The New Luxeon III Generation Issues

[NewBie]

This is one of the biggest screw-ups LumiLEDs has made since they *******ized the Luxeon V, and the companies that use their products kept reporting they had a rapid light depreciation, and they denied it for quite some time, before owning up, and they were very quiet on that... Thats where the 500 hour lifetime for the Lux V came from.

Next time, if they are going to make changes (or even this time), they really should offer them in different part numbers. In these days of very high quality semiconductors, a major dimension change like this, without documentation, letting customers know ahead of time, is absolutely inexcusable, and imho, some heads should roll.

I wonder how this made it through their Quality Departments?

I think I'm going to go download the new datasheets to see if they just recently quietly changed some numbers in there...


Of course, they have this catch all phrase at the end of the datasheet, which leaves them free to do whatever they want:

"Lumileds may make process or materials
changes affecting the performance or
other characteristics of our products.
These products supplied after such
changes will continue to meet published
specifications, but may not be identical
to products supplied as samples or
under prior orders."

 

[McGizmo]

Harry,

It makes me warm and fuzzy feeling to think that some folks at Future as well as Lumileds can enjoy watching me expose my ignorance as well as stupidity; the latter is less obvious when the former is at reduced levels; certainly not the case at present.

I ponder the futility of trying to get a straight answer from my Future rep regarding this latest twist and it may be I have alienated him with my public disdain here. Future reps are only as good as the information they are provided by Lumileds.

As I now am led to believe, a new reel of emitters from Future will have LED's that may or may not have the new and obvious round heat sink slug. If they do have the round slug, they may be Jokers or they may be False Jokers. The False Jokers may in fact be best suited in coupling them with the original optics developed for the pre Joker LED's. If you buy Stars from Future, you either try a few with optics to find out what you have or you remove the emitter from the optic and rule out any jokers! . Perhaps we should start taking these LED's apart and mic'ing the slug height ourselves?!? :shrug:

*********

Last week, I placed an order for reflectors (McR-18-J) in anticipation of myself and others needing an 18 mm reflector that would allign with the Joker. For a little guy like me at the bottom of the food chain, this kind of business expense is the kind that allows me to accumulate parts on shelves and wonder why working 10 hour days and 7 days a week doesn't seem to make the bank account grow. Yeah, that's the ticket! All of my failures are Lumiled's fault! :thumbsup:

This reminds me of a great line I was given by a well respected flashlight maker who will remain nameless but probably guessable since he doesn't use Luxeons. I asked him once why he didn't have a Luxeon based light in his line. He looked at me and said something like "I refuse to design a light based on product I can't buy." Such a true statement!!

I aplaud Lumileds for giving us magic where there was void. I can only guess at the blood they have spilled at the edge. However, their on going apathy and lack of concern for many of their end users will be rewarded one of these days when the business moves to a new player who not only provides viable alternatives but does so in a friendly business relationship with mutual respect and an honest and forthright flow of information and disclosure of issues.

If anyone can confirm that the Joker has now been replaced with yet another iteration, please do so!!

EDIT: If you can't comment on the FJ due to an NDA then please find some way of providing a clue!

For those not getting the acronyms, FJ would be false joker or some other type of F___ Joker and NDA would be a Non Disclosure Agreement; non disclosure is certainly at play but I am not in agreement with it! :nana:

 

[McGizmo]

"..... These products supplied after such
changes will continue to meet published
specifications....

Well this is CYA at its finest! There is no spec on the image location of the die (Z axis) so Lumileds can do whatever they want and not let us know.

They are covered and needn't worry about "returns". They might want to consider that with no sales, there is no worry of returns!




If I had that image "the last great act of defiance" I would place it here and get moderated or banned!

 

[HarryN]

Hi Don - Yes, I know your pain. It is on a smaller scale, but I have several thousand tied up in custom, very small, complex optics with some dimensional tolerances near 0.002 inch - and then the die height changes 0.020. Uhh.

Also, I just went through changing the associated lens to the meet the new die height requirement based on my results from this weekend. I guess I need to buy the LEDs, then decide which lens will be needed ? That kind of messes with my work - in - progress budget.

 

[NewBie]

Well, McG...

Quality and process control at it's finest, courtesy of LumiLEDs (*cough**choke**spasm*):

:sick2: :eeew:

 

[HarryN]

Hi Newb - I think they got the message.

 

[orb]

Hi Don,
What a PITA! Lumileds QC :shrug: & futures Reps
I do no where your coming from.
Roll on Cree or whoever taking first place.

Anyway the reason for the post was to say I just got my first taste of the joker.
Reel of 100 1 watt RWAH bins to go into Raw 1 watt CR2.
Round slug etc, Date on the reel 16 May 2005.
So if you do have some McR-18-J i'll be prefering to buy some from you.

 

[McGizmo]

Rob,
I don't have ETA but expect 4-5 weeks. Send me an E-mail sometime and we can sort it out. You are welcome to what you need.

