NewBie
*Retired*
So, what is it?
This is the new, just released ArcMania SMJLED2 PR2 SS edition drop-in replacement bulb. It is beyond the older MJLED, the old four die SMJLED, and it is the brand new high output SMJLED2 PR SS edition.
Anticipation....
Freshly hitting the docks of The Sandwich Shoppe, this puppy was hot ticket rushed from their docks to my front door by none other than our very proud United States Postal Service, with a warm grin by my friendly Postman.
So, lets get down to the details.
Here we have the business end of the new, just released, ArcMania SMJLED2 PR2 SS edition drop-in:
.
The side-view of the new, just released, ArcMania SMJLED PR2 SS edition drop-in:
.
Okay, lets get this puppy installed, and see what roars under the hood:
.
Well, what shall we use for comparision. Lets fire up the MagLED, and put it next to it. Not bad at all:
.
Lets unstop the light level a bit, and get the flood area into the picture, so we can check things out and see how this puppy really performs and where the light is going:
.
Well now. Things are faring very well, so lets go grab a few other lights and see how things stack up. The contestants:
.
Okay, this is where the rubber really meets the road, without further ado, lets take a look at how the apples fall:
.
Lets once again, un-stop the camera iris a little, so we can start to see the flood area in live action:
.
Finally, lets further un-stop the camera iris even more, so we can get a better idea of what the flood beam looks like:
.
Not a bad little critter, especially for the dollar. It is good to figure in the shipping cost when considering the new SMJLED2 PR2 SS bulb, as it is a very real and important factor to take into consideration. I originally tried it in a few cheap plastic flashlights from Walmart, but the beam was so unfocused, I could not see it against the other flashlights, mostly being lost in the flood area of the other lights.
This is why I chose none other than the finest MagLite host for comparision.
I will be testing this little monster further, so stay tuned for more action with the latest version of the new ArcMania SMJLED2 PR2 SS in real live blow for blow action.
You can purchase one of these puppies at the infamous Sandwich Shoppe (ooh, I'm hungry now!):
http://theledguy.chainreactionweb.com/product_info.php?products_id=853
-----------------------------------------------------------------
As per request, here is the new ArcMania SMJLED2 PR SS with a regular stock Krypton bulb (not a good Xenon-first thing to change in an incandescent flashlight) based Coleman 2D, and the regular MagLED:
.
Bracketed up:
.
And a highly over-exposed picture, showing the flood area of the various lights nicely, but the hotspots are over exposed badly and makes them all look the same brightness, see the previous shots for the center part of the beam :
.
---------------------------------------------
Here we have some real to life outdoor shots:
.
Bracketed up a bit:
.
Bracket up even further:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Okay, folks are wondering what the various parts are that are in the ArcMania SMJLED2 PR SS that is sold at The Shoppe.
I took the module and scrubbed all the flux and junk off it with acetone to make the parts more clear in the photograph.
I've pointed out what each part is, and the probable cost. However, these parts would be alot lower in cost over seas. For example, a 0.1 uF capacitor may cost 0.01 ea here in the USA. However, in Taiwan, where there is still a price markup over the cost in China, one would likely pay 0.0037 ea for these.
Also, this is not a current regulated switcher IC design, it is a simple single NPN transistor oscillator rigged up as a boost supply.
The other half of the product, digging deeper into how it is made:
Chevrofreak, with his eagle eye, has pointed out this product looks remarkably like the Sino Union NIGHT PEARL LED BULB (NPLB) device out of Hong Kong. The internal circuitry is remarkably similar, it uses the same transistor, a smaller schottky diode, one resistor value is slightly different, and the layout has been slightly modified.
An old picture of their first device from way back:
http://www.sinounion.com.hk/index1.htm
***Please be aware that I've witheld alot of additional information on this review on purpose, as I did not want to cast things into too much of a negative light. That was also the purpose of my colorful presentation, to detract from the performance aspect, until the seller had an opportunity to address things. I have still withheld information, so as a buyer, please beware, and make your choices accordingly.
-------
Okay, pulled out the oscilloscope, and took a look at a few waveforms that were on the module, with an input voltage of 2.503 Volts:
--------
Okay, here is some interesting stuff.
I took the module, and coupled it to a Luxeon QYOG emitter (extremely low Vf- 2.818V causes 0.212 Amps of current to flow). I did this to decouple the LED from the circuit performance. The Luxeon QYOG was attached to a large slab of copper to reduce the effects of heat.
With a really good outstanding LED, this circuit, obviously not regulated, still would make for a decent hurricane emergency light.
Between 1.5 and 2.5 Volts, the circuit shows a somewhat respectable efficiency of 70-80% when using an underdriven, ultra low Vf, LumiLEDs Luxeon QYOG LED.
