5W White Luxeon - No longer "exists" !

Check out Lumileds latest datasheet - DS34 - which is the 5W emitter datasheet. It no longer lists white as an available color!

Shucks... no WONDER the smilies are all blue....

Whoops - jumped the gun on this one. The 5 watters have been given a new naming scheme by Lumileds:

Luxeon V: All the 5W colors, except white.
Luxeon V Portable: The White 5W luxeons.

DS35 is for the Luxeon V.
DS40 covers the white 5W Luxeons.

Hehe... sorry for the shock. Actually, since there's only me posting here, I'm sorry for my own shock.

I truly hope that Luxeon doesn't market this like other companies do

I have seen this where a company all of a sudden have a great product - and then they build a new company around it and make it incredibly difficult to purchase because of forms/procedures

Mike
www.inretech.com

Seems to me that they are already rather difficult to purchase. Only one real vendor and you have to call in to order stuff and no descriptions or info on the site and everything only organized via cryptic codes with no explanation except deep in various PDF documents.

I know that regular humans buying the things are a small market, but they could market to us specifically with a very small extra effort on their part.

-James

I guess that's why the CPF is so heavily membered now. It's probably the most comprehensive public source of info on the Luxeon. Google searches regularly yield links to the CPF and CPF member pages when using the keyword "luxeon".

Well, apart from a documented in their binning/labelling nomenclature, the parts seem to be fairly consistent in their naming. I only wish that the those labels correlate accurately to the actual product itself! Even if you get a "Q3JW" or "Q2H", its still actually a very broad spread within even that specific binn.

Originally posted by hotfoot:
Whoops - jumped the gun on this one. The 5 watters have been given a new naming scheme by Lumileds:

Luxeon V: All the 5W colors, except white.
Luxeon V Portable: The White 5W luxeons.

DS35 is for the Luxeon V.
DS40 covers the white 5W Luxeons.

Hehe... sorry for the shock. Actually, since there's only me posting here, I'm sorry for my own shock.

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Typo above, Hotfoot meant DS34, not DS35. BTW, those maintaining the latest datasheets, you need to download a new DS30 also.
A look at the latest datasheets is illuminating. For the colored devices [DS30 and DS34] they have deleted all lumen maintainance data. Draw your own conclusions. For the white devices [DS40] they include some very discouraging lumen maintenance data and further acknowledge that while they may operate beyond 500 hours they are not characterized beyond 500 hours. Operating at 700mA and a board temp of 75C they give a lumen maintenance of 75% at 500 hours. At 85C and 600mA [I calculate this to correspond to only 2.5C higher Tj than the 75C/700mA case] the lumen maintenance drops to 65%. Those who would drive the **** out of these should take note!
BTW, the note in the right column of page 8 of DS40 almost certainly contains a typo. I believe that "recoverable light output loss" should read "non-recoverable light output loss".
Other changes noted, "typical" lumens for white side emitters reduced to 105 from 110; metal core PCB max temp reduced from 75C to 70C.
Anyone note any other significant changes? I skimmed through the new DS rather quickly.

Attn mod makers and manufacturers--better make those 5W Luxeons user-replacable

To add to Saaby,
Attn mod makers and manufacturers--please, please make a current limiter curuit for the 5w LS so I can use 7.2V NiCads

Does somebody want to help me out here? We use LEDs because they have LONG LIFE but now we can't expect long life from the 5 Watters. Why would anyone bother to design such a device into their product?
These guys have got to get the life span up or they will have no market. Nobody will sell Luxeon headlamps for cars if they need to be replaced every 60 days.---Marc

Originally posted by MicroE:
Does somebody want to help me out here? We use LEDs because they have LONG LIFE but now we can't expect long life from the 5 Watters. Why would anyone bother to design such a device into their product?
These guys have got to get the life span up or they will have no market. Nobody will sell Luxeon headlamps for cars if they need to be replaced every 60 days.---Marc

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I just think that the 5 Watter needs to be underdriven some..like the 2-3 Watts that Gransee is going to use in the LS3-whenever the white 5 watt jobs ever materialize, that is.

500 hours is down right pathetic for a 5 Watt LS white... or for any LED. Why people get LEDs are because of the efficient lighting and long life. Cancel anyone of those characteristics out and LEDs don't look so attractive anymore. Humfph...

Originally posted by Doug S:

Anyone note any other significant changes? I skimmed through the new DS rather quickly.

