Has anyone hacked the Ecosmart/Cree CR6?

I saw one thread on it from last year where people were talking about attempting it, but it seems that no one has. I'm trying to figure out how to bump the power up a few watts. It's rated at 10.5 watts, but takes about 9. Supposedly it puts out 575 lumens at 2700k.

Any ideas on how to bump the power up on these things? I've got a light meter that I can use to estimate lumens output (based on the initial reading) and I'm going to monitor the temp of the heatsink to ensure it isn't overheating before I do it to more than one.

Bonus points if there's a way to mess with their TrueWhite sensor to get it to put out 2900-3000k.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...cs-of-HD-EcoSmart-65W-(Cree-Cr6)-light-engine

Have you looked at the Lighting Science Glimpse LED - 3000K 750 lm?
The Glimpse can be mounted in a can retrofit but it is also flat enough to surface mount on a false ceiling (you still need space above the ceiling for a junction box).
The Glimpse is available in 2700°K, 3000°K and 4000°K versions.

You may be able to use the Lighting Science Definity BR40 - 120 Degree - 2700K - LED Bulb 875 lm.

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"Bonus points if there's a way to mess with their TrueWhite sensor to get it to put out 2900-3000k."
Changing LED Tint With Filters
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?320811-Changing-LED-Tint-With-Filters
Put the filter in front of the sensor instead of the LEDs as suggested in the tread.

Uh don't think power affects color temperature.
If you up the power, most likely the lumen will go up, but the overall lifetime will go down.
If you want a 3000K instead of 2700K, switch the LED.

They are talking about hacking multi-LED fixtures that automatically adjust the power to the various LEDs to keep the color temp within a specified range to output a color temp within a user specified range. IIRC, these have white LEDs along with a few other colors for richness.

The CR6 has multiple colors of LED's in it, and a sensor to keep it at 2700k as the bulb ages or if they use inconsistently colored LED's. The nice thing about this is that you can buy lights from multiple batches or years later and they should still all match in color. There was a rumor that you could fool the sensor into thinking the color was warmer and it would give off less red color, thus raising the color temp.

As for the LSG bulbs, I've burned up about 8 of them. All of the ones I burned up were 18 and 24 watt PAR38's. They were in 6" cans. Some of them stopped working completely, and some would just flash like a strobe or flicker (even when cold). The base is reaching 232F in those cans, which is apparently too hot and it fries the electronics. Their 17W PAR30's worked fine, but really didn't put off enough light (they are in a different room than my CR6's). I'd love to put CR6's in my other rooms, but they just aren't bright enough for the idiotic layout that the builder used for the can lights. I still have 4 more of the PAR38's in cans that have not yet burned up, but I'm sure they eventually will.

I know Cree has the LR6-DR1000 which puts out 1000 lumens. It looks awesome, but I don't think it's $120-awesome. I can justify $40 per can as I was burning out two $11 each Ushio halogens per year in each can. That makes the payoff less than 2 years without counting the savings on the electric bill.

Looking at those CR6's, it should just be a resistor change somewhere to adjust the current going to the LED's. But, there is a lot of crap on that driver board and I have no idea which one(s) would need to be swapped out.

I should also point out that the LSG 18W PAR38's gave me 193 lux at 9 feet, and the Cree CR6 only gives about 43. But, the Cree diffuses the light quite a bit more in my kitchen, so the tops of my cabinets are actually 3 times brighter with the CR6 (as measured with the meter). I actually took measurements in a grid pattern and recorded them, so these are not the only 2 that I did. And that's also a single light in an otherwise dark room, it doesn't include all of them.

If I include all of them, I got over 200 lux at any point on the floor with the Definity, but only a max of 80 with the CR6.

Lighting is a big thing for me. I'm pretty sensitive to "sickly" lighting. Plus, I like the ability to be able to really light up a room if I need to, even though I may dim it down most of the time.

