Are there any bulbs from say home depot/lowes that are good candidates for harvesting led's? I'm looking mainly for emitters that are good in a flashlight like xml, xpg, mce, nichia etc..
No real chance of damaging the leds, plenty of experience reflowing. Bulbs are pretty cheap and have several emitters that if purchased individually would cost more than double the price of the bulb.
Just doing a quick search, this assumption is incorrect though. Using the Cree 4Flow as a reference, the eight LEDs can be bought from digi-key cheaper than buying the bulb. Buying enough of them negates the shipping cost. This all assumes you value your labor at zero. Thinking about it more, most LEDs for light bulbs are going to have large spread or will be more side-emitting. They would be terrible for flashlights.
If you're still dead set on going this way, I'd just buy the cheapest bulb you can find because those usually have all the LEDs on a single board and they are much less picky about light directionality and the like.
Like I said in my original post, I am specifically looking for bulbs that use xml, xpg etc.. but it seems that most of the newer bulbs are just using more of the low power emitters.
I dont care about any labor involved, desoldering is easy and fast, plus, hobbies rarely pay a salary