowers' it's easy to dismiss lights under 100 lumen. Yet the holy grail of McGizmo lovers seems to be the LS20, which in stock form is roughly the same output - or the PD-S, which, too is about the same output. And although I'll probably stir the faithful, the beam quality on those lights does not even come close to this light.

Quoting Don in this thread referring to the Nichia emitter:

"The LED also works well in the Haiku resulting in one of the best beams I have encountered and of course purely subjective and of my opinion."


I enthusiastically agree. If you have considered one of these but have held off due to concerns over output, etc., you might want to rethink it. I have my new EDC!!

Bravo, Mr. Don! :twothumbs
 
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JMP

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agreed, saving up for a HiCRI Haiku head for my CR2 body.
 

Diablo_331

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Different light but same emitter.. I have a SC51C with the Nichia 119 and she is beautiful! I would LOVE to try one of Don's lights with this emitter. Maybe one day when funds allow, I'll pick one up.
 

nbp

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I had one of those very briefly in my Ti Mule, and it was very nice. I was quite impressed with the tint and color rendering. It was a very soothing beam, to say the least. I traded that engine though for a custom engine from maxspeeds with a neutral tint XP-G in it. That went in the EN Mule - a 200 lumen neutral tint Mule, it's my outdoor task light of choice. :rock:
 

run4jc

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I had one of those very briefly in my Ti Mule, and it was very nice. I was quite impressed with the tint and color rendering. It was a very soothing beam, to say the least. I traded that engine though for a custom engine from maxspeeds with a neutral tint XP-G in it. That went in the EN Mule - a 200 lumen neutral tint Mule, it's my outdoor task light of choice. :rock:

I'm fortunate to own a 6V High CRI mule head also, and for near field high CRI illumination, I've never seen an equal to it! What I love about the Haiku version of it is the capability of EDC with high CRI and a bit of throw...yet it is still "soothing", as you say, (perfect word!) up closer. Love it.
 

calipsoii

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The Nichia 119 H1 doesn't get enough love. I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's my 2nd favorite emitter of all time (closely following the neutral XR-E that Fenix used in the TK20).

I don't have any McGizmo's (*tiny violin plays*) but I've been fortunate enough to score a couple other lights using this emitter and every single one looks the same when I turn it on. It's become the emitter I compare all my new lights to, superseding even the SSC P4 in my HDS.
 

scout24

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Waiting for the Email shipping notification for my High-CR-I Haiku head... :) You're a bad influence, Dan. :D :nana: I've had a Nichia 083 3spd Mule for a while now, and can't wait to see the Haiku beam shape with this tint and color rendering. As someone wise said, "Some things transcend the quest for lumens..." I think that's my new sig line.
 

run4jc

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With all due respect to all the fantastic custom builders and modders, this is the best beam I've ever seen - period. The Haiku has had its share of reviews, but there may be cause for another!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

bmcgators98

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With all due respect to all the fantastic custom builders and modders, this is the best beam I've ever seen - period. The Haiku has had its share of reviews, but there may be cause for another!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I have thought the same thing many times. This has been my EDC light for the past 6 months. I had the High CRI mule with the same LED, however when you put the LE into the Haiku it is a whole different light.

It may be only 80 or 90 lumens but the beam is perfect balance of usable light. I also have a Haiku XM-L the which is close to 200 lumens, but the usable light is the same. I take the High CRI with me almost every time.
 
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fyrstormer

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I have the same experience with my homemade Hi-CRI Haiku. The colors are much more accurate, even considering I used a neutral-white Hi-CRI emitter, because the dark greens and light blues are not suppressed as they are with normal neutral-white emitters.
 

scout24

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I've now had a weekend and change to play with the high CRI Haiku head that arrived from Don last week. I must admit, I was not blown away out of the box. (Stay with me here...) I had my cool, my warm, and the new head installed on a SF E1b body, and went running around my house to compare. The cool is my "big bright" Haiku, and was quickly returned to my pocket as it was not a fair comparison to the other two. So, geek that I am, I'm all over the house with one in each hand, swapping beams to look at the difference between warm and high cri. I'm not a stranger to the concept, having owned several Sundrop 3s's, XR-U's, and still have a Sundrop 3s LE in my Aleph Mule. What I had not factored in was the ambient light here indoors at 5pm, which was swaying what I saw with the warm... After dark, with the lights off, a different story.

What this light brings to the table, IMHO, is what it does not have as much as what it does. No tint whatsoever to my eyes, things just look like they should. We get used to seeing things differently by flashlight I think, and grow used to compensating for tints and low color rendition. This light all but eliminates that, and allows your brain to process colors, depth of field, and objects as you are used to seeing them in daylight, which takes some getting used to! Mules and Sundrops are fantastic for up-close illumination, and they do put light out further than given credit for, but I feel the high cri benefit begins to drop off at distance even though lumens are out there. The beam on the hich cri Haiku, to my eyes and according to my admittedly suspect memory, is similar to the XR-E Haiku, which was excellent. Maybe a hair more flood here, but not into XP-G territory. This allows the benefit of high cri to be seen further out, bringing this type of emitter and it's benefits into the realm of true EDC for me, where I would always carry another light out with the Sundrops or Mule. Nicely done, Don! :)
 
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fyrstormer

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The way you describe it, it sounds like I should get a light with a Nichia 119 for my mom. She's an artist and would appreciate having a portable Hi-CRI light source with no apparent tint. I run into the problem, though, that she had polio as a child and only has one usable arm, which makes unscrewing things rather difficult, especially things too small to pin between her knees, and the Haiku is unfortunately in that category.

