dx Q5???

[berto]

someone please help. I just recived 6 Q5 crees from dealextreme. I modded 4 lights (2 u2 clones and 2 ultrafire c2's) the u2 clones are barley brighter than unmodded u2 clones and I cant tell the difference in the c2's vs unmoded c2 I thought the Q5 were suppost to be way brighter. Does anyone know whats going on?

 

[Dobbler]

Mine haven't arrived yet, but this is not encouraging... :duh2:

 

[jake25]

i got my Q5 WC Bin from cutter electronics, i think its a good improvment but you have to realize its not going to be from say 150 lumen to 1000 lumen.

what i do notice is that the sidespill is brighter but the middle hotspot is only slightly more bright. for 15 dollars its a good experience.

 

[StefanFS]

Try them outside over a longer distance, somewhere as dark as you can possibly find. It's difficult to tell the difference side by side on a wall inside. Most of my upgrades to Q5 have meant 25-35% more output.
Stefan

 

[1 what]

Very interesting......I've got a couple of Q5's from Cutter electronics and have been most impressed. I'm waiting on a couple more from DX so it will be very interesting to see how they shape up. I'll keep you posted.

 

[glockboy]

Clean the thread, and tighten the inside of the tailcap.
My U2 clone "Q5 from DX" is much brighter than the unmoded U2 clone.

 

[copiertech]

my dx q5 made a noticeable difference in my regulated ultrafire c1 but not as big a difference in my dd vinet. perhaps it`s due to the vf of the led. if thats the case hopefully runtime will be better dd as it will be drawing less current. the tint is great though i`m going to order some more

 

[rizky_p]

Even my WF-600 Cree Q2 make a different when shining distance object such as tree compared to Cree Projection which uses P4. Close range though the different is not noticable.

btw. i am still waiting mine, DX actually confess that they forget to process my Q5 order

 

[rantanplan]

My thoughts ... It´s obviously so that (most) Crees of a Q5-bin do have a higher Vf than the lower binned ones. That means that the Q5 is brighter at a given current compared to a P4 for example, but needs a higher voltage to reach that current, which results in a higher power dissipation(P=I*U) as well btw. ...

Both the U2 clone and the C2 are lights in which the battery voltage and the Vf of the LED are relative close together. This small margin is further reduced by losses because of resistance (switch, driver, body, etc.). If you then switch to a LED which operates at a higher voltage level, the current will go down a bit. The reduced current is compensated by a higher LED effiency so that the output stays the same.

 

[lexina]

My two Q5s from Kai made only a minor difference in brightness but what i really like are the warmer tints vs the original bluish-white tints of the P4s that I had. Other than the bin (Q5 vs P4), the difference in vf would affect the brightness.

 

[Bordermeister]

I have modded my U2 clone with a DX Q5.

It didn't seem any brighter against the wall, but when I took it outside at night, it had a much brighter throw, and the colour was a bit warmer.

After experiencing the difference, I am going to get a 'Cutter' Q5 WC tint.

It was worth the upgrade but want a higher output/bin (have become addicted).


Overall, I am happy with the output upgrade with the DX Q5 for the price.

Will probably grab another 1 or 2 to upgrade my Ultrafire C2s. But will grab the WC tint Q5s to upgrade my MRV and Dereelight whenthey arrive....

Cheers
Mark

 

[berto]

ok I will try it tonight when its dark. by having a higher vf does this mean its using less current than the p4?

 

[WadeF]

Does anyone have images on modding a C2? Mine has a black seal around the LED that's really tight. I guess I just need to punch a hole in it and tear it off?

I find for these modest gains in output, like going from 150 lumens to 190 lumens, etc, you really need to take a meter reading as it's often hard to see the difference, especially if you can't see the lights side by side and are just trying to remember what one looked like before.

 

[lexina]

ok I will try it tonight when its dark. by having a higher vf does this mean its using less current than the p4?

I guess you could say that. A higher vf means the led is less efficient. If you have a constant voltage source and 2 otherwise identical leds (say both P4s) with different vfs, the one with a higher vf will draw less current and be dimmer. If one is a P4 and the other a Q2, it's possible that they will be the same brightness eventhough one is drawing less current.

 

[WadeF]

Just ground down a DX Cree Q5 and I'm putting it in a C2. This is my first attempt at doing something like this, so we'll see. Just waiting for the arctic alumina mixture to cure more. Than I'll solder it up and see if the board survived.

 

[hp84117]

I ordered two Q5's from DX that appear significantly brighter than p4's. One of them is in a mag aspheric that is amazingly bright.

I then ordered another pair from Kai. One of those went into a Fenix P3D and it doesn't seem any brighter than the P4 it replaced. The other went into a mod that doesn't meet my expectations of a Q5.

I have more Q5's coming from another source and will do some swaps to get a better idea of how the batches match up.

 

[WadeF]

Got my DX Q5 into my Ultrafire C2. Not sure if I did the best job of modding, but this is what I got. On a AW protected 18650 I didn't see a difference in output, but I did see an improvement in tint. I took a reading in my bounce box, and I got the same reading I got with the original emitter.. However, when I loaded two primaries, or two AW RCR123's I got a big jump. About 50% more light! I went from an EV reading of 10.2 to 10.7. EV of 10 to an EV of 11 would be double the light. So 10.2, to 10.7, is a 0.5 EV increase. The original reading of 10.2EV puts it around 140-150 lumens, the 10.7 reading should put it over 200 lumens! I would think to get 200 lumens out the front of a light you would need a Q5 to do it, a P4 would probably have a hard time getting over 150-160 out the front.

So does it make sense that going from 4 volts to 8 volts would make a big difference? I'm not sure how the circuit works with the C2. Unfortunately I didn't test with the original emitter with the RCR123's and primaries.

 

[Krit]

My Q5 is much higher than P4 when I feed around 500-600 mA, P4 is seem to be brighter than Q5. Now I try to change driver to feed more current to get more brightness.

 

[worldedit]

I modded a cheap Cree light with the Kai Q5. It didnt get brighter while the tint is better. The LED came mounted on a star. The led gets very hot while the star stays pretty cool. These stars are very ineffective as a heatsink. These Q5s are not a good deal.

 

[Nake]

I then ordered another pair from Kai. One of those went into a Fenix P3D and it doesn't seem any brighter than the P4 it replaced. The other went into a mod that doesn't meet my expectations of a Q5.

What did you do to get the emitter off of the star? I would like to attempt this.