This is a real hassle for us little guys but at least we are hands on and see what is happening. What about the big manufacturers who have many people involved, often outside vendors doing sub assemblies and probably won't be aware of this until such time as customers mumble!! :green:

 

[evan9162]

So is the joker phenomenon caused by a slug that is taller than it should be, or possibly a misapplication of the attachment technique?

The former is just a hassle for alignment purposes. However, the latter could lead to poor thermal performance and accelerated output degridation due to heat.

 

[Kiessling]

Hey evan ... are you trying to cheer us up? :sick2: :green:
I tell ya ... didn't work ...
bernie

 

[McGizmo]

Evan,
There is a Lumileds line drawing somewhere around that shows specific and precise details of the new heat sink aspect of the slug with tolerances stated. It shows a previous and this new Joker. It is clear from the drawing the new slug is shown to be higher than before. It is this change in dimension that I have requested a measurement on and have yet to be supplied. I don't think there is any issue of die placement method but where, on the Z axis, this new location of placement is. Lumen maintenance should be improved with the new slug it would seem. I also suspect that Lumileds needed this change to insure a better thermal bond with their stars but that's just a guess. It may even be that the change in height of the die mount surface was inspired by geometry of the stars possibly changing. I suspect that the engineers had their reasons but the results were not conveyed to the troops?!? :shrug:

 

[evan9162]

Gotcha - makes sense

I noticed in the cutaway view of the old vs new slug that the new slug fits into an "indent" in the plastic body - this looks like it will result in the body having a much better hold on the slug, reducing the chances the plastic body will pop off the slug, destroying the lux in the process. I bet it still isn't intended to allow the body to be used to pry the emitter loose from thermal epoxy, but it'll definitely reduce the chances of mechanical stress leading to "catastrophic disassembly".

 

[HarryN]

I bought a (single) Lux III from Future last week to take a closer look. (price, $ 9 + 14 to ship) The one from their sample reel is still the old style slug. No idea on bin of course.

I had hoped to confirm that the optics I have are ok with either height, as they seem to be OK with the "old height" and the K2 - which I think - reflects the new die position.

Somehow, I need to get ahold of a Lux III with J__ height. Anybody want to sell me one ? - I don't care what bin it is, as it is just for an optical test.

 

[McGizmo]

Harry,
I just have some UX1K Jokers and really need to hang on to them to go with some jokerized parts on order. If all else fails, send me an E-mail. I am really concerned about the possibility of false jokers now showing up and if that is the case, we need to identify this before we all get stupid like me! :green:

 

[HarryN]

Don - I understand.

 

[Kiessling]

Sengoku posted this pic in the thread about the new K2, and I though it is worth sharing as it shows the LuxIII classic and joker as well as the K2:

I hope Sengoku doesn't mind me stealing his pic ...

bernie

 

[McGizmo]

Thanks Bernie and Sengoku!

From some rough calculations and measurements I have made, it would seem that the K2 has a "Z" axis location of its image roughly between the original LuxIII and that of the "joker". I believe that in most cases, the optics (TIR or reflectors) should give reasonable beams regardless of which LED is used but certainly there will be measurable differences and adjustments can be made to either sharpen or soften the image projection.

For reasons unknown to me, I have yet to get a definitive answer from Future as to what Lumileds is doing in terms of image location in the Luxeon III's. An impression that Lumileds had returned to the original die height was not confirmed by a recent purchase I made; the contrary was the result with now more Jokers in my inventory. Lumileds apparent apathy and indifference to its small customers just warms my heart! NOT

In an unending void of information, I think I will presume that factions within Lumiled's are clueless at best and deserving of contempt at worst. :shrug:

 

[boomboots]

So, if i´ll understand all of this right im supposed to sand down 0,1" of the reflector if using the new slug to achieve the same result as if it was with the older slugs? Im soon to start to build my first aleph LE to to use with an aleph 1 head so please correct me if im totally out in the blue.

Sincerly
Boom

 

[HarryN]

Just curious Don - I tend to use as the die height the top of the black plastic package to the top of the die, as that is where my reflectors usually sit. LL of course tends to use the distance from the bottom of the slug to the top of the die IIRC.

What are you using ?

 

[McGizmo]

Boom,

You want to remove about .015" and not .100"!!!

Harry,

Some of my reflectors are based on the slug/ sink plane. These are the ones in the McR-27 family. They seat against the lip of the E-Screw or on a shoulder in the head that is referenced from the sink plane. With others like the McR-20 family, the reflector seats against the top of the black case do its relative distance from the image will dictate focal alignment. In either case though, when I did the design of the reflector, I based my reflective curve on the LED package in totum as it places restrictions on focal length due to its need to enter into the reflective chamber.

It's sort of moot anyway since in the case of the joker, the image has risen the same amount, relative to both the top face of the black plastic case as well as to the sink plane.