Collimators are available separately!

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I was noticing on Future InActive's site the other day that they have a single Luxeon product, LXHL-NX05, that costs $5.00.

I was wondering what it was, perhaps a discontinued model? I looked for the part number on the web and found nothing. Finally, I just wrote Lumileds and asked. I got the reply this morning:

The LXHL-NX05 is a collimator (the collimator which we are using for our
Leds). I already forwarded your message throughout the organization and we
expect to release the specific datasheet this week.

As soon as this is done I will forward the datasheet to you. This datasheet
will not be presented at our website, because this is not our core product.

So if you need just the collimator, they're in stock and five bucks each at www.future-active.com

 

[Lux Luthor]

Pardon my ignorance, but the only LS's I have gotten have been w/o optics. What exactly is a collimator?

 

[Quickbeam]

The collimator is an "upside-down cone" shaped lens that fits over the Luxeon emitter, resting inside a black cylinder of plastic to hold it in place. I don't have a pic of the lens outside the cylindrical holder, but this mod has a closeup of the LS with the optics.

http://thelightsite.tripod.com/mods/adventureLite_headlamp_mod.htm

There's a pic of one outside the holder on this mod page as well:
http://www.5thcolumn.org/zetex/project/

 

[Bushman]

this is the little plastic lens that comes with the ls/o hense, optics. (collimator)

 

[ElektroLumens]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Duggg:
I was noticing on Future InActive's site that they have a single Luxeon product, LXHL-NX05, that costs $5.00.

I was wondering what it was, perhaps a discontinued model? I looked for the part number on the web and found nothing. Finally, I just wrote Lumileds and asked. I got the reply this morning:

The LXHL-NX05 is a collimator (the collimator which we are using for our
Leds). I already forwarded your message throughout the organization and we
expect to release the specific datasheet this week.

As soon as this is done I will forward the datasheet to you. This datasheet
will not be presented at our website, because this is not our core product.

So if you need just the collimator, they're in stock and five bucks each at www.future-active.com<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


I wish I had known that yesterday, as I just purchased 5 Luxeon emitters. Thanks Doug for the info. Five dollars does seem kind of expensive, though. Now if someone could just make some custom collimators, for a cheaper price?

Wayne www.elektrolumens.com

 

[Sean]

Thanks Duggg! I was just looking for these!

Now I don't have to beg for them anymore.

 

[Gransee]

Yeah, if you remember from the Arc thread, we bugged and pleaded with Lumileds to produce the emitter and lens seperately which they finally did November 1st. Of course they haven't actually had stock until last week....

That's why it has been so long, we don't buy them together anymore but as seperate pieces. This speeds up our production (well it was supposed to

), and improves the emitter quality (the wear and tear of taking them off the boards wasn't good for them) and it also provides us the latest product because the combined units are further along in the supply chain.

Peter Gransee

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Even at $3.38 in lots of 50, it's still pretty expensive. But, it is well-designed and made of PMMA, which is 90% optically efficient.

You could try making your own at home, but you'd have to invest a lot in time and materials to even come close to the same optical quality. It's actually quite an elaborate device.

You could try to offset these costs by selling your models, or quietly incorporating them into your own product, but if they are simply based on a copy of the Luxeon mold, there may ultimately be patent issues to deal with. Big guy vs. little guy.

That said, Lumileds published a document on how to build collimators and other optics. It can be found online at http://www.lumileds.com/pdfs/an1149-5.pdf

But, since they probably only cost a dime to make, we just have to hope Luxeon opens its doors to more than a single distributor. That, I suspect, is the real reason we're paying so much.