recent white LS purchase...

[papasan]

mark hannah recently recieved a shipment of white low-dome luxeon stars in so i ordered a few...just recieved them today...i have a couple amber hi-domes but i thought i would buy a couple whites to compare even though they are rated at half the lumen output...

wow...it wasn't what i expected...it has a very purple tint to it and a couple (one rather sizeable) blue blobs in it...still, it's not a monochrome color so it's usable for its inteded purpose, but not anything like what i've read about from other LS owners...sounds similar to the pink hues i've been reading about...a strange mutt indeed...

a theory of mine is that the whites are getting hard to come by (read gransee's posts about still waiting for a november order) because luxeon is gearing up for its white hi-dome production (which, for all intents and purposes, would nullify the low-domes) and they're getting rid of their 'seconds' or ones that didn't quite make the initial cut...or perhaps they're just having problems getting a decent number of 'good' LSes from their current prodection set-up and they're re-tooling it and this is causing shortages...

any thoughts from the peanut gallery?...

** edit **

forgot to mention these are LSes with optics...perhaps i should order a couple without and just pull the colminator off an older one...

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I just recieved a couple of LS w/o optics. I am very inpressed with the beam color and quality. It is the PERFECT hue, and if they could reproduce this in all their LED's, they would have an even better product. BTW I have one of the LS's in a AAA DB conversion.

Eric

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Yeah, they were the emitter only. All five of the ones that I recieved have the same overall quality. The only thing that I noticed is that they also hava a SLIGHT halo around the edge, but beam quality is impressive. Hopefully their QC will increase with the high-domes.

Eric

 

[papasan]

now why would the bare emitters be of good quality while the versions with optics are sketchy?...there is no difference in the dies, is there?...

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I got a pair of white LS's (without optics) from Mark Hannah and they both have a distinct purple/pink tint, very similar to that produced by a fluorescent light.

 

[lambda]

I just got another lot of bare Luxeons, and so far here's what I see.

1) Very bad phosphor coating, emitts a bright blue half ring out of one side. Not useful for flashlight.

2) Green; that about sums it up, it's a shitty pale green, and not very bright compared to last ones.

Going to just test the rest and see id any are like what I got before..........

 

[lambda]

Ok, I think I know what the problem is with the differing colors. From what I can see, the phosphor "blob" is thicker on the more green ones, and the "blob" is thiner on the more blue/wht colored ones. Doesn't help with ordering, but I think I could use the two I've got and pick out the 'whities' just by looking at them.

Look at the bond wires to "see" the different thickness of the phosphor.

This would also explain the difference in brightness. The more green ones, beacuse they have a thicker layer, (actually too thick) can't shine through the extra phosphor as well.

Guess the only hope is drive'm hard and see if over time they 'whiten' as the phosphor gets cooked?