Wheres the Cree XR-Es already - no its not to soon, either

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like its been mentioned, Lux leds have been around for a long time now. once the massive production machine gets rolling (like a train) it takes a long time for it to stop. we dont have alternative energy in cars for the same reason. the big oil companies dont want to change a good thing and keep the politicians well fed to keep it that way. Mag industries just started putting lame Led based lights on the mareket and Inovas to the masses will be constant sellers at Target . Contracts with Lumiled have to run out and inventories also. so start buying those lux lights if you want to see a Fenix based Cree anytime soon. look at it as investing in the future.
 
Regarding bike lights, I'd keep a close eye on DiNotte and Lupine, since both tend to ride the cutting edge (DiNotte at reasonable costs, and Lupine brightness at any cost). DiNotte especially since bright LEDs are their only product, wouldn't surprise me to see them being a "first adopter" of Crees. Or Nighthawk, since they were one of (if not "the") the first adopters of Luxeon LEDs in their Emitters, and were the first (to my knowledge still "only" although I haven't looked much lately) K2 adopters.
 
I wouldn't give up on Lumileds yet. You know the next gen Luxeons are in the works and will probably be released within a few months and most likely they will be drop in replacements to their existing emitters with just higher efficiencies. For a company that already has Luxeon flashlights, It will probably much cheaper to wait than try to engineer new optics and reflectors for the Cree.
 
I think that differentiating a Cree to mass markets will be VERY difficult. I am also sure that anyone that has a Lumileds contract for Luxeons has a few months of stock in the pipeline for production. Then there is:
1. What assembly space is required for the new design
2. Handling the new stock if simutaneous lines are run
3. Price point foir the market
4. New marketing materials
5. Possible Lumileds contract conditions
6. Possible new Luxeon products with special pricing
 
There IS a lot that has to be done before a mass manufacturer comes out with XR-E lights. It even seems that the supply is somewhat limited right now. Supply has to be running full steam to enable manufacturer's to rely on regular delivery schedules. Production relies very heavily on constant running of the same product day in - day out. There needs to be a lot of Cree's in production for that to happen.
The only thing that will shorten time to market is for the niche manufacturers/modders to get all the initial supply, which is the way it seems to be working already.
Remember K2's were in short supply for a long time and they are very similar to Lux 3's already in production! They are still in very few mass market lights.
It will be many months before we see anything even from Fenix or the Chinese manufacturers for all the reasons already posted above unless Cree's production jumps dramatically. Then I expect the tints to be less predictable like early Luxeons were.
 
Many manufactures would have to re-engineer their existing lights to accomodate the new Cree Leds, as the Led is mounted in a different way than Luxeon, the board, heatsink and optics would need to be completeley remodeled, it could be a very costly excercise.
 
perhaps we should all do our part and buy up all the remaining lux lights!
 
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