Luxeon Quandary

If you wait long enough, you'll probably be able to see 25 watt Luxeon Stars. Question is, will you be able to wait 3-4 years for something like that... The 5 Watters are a few months away from being fully in stock yet, and the timetable for availability, at least for a jump in wattage, seems like 10-12 month intervals.

To me, at least wait for the 5 Watters to become more available. These guys are more adept at challenging conventional incandescents for their practicality of use. The 1 Watters are excellent for their price range, but right now, cannot yet take ahold of the mainstream flashlight market dominated by incands.

things might get more consistant as they improve their production techniques, but at the 1w level, i don't think much is going to change as far as brightness is concerned. if lumileds was working on something, i'm sure info would have leeked.

i think your best bet is to keep buying and modding!

Being a true flashaholic, I am the proud owner of no less than 6 luxeon torches. I enjoy(ed)every step in the process of researching/shopping/buying/using and modifying them.

However I have begun a self imposed 6-12 month moratorium on any more Luxeon purchases. Why? I believe that tomorrow's Luxeons are going to be brighter, cheaper, more consistent and more efficient. The best analogy to this is computers. The one I bought last week will be obsolescent in 6 months.

What do you experts think? Am I waiting too long or not long enough? Is the next generation of Luxeons worth waiting for? Is anyone from Lumileds reading this?

I know some will say you can't have enough flashlights/buy everything. Since I'm not Bill Gates and I have other hobbies that is not an option for me.

One more thing. All I use are 1W white luxeons and I would like to limit this topic to that segment of the market.

If anyone sees 25 watt Luxeon Stars; they most likely will never see anything after that except a lot of spots !

Luxeons are FAR cheaper than PC's!! That being said, I'm gonna keep on building my mods with them.

At the moment there isn't a mainstream electronics retailer carrying Luxeons of any colour or any torches containing them here in the UK.
Is this a reluctance to accept the new technology?
At the moment the best way to obtain a Luxeon modded torch is to buy a ready modded torch from he States from one of you US torchaholics (as I did with the Elektrolumens torch I now proudly own. I think that Maplin, RS and Farnell are really missing out!