Does anyone know of any other lights that use the Nichia 119, that are perhaps easier to open?

(this is what spurred my question last month about adding flutes to the head of the Haiku, btw -- I've gotten used to evaluating how easily things can be operated with limited strength and dexterity.)
 

scout24

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I would think (after trying this myself) that the McG pocket clip would make a nice anchor with the light on the outside of a belt or waistband, head up or down,allowing one handed twist to remove the head. My Aleph McClicky Mule is much easier to screw/unscrew than a Haiku, and would work with the 119 LE or the Nichia 083. McLux III Al. PD-S would be easier still, and I would think the stock drive current of 525ma. would give a very respectable output, given the Haiku high CR-I drive of 500ma. PD-S as a twisty, no real need for the piston... :) PD-S is based on the assumption of modding to the 119, which I assume is doable.
 

nbp

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The way you describe it, it sounds like I should get a light with a Nichia 119 for my mom. She's an artist and would appreciate having a portable Hi-CRI light source with no apparent tint. I run into the problem, though, that she had polio as a child and only has one usable arm, which makes unscrewing things rather difficult, especially things too small to pin between her knees, and the Haiku is unfortunately in that category.

Does anyone know of any other lights that use the Nichia 119, that are perhaps easier to open?

(this is what spurred my question last month about adding flutes to the head of the Haiku, btw -- I've gotten used to evaluating how easily things can be operated with limited strength and dexterity.)

I can certainly understand your concern about her having difficulty taking the head off the Haiku. It is rather stiff. However, I wonder if it would really be that much of a problem. I have EDCd my Haiku XP-G since I got it in June, and I think I am still on my first cell! MAYBE the second, but I really think it's still the first. I don't know how much mom would use the light, but what if you just popped a new cell in for her once a month whether it needed it or not? I'm almost certain she would be hardpressed to kill a primary in between your visits. Otherwise, I *think* Zebralight had a light using those Nichia emitters... ???? I don't really follow their line, but it sounds familiar.
 

fyrstormer

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I would think (after trying this myself) that the McG pocket clip would make a nice anchor with the light on the outside of a belt or waistband, head up or down,allowing one handed twist to remove the head. My Aleph McClicky Mule is much easier to screw/unscrew than a Haiku, and would work with the 119 LE or the Nichia 083. McLux III Al. PD-S would be easier still, and I would think the stock drive current of 525ma. would give a very respectable output, given the Haiku high CR-I drive of 500ma. PD-S as a twisty, no real need for the piston...
smile.gif
PD-S is based on the assumption of modding to the 119, which I assume is doable.
Eh, the PD-S isn't as easy to use one-handed as the Aleph lights are. I thought about a Mule, but it occurred to me I could give her a light with a snap-on diffuser and get the same general effect. She has professional lights for when she needs professional-quality lighting, but a Hi-CRI flashlight would kill two birds with one stone -- she could see in the dark, and she could use it as spot-fill when existing lighting is inadequate. Don's recent addition of the optional tripod-mount clip makes the idea that much more plausible.

She's admired my Haiku plenty of times. She says it reminds her of the stuff her father's machine shop used to make, back in the Olde Country.

I can certainly understand your concern about her having difficulty taking the head off the Haiku. It is rather stiff. However, I wonder if it would really be that much of a problem. I have EDCd my Haiku XP-G since I got it in June, and I think I am still on my first cell! MAYBE the second, but I really think it's still the first. I don't know how much mom would use the light, but what if you just popped a new cell in for her once a month whether it needed it or not? I'm almost certain she would be hardpressed to kill a primary in between your visits. Otherwise, I *think* Zebralight had a light using those Nichia emitters... ???? I don't really follow their line, but it sounds familiar.
Valid point about the runtime -- the longer it runs between battery changes, the less of an issue it'll be. I'm playing with my 2x123 Haiku at the moment, and I loaded it up with two primaries unlike the two RCRs I normally use, and it's got me thinking -- the reduced length of the primaries, especially when that reduced length is multiplied by two cells, reduces the spring pressure to the point there's almost no stiction on the threads. I keep forgetting that primaries are shorter than RCRs. The only question, then, is whether the Hi-CRI emitter is available with a 2-cell driver.

Hmm...the first thing I need to do is get one of those tripod-mount clips so I can see whether it's strong enough to allow unscrewing the head without bracing the body of the light at all. That would render the problem of only having one hand irrelevant.
 
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McGizmo

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fyrstormr,
No problem dropping the drive level down on the buck (6V) converter for use with the 119. Have you tried one of your lights without the O'ring in terms of ease of head removal? You could consider dropping a size in O-ring to reduce the interference but still keep some form of seal in place.
 

fyrstormer

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Thanks Don, I ordered some a couple days ago.

Hey Dan, can you take a white-wall shot with your Haikus lined up next to each other? I'd like to get a better feel for their relative brightnesses, and I can't see that when they're in different shots.
 

run4jc

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Thanks Don, I ordered some a couple days ago.

Hey Dan, can you take a white-wall shot with your Haikus lined up next to each other? I'd like to get a better feel for their relative brightnesses, and I can't see that when they're in different shots.

Glad to, Shawn, but...

I have 6V XML, Warm XPG and High CRI - I have a 'loose' xpg engine...of course, that's easily transplanted.

Any preferences? I can do 3 at a time...
 
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