You've modded your LED light, what do you do with your old LED?

[PCC]

I had this thought the other day while replacing the Luxeon III emitter in my Cateye HL-EL510 that I had a perfectly good LED emitter that I've orphaned when I upgraded this light. What would I use it for? Same goes for the Cree XR-E emitter from the cheap Coleman headlamp that I melted and scavenged for parts.

Either the Luxeon or Cree LED is probably going into a cheap flashlight that I bought that uses a 6V lantern battery for the occasional power outage or emergency purposes. I had every intention of modding the heck out of that cheap $5 lamp but decided not to. Something about making a silk purse from a sow's ear. The hope is that it will produce a decent amount of light output and be able to supply light for a long time on that 6V lantern battery for the next "Big One" (I live next door to San Francisco so we know that a big earthquake is going to happen in our lifetimes).

So, what do you folks do with the old orphaned LED emitters you have from upgrade projects?

 

[datiLED]

I had this thought the other day while replacing the Luxeon III emitter in my Cateye HL-EL510 that I had a perfectly good LED emitter that I've orphaned when I upgraded this light. What would I use it for? Same goes for the Cree XR-E emitter from the cheap Coleman headlamp that I melted and scavenged for parts.

Either the Luxeon or Cree LED is probably going into a cheap flashlight that I bought that uses a 6V lantern battery for the occasional power outage or emergency purposes. I had every intention of modding the heck out of that cheap $5 lamp but decided not to. Something about making a silk purse from a sow's ear. The hope is that it will produce a decent amount of light output and be able to supply light for a long time on that 6V lantern battery for the next "Big One" (I live next door to San Francisco so we know that a big earthquake is going to happen in our lifetimes).

So, what do you folks do with the old orphaned LED emitters you have from upgrade projects?

I mount them to heatsinks and use them for testing driver boards, or sell them in large lots.

 

[worldedit]

I usually brake them by impacience during the mod.

 

[bluecrow76]

Usually the emitters we're replacing don't meet our exacting standards, which is why they're getting replaced to begin with. The ones that make it out alive are sitting in a bin... waiting... or like datiLED, used to test drivers. I've made bedside lamps for my son and other family members also.

 

[Black Rose]

I put them into a container with others until I can come up with an idea to use them with.

Right now I only have a Lux I, a Lux III and two Golden Dragons awaiting re-use.

 

[alphazeta]

For somewhat modern emitters that I swap out (Cree P4s, bad tinted Q5s, etc), I'll usually just cluster a few of them into fixed lighting builds. Usually doesn't make much of a difference there in terms of efficiency. In those types applications, I find the more emitters -> the merrier.

Older luxeons & the such usually just get freebie'd out with my cpfmp sales or sold as a lot for basically the cost of postage & pp fees. I'm all for promoting reuse as opposed to recycling/trashing

-AZ

 

[Illum]

I have a couple blocks of these around the shop, hook them up on 12V wallworts for general purpose lighting...


the more emitters you have the more shadows your going to get...and sometimes reading under them can be quite a chore

 

[DaFABRICATA]

I put them in gummy bears and give em out with haloween candy.:green::sick2::mecry:

 

[mr.squatch]

I put them in gummy bears and give em out with haloween candy.:green::sick2::mecry:

I spat a lil redbull out my nose on that one lol.

g