The LED that was used in the SMJLED2 PR SS, actually didn't turn on until after most LEDs (higher VF than my Nichia BS and CS LEDs). The high Vf does help to reduce the current pull, but as we all know, high Vf LEDs tend to be less efficient.
I might be tempted to take a turn off the inductor/transformer's output winding, to reduce the circuit's output for a longer runtime. It would also be alot easier on the LED.
The circuit continued to produce light ouput down to 0.2957V (rather dim), which is a characteristic of these common "Joule Thief" type circuits.
-----
I have purchased additional SMJLED2 PR SS bulbs, and I am seeing very little difference, if any at all, from the first one.
I went down and purchased a low cost host, which in this case was a Garrity AA Glo light. Several folks said this would be the type of flashlight they'd use this blub in.
During the Super Heavy Duty cell run, my light meter software had an error at ~140 and 7 hours, so everything after that was deleted.
The Alkaline cells were Energizer Max, just purchased, with date code 2010.
There are multiple lines for each cell, since Excel 97 does not like to plot 134,000 datapoints at once. (Yes, samples were taken, once each second) It still hollers at me, but it works (it doesn't like over 32,000 datapoints on a graph).
I have runtimes on NiMH and Lithium to go yet.
I believe it was Quickbeam that started the runtime definition, as time to 50% output. Using this definition:
Super Heavy Duty cells: 2.9 hours
Alkaline cells: 10.5 hours
-----
Hi Christoph.
I'm sorry this is taking so long.
The reason why it is taking so long, is that I found a problem with the SMJLED2 PR SS.
I had a file glitch on the first Lithium cell run, then the second time, the light meter cells went dead, so I am on my third run now.
But these issues allowed me to stumble on something else. Each time I found there was a loss of light output. It works out to be a 45% loss (for the initial peak during the run) by only the third set of Energizer e^2 Lithium AA cells.
The brown trace in interrupted due to the file glitch.
The medium blue trace is where the batteries went dead.
The green trace is the third lithium AA run.
I have a third ArcMania SMJLED2 PR SS which I purchased that I will be doing a life runtime on, off a regulated power supply, to see if it is the Lithium cells that are killing it, or if it is just due to the drive to the LED.
-----
I took my third ArcMania SMJLED2 PR SS, and connected it to a regulated 2.8V power supply. At the bulb, I added an 1,800 uF capacitor, so wire lengths would not affect things.
I chose 2.8V, as it is close to what a very lightly loaded NiMH does, and they discharge relatively flat, and is less than what lightly loaded Alkaline D cells would be.
It appears as though some of the light drop over time, that I'd originally considered might be due to the battery voltage dropping, is accentuated by the rapid lumen loss of the 5mm LED over time.
Okay, well it is time to put this one to rest.
The LED's light output has dropped by 20 times it's peak value in the begining.
Thus it has reached only 5% of its original light output level.
The final chart is below, as well as the actual data source file, if you'd like to download it and play with it a bit yourself.
Source data for download:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/smjled2.xls
Here you can see how the phosphor is now really dark over the die:
I took a Royal Blue LED, to excite the phosphor, and notice how the phosphor is no longer excited by the blue light over the die area:
Here is the die lit up, notice how there is very little yellow being produced above and near the die, and how it is darkish over the die:
Oh, and before I forget:
- The current draw by the bulb was 0.2A @ 2.8V, the same as it was at the beginning of the test.
And finally, we have the comparision beamshots against some low output flashlights I dug up, after ArcMania's SMJLED2 PR SS has had ~245 hours on it:
One of the many photos of what went wrong in the ArcMania SMJLED2 PR SS, many more are shown later in this thread:
One of our cpf'ers asked me to cross-section one of the LEDs that hasn't burned itself up yet. Here is one of the photos, there are many more, towards the end of the thread:
This is the new, just released ArcMania SMJLED2 PR2 SS edition drop-in replacement bulb. It is beyond the older MJLED, the old four die SMJLED, and it is the brand new high output SMJLED2 PR SS edition.
Anticipation....
Freshly hitting the docks of The Sandwich Shoppe, this puppy was hot ticket rushed from their docks to my front door by none other than our very proud United States Postal Service, with a warm grin by my friendly Postman.
So, lets get down to the details.
Here we have the business end of the new, just released, ArcMania SMJLED2 PR2 SS edition drop-in:
.
The side-view of the new, just released, ArcMania SMJLED PR2 SS edition drop-in:
.
Okay, lets get this puppy installed, and see what roars under the hood:
.
Well, what shall we use for comparision. Lets fire up the MagLED, and put it next to it. Not bad at all:
.
Lets unstop the light level a bit, and get the flood area into the picture, so we can check things out and see how this puppy really performs and where the light is going:
.
