LED newbie questions

Hi everyone,

I have a nuwaii QIII, which I ran on standard QIII batteries, and the LED has busted, which is a shame, as it was a brilliant light. I have no knowledge about luxeon LEDs, but all my other luxeons have been excellent, so I guess this was just bad luck. It did see some seriously heavy use though.

Anyway, unsurprisingly I want some kind of replacement LED, but I really need some info on them. So here goes:

#1) What is the difference between a Luxeon emitter and a luxeon star? Which one do I want do give my QIII?

#2) Looking at some 3W luxeon LEDs in the Dealers section, I see they all have different codes by such as WH, HD, TW0J, WH, HD, TV1L and WH, HD, TX1L. While I am at changing the LED, I may as well get the best one available, i.e. brightest /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

#3) How hard is it to remove the broken LED, and install a new one? I am competent with circuit board work, being a veteran tinkerer with two way radios /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif, but I have no experience of the inside of torches.

Thanks for any help

Are you sure your luxeon died? It actually might be the QIII's board. Some people have had it fail! I don't know about that though, contact member milkyspit for more info on that.

For your Q3 you will need a star.

The codes all called bin codes. They let you know the color and brightness of the LED. I'm guessing you were looking at member photonfantic's thread. I would advise that you get a TYOK, it is almost pure white with just a little hint of blue in the beam.

To remove the LED you first have to open your QIII, let me find that thread that has instructions found it. Click Here

Once you have your new LED you unsolder the old one (paying attention to which wire is + and which is -.



Take the LED out and place in your new LED. The LED will have markings saying what is positive and what is negative so just solder your + wire to a positive point on the LED and your - wire to a positive point on the LED.

If your LED did die is it probably because of the poor heatsinking in the QIII. LED's require a piece of aluminum/copper under them to dissipate the heat, the QIII just has a tiny little ring. Since you use your QIII a lot You might want to replace your heatsink with one from member viren.

QIII Copper Heatsinks

and how to install it...

QIII DD Installation

[ QUOTE ]
Former_Mag_User said:
Since you use your QIII a lot You might want to replace your heatsink with one from member viren.

QIII Copper Heatsinks

and how to install it...

QIII DD Installation

[/ QUOTE ]

Former_Mag_User,
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe you are speaking of Direct Drive if you install viren's heatsink on the Q-III, meaning the Q-III electronics need to be gutted?

and

At this point use recahrgeables instead of standard batteries?

Jim

Yes, it would be direct drive beacuse there is not eough room for the electronics and the heatsink, but yes you should use rechargables. I forgot to mention that. Regular 123 will give a dim light.

Former Mag /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Thanks for the great suggestions. I would also like to add that if you want, you can use QIII-POP2G along with this Heat Sink.... This will give your QIII a Lion-Cub or Lion-Heart like functionality.. with 3 brightness settings and strobe ....

undeclared_wyle: PM Replied ... Thanks for the query.

For the rechargeables, would 3.7V pilas work OK, or would I need to find some 3V rechargeables?

Also, what exactly is the difference between unprotected and protected rechargeables?

Thanks for all your patience

I dont know much about pila batteries.. but a RCR123 Li-Ion battery will work great. If Pila has battery in CR123 Size, Use them, they are Protected ones.

I am not aware of any 3 Volt Rechargables... The only cells that i have seen are Li-Ion Rechargables, which have voltage around 3.7 on Load and 4.12 on No Load Condition

Protected Cells have protection circuit that will protect battery from
1) Short Circuits... thereby protecting Over Heating / Explosion
2) Over Discharging... thereby improving on Cell Life
3) Over Charging... thereby improving on Cell Life & Over Heating (due to Over charge)

Unprotected cells dont have any thing... and they are usually having slightly more capacity than the Protected ones... that's due to more battery "Material" can be enclosed in place of Protection circuit.

You will have to use Un-protected cells with care.. not to let it overdischarge below 2.7 Volts and not to overcharge it above 4.12 Volts.

[ QUOTE ]
For your Q3 you will need a star.

The codes all called bin codes. They let you know the color and brightness of the LED. I'm guessing you were looking at member photonfantic's thread. I would advise that you get a TYOK, it is almost pure white with just a little hint of blue in the beam.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi,
Thanks for your information about removing the LED,

Just wondering about this. I saw there are some threads where an emmitter is used (such as the QIII modding info thread) I may be wrong, but I am assuming the Luxoen emmitters are the *W** rather than *Y**?

And also is the TY/WOK better than the TY/WOK?

You assume wrong,
the first letter gives how much light the LED emits. The latter in alphabeth, the higher the output (= T gives more light than S, ...)

maybe this here: http://home.comcast.net/~theledguy/bin_codes/index.htm can help You (hopefully there is permission to submit the link)

short: 1st letter: light output, next 2: tint color (compared to white), then: voltage, final: global color (w, r, b, g, ..)

To know more about Luxeon Bin's you should read AB21.pdf from Luxeon's Site.

That has whole lot of Details.

In Simple Terms, I will try to Explain the Bin Code ... Taking Example "TWOKW"
T Stands for Lumen's @ Rated Current @ 25 Degree Celcius
WO / YO etc... Stand for Tint (like More Yello, More Blue .... etc)
K/J/H etc stands for the Vf (Voltage across the LED for Rated Current)
W stands for White.

These bin codes apply to both, Emitters & Stars.

Once you open your QIII, you will know what Bin your QIII's Star is...

Anything above S Lumens is good (S,T,U,V ... etc)
Most probably you will have a K Vf Star...

TWOK, TWOJ etc are perfect White Bin's
TXOK, TXOJ etc are "more" white Bin's
TYOK, TYOJ etc are Blueish White (similar to HID)
TX1K, TX1J etc are on Warm White Side...

Hope this helps.