Does anyone want to know what the die of a Luxeon Rebel looks like?

[LukeA]

I am not pleased to announce that I have ripped the dome off of a Rebel. I was soldering it for an outdoor light. I went to cut the wire and the LED slipped in the crosslocking tweezers and the dome sheared right off.

Pics:

The half of the circuit I've completed. (bad focus)

The die itself. I did scrape some phosphor off of the die with a pin on the right side. (also pretty bad focus)

 

[Gryloc]

LukeA,

Oooh, that is unfortunate for you since you have to get more Rebels, but this is also very nice of you to share your "modified" Rebels in the name of science to the CPF community. Thank you! I was pondering getting some myself for testing/playing. I noticed that those are built very ruggedly, and the whites, blues, royal blues, and greens seem to not have any bond wires connecting to the die (the red, red/orange, and amber do, I think).

Can you give us some more information? It seems like not too many people on the CPF ever end up doing any destructive testing on their LEDs (whether intentional or not).

-When the dome came off, did it come off cleanly? Was there any remaining silicone dome material sticking up that you had to cut off?
-Did any of the yellow phosphor cling to the removed dome, or did all or most of it stay on the die?
-Was it easy to remove the remaining phosphor from the die (was it adhered well)?
-Does the LED still light up well after the dome is gone?

Could you post a few more pictures of the Rebel next to the sheared off dome? If this happens again, would you mind positing more pictures? I was interested to see what happens with no dome, whether all the yellow phosphor material would stay on the die, and still operate well without the dome. Rebels seem to be built like a tank, like the K2, so that makes me feel even better about Lumiled's quality and design. Once again, thanks for sharing! This is valuable information to us!


-Tony

 

[LukeA]

LukeA,

Oooh, that is unfortunate for you since you have to get more Rebels, but this is also very nice of you to share your "modified" Rebels in the name of science to the CPF community. Thank you! I was pondering getting some myself for testing/playing. I noticed that those are built very ruggedly, and the whites, blues, royal blues, and greens seem to not have any bond wires connecting to the die (the red, red/orange, and amber do, I think).

Can you give us some more information? It seems like not too many people on the CPF ever end up doing any destructive testing on their LEDs (whether intentional or not).

-When the dome came off, did it come off cleanly? Was there any remaining silicone dome material sticking up that you had to cut off?
-Did any of the yellow phosphor cling to the removed dome, or did all or most of it stay on the die?
-Was it easy to remove the remaining phosphor from the die (was it adhered well)?
-Does the LED still light up well after the dome is gone?

Could you post a few more pictures of the Rebel next to the sheared off dome? If this happens again, would you mind positing more pictures? I was interested to see what happens with no dome, whether all the yellow phosphor material would stay on the die, and still operate well without the dome. Rebels seem to be built like a tank, like the K2, so that makes me feel even better about Lumiled's quality and design. Once again, thanks for sharing! This is valuable information to us!


-Tony

I'll answer those questions in order.

The dome sheared off cleanly. I ended with two pieces: the flat bed on the package bodt and the dome. I didn't have to cut any.

Most (about 80%) of the phosphor stuck to the dome.

The little phosphor that clung to the die came off fairly easily. The die is very smooth, and it makes sense to me that the phosphor would come off easily.

The LED is just as bright, if not brighter without the phosphor/dome. It's just very blue now.

Here is the emitter next to the dome. See how much of the phosphor stuck to the dome. The way it's oriented is the way it was attached.

Through some paper towel for diffusion. One of the purest blue things I've ever seen.

Different Rebel in package (unused).

All the magnified images are 30x. Suprisingly good results from a 3x zoom digicam and a 10x eye loupe, IMO.