Ideally, someone would release a sensor based LED light that the user could adjust the color on to their preferences, and had interchangeable lenses for different applications.

signal15 said:

As for the LSG bulbs, I've burned up about 8 of them. All of the ones I burned up were 18 and 24 watt PAR38's. They were in 6" cans. Some of them stopped working completely, and some would just flash like a strobe or flicker (even when cold). The base is reaching 232F in those cans, which is apparently too hot and it fries the electronics. Their 17W PAR30's worked fine, but really didn't put off enough light (they are in a different room than my CR6's). I'd love to put CR6's in my other rooms, but they just aren't bright enough for the idiotic layout that the builder used for the can lights. I still have 4 more of the PAR38's in cans that have not yet burned up, but I'm sure they eventually will.

Click to expand...

Do you have fire prone insulation that require the use of insulated cans? If so you are out of luck.
If not you need to get ventilation through the cans to cool the LSG bulbs. Notice how Cree asks you to remove the top plate of the can so there is a big hole on top to let the heat out. You can not really remove the plate with the LSG bulbs but consider drilling some holes in the plate. You need to bring the temperature down to 85°C (185°F) at least, 60°C (140·F) preferred.

LEDninja said:

Do you have fire prone insulation that require the use of insulated cans? If so you are out of luck.
If not you need to get ventilation through the cans to cool the LSG bulbs. Notice how Cree asks you to remove the top plate of the can so there is a big hole on top to let the heat out. You can not really remove the plate with the LSG bulbs but consider drilling some holes in the plate. You need to bring the temperature down to 85°C (185°F) at least, 60°C (140·F) preferred.

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Code requires insulated cans here. Even if they weren't insulated, they have 18 inches of pink fiberglass blown on top of them. It would certainly be nice if they would elaborate a little on the packaging on what you can and cannot use these things in. They say not for use in an enclosed fixture. Well, it doesn't have a glass dome over it, therefore it's not enclosed.

Take a look at the Lighting Science Glimpse LED. The heatsink is on the room side of the can instead of inside the can where heat is trapped. 700 lumens at 2700°K to 750 lumens at 4000°K vs 575 for the CR6. More diffuse than the PAR bulbs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKV0prWPIco

LEDninja said:

Take a look at the Lighting Science Glimpse LED. The heatsink is on the room side of the can instead of inside the can where heat is trapped. 700 lumens at 2700°K to 750 lumens at 4000°K vs 575 for the CR6. More diffuse than the PAR bulbs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKV0prWPIco

Click to expand...

Those actually look pretty neat, and would help solve some of the problems I have right now because of the poor lighting layout since they actually protrude past the ceiling. Do any of your guys have these? The CRI is listed as 80, which is about what a CFL is. I had some Feit lights that had a similarly bad CRI and I hated them. Color temp was fine, but it was "icky" light. I had to fix the Feit ones with photogels.

I may return these CR6 bulbs. They are not providing enough light in my kitchen, and even with all of my task lighting turned on, I'm still not getting the amount that I need. I wish all of these manufacturers would include an illuminance number at 8 or 9 feet, or even a luminance "heat map". The number of lumens a light puts out does not tell me how much light it's actually going to throw to specific points.

signal15 said:

Those actually look pretty neat, and would help solve some of the problems I have right now because of the poor lighting layout since they actually protrude past the ceiling. Do any of your guys have these? The CRI is listed as 80, which is about what a CFL is. I had some Feit lights that had a similarly bad CRI and I hated them. Color temp was fine, but it was "icky" light. I had to fix the Feit ones with photogels.

I may return these CR6 bulbs. They are not providing enough light in my kitchen, and even with all of my task lighting turned on, I'm still not getting the amount that I need. I wish all of these manufacturers would include an illuminance number at 8 or 9 feet, or even a luminance "heat map". The number of lumens a light puts out does not tell me how much light it's actually going to throw to specific points.

Click to expand...

Can you show us a photo of your kitchen? I have 6 of these lights in my in my son's room and they're bright enough (8') ceiling.

Do you have them on a dimmer? Some dimmers do not permit 100% power to lights- I doubt this is happening in your case, but it's something to remember.

I also have the LR6-DR1000 units. They're certainly bright enough.

Cree did introduce a 1000 lumen CR6 like unit- I don't know about it's availability right now, though.

I can't remember where I heard this but I believe the CR6 does not contain the sensor to balance white vs. red light output. The LR6 has such a sensor but Cree determined that the lumen degredation imbalance they wanted to address was a non issue with the chips they put in the CR6.

I think I probably heard about this on a video from Cree's youtube channel. Could be wrong though.