Well now. Things are faring very well, so lets go grab a few other lights and see how things stack up. The contestants:
.
Okay, this is where the rubber really meets the road, without further ado, lets take a look at how the apples fall:
.
Lets once again, un-stop the camera iris a little, so we can start to see the flood area in live action:
.
Finally, lets further un-stop the camera iris even more, so we can get a better idea of what the flood beam looks like:
.
Not a bad little critter, especially for the dollar. It is good to figure in the shipping cost when considering the new SMJLED2 PR2 SS bulb, as it is a very real and important factor to take into consideration. I originally tried it in a few cheap plastic flashlights from Walmart, but the beam was so unfocused, I could not see it against the other flashlights, mostly being lost in the flood area of the other lights.
This is why I chose none other than the finest MagLite host for comparision.
I will be testing this little monster further, so stay tuned for more action with the latest version of the new ArcMania SMJLED2 PR2 SS in real live blow for blow action.
You can purchase one of these puppies at the infamous Sandwich Shoppe (ooh, I'm hungry now!):
http://theledguy.chainreactionweb.com/product_info.php?products_id=853
-----------------------------------------------------------------
As per request, here is the new ArcMania SMJLED2 PR SS with a regular stock Krypton bulb (not a good Xenon-first thing to change in an incandescent flashlight) based Coleman 2D, and the regular MagLED:
.
Bracketed up:
.
And a highly over-exposed picture, showing the flood area of the various lights nicely, but the hotspots are over exposed badly and makes them all look the same brightness, see the previous shots for the center part of the beam :
.
---------------------------------------------
Here we have some real to life outdoor shots:
.
Bracketed up a bit:
.
Bracket up even further:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NewBie said:As per request, here is the new ArcMania SMJLED2 PR SS with a regular stock Krypton bulb (not a good Xenon-first thing to change in an incandescent flashlight) based Coleman 2D, and the regular MagLED:
.
Bracketed up:
.
And a highly over-exposed picture, showing the flood area of the various lights nicely, but the hotspots are over exposed badly and makes them all look the same brightness, see the previous shots for the center part of the beam :
.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NewBie said:I did a little testing today, you can see here where I drilled in with a very small drill and stuck a K-type thermocouple underneath the reflector, on the lead. It was a bit cooler than the die was, it was at 70.1 degrees C (158.18F)at this point. The die was even a good bit warmer than that.
Removing the outer PR base, one finds an aluminum sleeve, to aid in carrying the heat to the PR base, some thermal paste between this sleeve and the LED leads, internal contact mechanism as well as the PCB and inductor.
Here we have the torroidial "transformer", and converter circuit. The free bottom lead was soldered to the "base" of the SOT-23, and the upper free lead was soldered to the "collector" of the SOT-23. You will also notice the schottky diode at the bottom of the picture, as well as three capacitors and one resistor:
Here I have carefully removed the phosphor, you can still see some of the phosphor and epoxy mix at the bottom, in a thin layer, that makes things look grainy. This LED still uses the old epoxy phosphor mix that degrades more rapidly with heat, and causes lumen loss over a short period of time. I was hoping to find that the phosphor mix was of the long lasting silicone gel base, which can also deal with considerably more heat, and a much slower degradation rate.
You will notice, This LED (SMJLED2 PR SS) does NOT use a CREE XLamp die
In another thread it was claimed the SMJLED2 PR SS used a CREE XLamp die, it is definitely not a CREE XLamp die.
A better close-up of the die that is not a CREE XLamp die:
Another shot of the SMJLED2 PR SS die (not a CREE Xlamp die):
Additional shots of the CREE XLamp die for comparision purposes:
-----
Okay, folks are wondering what the various parts are that are in the ArcMania SMJLED2 PR SS that is sold at The Shoppe.
I took the module and scrubbed all the flux and junk off it with acetone to make the parts more clear in the photograph.
I've pointed out what each part is, and the probable cost. However, these parts would be alot lower in cost over seas. For example, a 0.1 uF capacitor may cost 0.01 ea here in the USA. However, in Taiwan, where there is still a price markup over the cost in China, one would likely pay 0.0037 ea for these.
Also, this is not a current regulated switcher IC design, it is a simple single NPN transistor oscillator rigged up as a boost supply.
The other half of the product, digging deeper into how it is made:
Chevrofreak, with his eagle eye, has pointed out this product looks remarkably like the Sino Union NIGHT PEARL LED BULB (NPLB) device out of Hong Kong. The internal circuitry is remarkably similar, it uses the same transistor, a smaller schottky diode, one resistor value is slightly different, and the layout has been slightly modified.
An old picture of their first device from way back:
http://www.sinounion.com.hk/index1.htm
***Please be aware that I've witheld alot of additional information on this review on purpose, as I did not want to cast things into too much of a negative light. That was also the purpose of my colorful presentation, to detract from the performance aspect, until the seller had an opportunity to address things. I have still withheld information, so as a buyer, please beware, and make your choices accordingly.
