headlamp emitter

[divxdude]

i bought this headlamp off ebay..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/110609080212

its says 5 watt but it seems more like a 3 watt to me..
having noticed certain trends by sellers there i suspect it is probably is just 3.

it has 3 modes but i dont know that it has a "driver" just one fully encased chip on a board.

hope the output photo can identifiy the emitter .

since the lamp assembly is all aluminum seems well heatsinked and wondered about overdriving it.
its not going to be a headlamp anymore as i am going to nail it up on the side of my garage and point it at my car for a security lamp and no longer want any "modes"

i found AC drivers on DX just not sure what i can get away with.

 

[bshanahan14rulz]

Looks like an osram LED of some variety, one of the _____ Dragon series, possibly golden dragon, however the second pic doesn't look like any LED I've seen. Is that the backside of the headlamp?

 

[divxdude]

yes backside of lamp. not much to it.. emitter mounted on the opposite side and
a zoomable head with maginfier lens.

is it a type of Cree? its sold as a cree.

the square beam has a line seperating i/4 of the square and a small square corner of that square is missing. the photo is not very good.

 

[robostudent5000]

you're gonna have to take some better pictures of it. as is, it's really hard to tell.

 

[divxdude]

the star is very small has only 4 notches.
the emiiter is encased under a convex lens with round white base.
2 wires.
the star is dark (black ?) on top, contains letters :

BG
L
FM16 (upside down) just under the emitter.

 

[Microa]

This is a cheap 1W LED assembled in China with Taiwan chips. The chip may be made by Everlight.

 

[VegasF6]

Those aren't any Cree led that I am familiar with, and while I don't know everything about LED, I can say pretty confidently they aren't Cree. Feel free to look over their product line yourself:
http://www.cree.com/products/xlamp.asp

Without even better pictures than that it's going to be pretty hard to identify it. That package style is very common, for instance the Osram Edixeon S series looks similar, but they use gold legs. Also what I term "generic Chinese led." such as those sold at Satistonics use that package.

What MCPCB (the base the led is on) doesn't mean much either, as you could mount any led of that style onto another manufacturers base, it's a seperate process.

Don't get too hung up on labels such as 3 watt or 5 watt. In actuality how many watts the led consumes is in part at least, simply a choice of the designer of the circuit. I could easily design a light with a Cree XP-G led for instance to consume 1 watt, or just as easily, 4.6 W or 5.25 watts. It's a matter of the quality of the led and it's efficiency.

I am very confident we can help you here come up with a better design for a fixed lighting project that mounting a headlamp to a wall. They are not designed for constant operation.

 

[divxdude]

what is annoying is that i specfically searched for CREE products and the chinese vendors keep lying about ratings and description etc.
the chinese work very hard for very little pay so i hate to keep filing claims on them but
either they dont understand english or just flat out lie about the items.

i guess the point is that since its not a cree then i cant push it as far and wont last as long?

will adding heatsink make 10 hour sessions more practical?

 

[VegasF6]

The answer is B they out and out lie. There is no confusion as to if they use Cree LEDs.
The reason is obvious as you point out, you, and many others specifically search for "Cree."
The answer is if you have to have a Cree product then buy a brand name light from a reliable dealer instead of the lowest price on eBay. Even one of the budget sites like DX or KD or a few others are much more likely to be honest in their descriptions than just "some guy" on an auction site.

I really think you should rethink your design though. As I said before headlights, especially of questionable pedigree are not designed to run 10 hours a day, day in and day out.

Have a look around the fixed lighting forum and see what others have done. It could be as simple as a 12v wall wart power supply, a linear reg such as an lm317, or salvaged flashlight driver or even just a resistor. I have a led wired directly to a 400 mA cell phone transformer. No regulation of any type. Been told several times what a bad idea it is, but guess what? It's been running for 2 years+
Also, don't limit yourself to Cree. While they carry a huge market share, they certainly aren't the only quality product out there.

Or if you don't have the wherewithall to build your own then look at ready made bulbs with an Edison base or mr16 or gu10. Perhaps something from your local home depot even.

Start a thread in fixed lighting outlining what you want to do and I am sure you will get plenty of help.