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Not only that, but the part numbers for the white LS are now different:
The LXHL-PW02 is now the LXHL-PW03
The LXHL-LW5C is now the LXHL-LW6C
Similarly for the side emitters...

Anyone get the feeling that whatever problems they were having with the white 5W (causing the group buy delay) have turned out bigger than they expected?

500+ hours really sucks. It also makes using them a whole lot more trickier, considering most of us would be using thermal epoxy to attach them to a heatsink. Replace the LS and you then need to replaece the HS too...

Hey, and what happened to the blue Graemlins? They where there last night

500 hours is certainly the pits compared to 100,000 hours or 50,000 hours. With the expense of the Luxeons and the fact that few are installed in a *replaceable* format, expected life span can be a real issue.

On the other hand I find it humorous that some of the LED's such as the Nichia, which can have these long life spans, when properly driven, are being way over diriven by many of the small pocket LED lights as well as the key chain lights. I don't believe I have seen much concern expressed here on the CPF about a LED rated to run at 30 mA max, that is in fact running with over 100 mA of current.

I hope to get a few of the 500 hour white 5 Watt emitters within a couple of weeks. At least this is what I've been lead to believe from discussion with Future. Frankly, in the mod I am planning, I think 500 hours is a long time! I doubt I will log this much time on that LED and if I do, by the time this LED dies, I will probably replace the flashlight with a fuel cell flashlight driving who knows what! The mod I have in mind will likely eat 4 123 batteries per hour. 500 hours represents 2000 batteries at say $2.00 ea, that's a paultry $4000!

If the LED cost $40, this represents 1% of the cost to drive it. I think I am much more likely to burn up an overdriven photon style LED than I am a 5W Luxeon!

As stated above, for near constant use such as vehicular applications, the 500 hours is a real problem. For fixed illumination and transportation, this is a problem. For the casual flashlight user, this is less of a problem. For a constant user of flashlights, this may be a problem but then there are other cost issues as well. Certainly rechargeable batteries would need to be employed and with constant current drivers on the Luxeons, it's still a rocky road when considering the safe discharge levels of rechargeables, IMHO.

Forgive this ramble it's just that I think the proper perspective on the use of these Luxeons is often case not the perspective in place. But what do I know, I suffer from flashiholisim! If I didn't, would I be considering a 5W Luxeon mod? I doubt I'd know what a 5W Luxeon is let alone be concerned about it's life expectancy!

hell with it- I'd rather buy lots of 1w emmitters instead of a few 5-watters, if the lumen-maint is THAT bad.

Hopefully, they'll come out with 'revised' 5watt LED's that don't degrade like that. Perhaps a 4-lead 3w with a blue, a green, and a red 1w emmitter in there, so we can make a 'tunable' white-light? Be nice, but the reworking of the production lines would likely make them $50 a pop.

Goofy question: has anyone actually tested how long normal flashlight bulbs last, in NORMAL use? Anyone want to make a 'timer' circuit to measure how long the bulb lasts, in a normal-duty (not pampered) light?

I think they die a lot sooner than the spec-sheets say. Especially with 2.7v bulbs being driben @ 3v, and other items... (4.8v halogen in a 4D light) Admittedly, that's about in the middle of the alkaline discharge curve, but shocks and such take their toll.

5w LS = 500 hours?
Give me a four 1.2w LS cluster then! It will put out the same light and be cheaper in the long run. Luxeon better get the usability of those LEDs up!

Why does the 5W have this problem? It's just four 1 watters in series/parallel. Is it that the phosphor gets too hot, whereas it doesn't in a 1W? If so, shouldn't underdriving them give them the usual 100,000 hour lifespan?

The phosphor getting too hot is my bet also. The 1W had a big glob of phosphor while the 5W has a nice thin film. I bet the glob makes for a better heat sink and keeps the phosphor from burning up. But what do I know. Maybe Lumileds should try a thicker film.

Guys, I've set a luxeon afire before with a BBQ lighter. Even when held over that flame for 30 seconds straight, neither the lens nor the phosphor drastically deformed or changed color

That phosphor is tuff stuff!

I believe failure is probably due to the destruction of the PN junction itself. And perhaps the bond wires may detach due to the heat.

In case you're wondering WHY I set a luxeon on fire, its because I had to ensure the luxeon-based products I sell don't contribute (ie. add fuel) to a fire. Dirty job, but someone's got to do it