-------
Okay, pulled out the oscilloscope, and took a look at a few waveforms that were on the module, with an input voltage of 2.503 Volts:
--------
Okay, here is some interesting stuff.
I took the module, and coupled it to a Luxeon QYOG emitter (extremely low Vf- 2.818V causes 0.212 Amps of current to flow). I did this to decouple the LED from the circuit performance. The Luxeon QYOG was attached to a large slab of copper to reduce the effects of heat.
With a really good outstanding LED, this circuit, obviously not regulated, still would make for a decent hurricane emergency light.
Between 1.5 and 2.5 Volts, the circuit shows a somewhat respectable efficiency of 70-80% when using an underdriven, ultra low Vf, LumiLEDs Luxeon QYOG LED.
The LED that was used in the SMJLED2 PR SS, actually didn't turn on until after most LEDs (higher VF than my Nichia BS and CS LEDs). The high Vf does help to reduce the current pull, but as we all know, high Vf LEDs tend to be less efficient.
I might be tempted to take a turn off the inductor/transformer's output winding, to reduce the circuit's output for a longer runtime. It would also be alot easier on the LED.
The circuit continued to produce light ouput down to 0.2957V (rather dim), which is a characteristic of these common "Joule Thief" type circuits.
-----
I have purchased additional SMJLED2 PR SS bulbs, and I am seeing very little difference, if any at all, from the first one.
I went down and purchased a low cost host, which in this case was a Garrity AA Glo light. Several folks said this would be the type of flashlight they'd use this blub in.
During the Super Heavy Duty cell run, my light meter software had an error at ~140 and 7 hours, so everything after that was deleted.
The Alkaline cells were Energizer Max, just purchased, with date code 2010.
There are multiple lines for each cell, since Excel 97 does not like to plot 134,000 datapoints at once. (Yes, samples were taken, once each second) It still hollers at me, but it works (it doesn't like over 32,000 datapoints on a graph).
I have runtimes on NiMH and Lithium to go yet.
I believe it was Quickbeam that started the runtime definition, as time to 50% output. Using this definition:
Super Heavy Duty cells: 2.9 hours
Alkaline cells: 10.5 hours
-----
Christoph said:Looking for this
Hi Christoph.
I'm sorry this is taking so long.
The reason why it is taking so long, is that I found a problem with the SMJLED2 PR SS.
I had a file glitch on the first Lithium cell run, then the second time, the light meter cells went dead, so I am on my third run now.
But these issues allowed me to stumble on something else. Each time I found there was a loss of light output. It works out to be a 45% loss (for the initial peak during the run) by only the third set of Energizer e^2 Lithium AA cells.
The brown trace in interrupted due to the file glitch.
The medium blue trace is where the batteries went dead.
The green trace is the third lithium AA run.
I have a third ArcMania SMJLED2 PR SS which I purchased that I will be doing a life runtime on, off a regulated power supply, to see if it is the Lithium cells that are killing it, or if it is just due to the drive to the LED.
-----
I took my third ArcMania SMJLED2 PR SS, and connected it to a regulated 2.8V power supply. At the bulb, I added an 1,800 uF capacitor, so wire lengths would not affect things.
I chose 2.8V, as it is close to what a very lightly loaded NiMH does, and they discharge relatively flat, and is less than what lightly loaded Alkaline D cells would be.
It appears as though some of the light drop over time, that I'd originally considered might be due to the battery voltage dropping, is accentuated by the rapid lumen loss of the 5mm LED over time.
Okay, well it is time to put this one to rest.
The LED's light output has dropped by 20 times it's peak value in the begining.
Thus it has reached only 5% of its original light output level.
The final chart is below, as well as the actual data source file, if you'd like to download it and play with it a bit yourself.
Source data for download:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/smjled2.xls
Here you can see how the phosphor is now really dark over the die:
I took a Royal Blue LED, to excite the phosphor, and notice how the phosphor is no longer excited by the blue light over the die area:
Here is the die lit up, notice how there is very little yellow being produced above and near the die, and how it is darkish over the die:
Oh, and before I forget:
- The current draw by the bulb was 0.2A @ 2.8V, the same as it was at the beginning of the test.
And finally, we have the comparision beamshots against some low output flashlights I dug up, after ArcMania's SMJLED2 PR SS has had ~245 hours on it:
One of the many photos of what went wrong in the ArcMania SMJLED2 PR SS, many more are shown later in this thread:
One of our cpf'ers asked me to cross-section one of the LEDs that hasn't burned itself up yet. Here is one of the photos, there are many more, towards the end of the thread:
Last edited:
Let's play nice now.....
