Anybody tried Dae's $10 5.5W Luxeon?

This is at QualityChinaGoods
http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/luxeon-light-p-397.html
and it's different from the 5W 'likki' Luxeon that already has some reviews -- which is more expensive. This one is only $9.88 shipped! Yep, that's the retail price, not the wholesale.

We gotta be talking unregulated here, but I gather that for the price, lights for sale at QCG tend to be of generally of pretty good quality. And I know Dae posts here periodically with news and special offers.

The 3W MXDL was my first ... unusual light of any conseqence, and I like it. It's a good value.

But this 5W seems unusually cheap, so I'm wondering, is this one too good to be true? Is the beam focused?, the construction at all durable?, the runtime usable? Is there some crazy color in the beam or something?

Anybody know?

Dae?

Thanks - -

The reviews at thier site are not very good.I have found that cheap lights are just that. Cheap, not worth it to me. Id rather have 1 or 2 good lights than 10 cheap ones! The cheapies Ive tried are not very bright or well made.They are usally a let down.

I know you are looking for some definite information so please excuse my speculative response as I know nothing about the light. That being said, counterfeit luxeons have been showing up (Galston 7 watt) so the price seems plausible. I don't know if the counterfeit companies have a 4 chip led like the Lumileds 5w but I suspect that they don't and the LED in this light is likely an overdriven 3 watt type. Since this light uses 3 1.5v cells I'm inclined to believe it's DD. I wouldn't expect too much from this light but for the price , I'd probabally be pleased with it's performance.

Either way, if you were to buy one and do a review on it, you'd get an led light and a warm fuzzy feeling from making a positive contribution on CPF .

Also, it says the light is focusable and it's nice to be able to soften the hotspot in some situations.

Thanks all.

Turns out there is now a brief review on their site, which the reviewer had to post twice because their review page cuts off all but the first line:

5.5W Luxeon Light by Eric Mink Date Added: Tuesday 14 March, 2006

Service is good 2-3 weeks, Light is not as bright as $40 1W Luxeon. Okay for price.

Rating:

[3 of 5 Stars!]

5.5W Luxeon Light by Eric Mink Date Added: Tuesday 14 March, 2006

I bought two of these 5.5W Luxeon flashlights and just receved them. I have to say, that I am very d..

Rating:

[3 of 5 Stars!]


I'll probably pick some Xnovas and novelty (e.g., multicolor http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/colorful-3mode-p-229.html) torches to use as gifts for my first QCG foray...but funds are tight this month, so I will have to wait...

Paul6ppc said:

The reviews at thier site are not very good....

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Great, now we have THREE CPFers with "Paul" in their username. I happen to like my name, in part because it's not so common. I haven't had so many namesakes since college, when four of us on my floor bore my name.

I bought one. Not much light output.

I bought it because I needed a reflector, the battery holder and a switch. I have not check to see if there is a driver in it. I don't expect there is going to be one.

The LED is very strange, It's completely flat without any plactic on it! It's like someone has forgotten to put someting on it.

The outside body is actually kind of nice with O rings for water proofing.

Hey, it's less then $10.

I like the look of the light. I'd end up modding it regardless, actually I'd buy it TO mod it!
Is the reflector any good? Got a pic of the led?

The reflector is OK.

I don't have my camera with me. The LED says HJ-03 on it. Lens is plastic.

I put my finger right on the star heat sink, it is not even warm. So I think you can probably mod it to be much brighter.

Looked behind the LED, there is a printed circuit board, but can't tell yet if it has any electronics inside. You can definitely put a driver in that space.

dcarch8

I must say now that I really look at that light, it does temp me to mod it myself.

As I said, the LED is very strange, so I inspected it with a high power magnifying glass.

First, there is no plastic encasing the anode/cathode. Could it be that mine is a manufacturer's reject? I would be interested in knowing if others are the same as mine.:thinking:

Normally there are just two or four tiny gold wires connected to the chip, this one has 16 wires connected to the center round chip!:thinking:

May be you guys know a little more about this.:thinking:

I put a tiny coat of clear epoxy on it to protect the chip and those tiny thinner than hair wires.:thinking:

dcarch8 :thinking:

some sort of multi-chip led for sure. So no epoxy or anythign was covering the bond wires?!?! yikes!

It's not a luxeon, but some sort of no-name led probably.

This light is not as bright as the MXDL.I comes closer to being 1.5 w than 5.5w It draws .3A on fresh alkaline batteries. The light is attractive and has a nice white beam. The Bezel has to be removed and the threaded seat the LED sits on screwed in or out of the light in order to focus it. Similar to the way the focus is adjusted on the Dorcy Spyder.

deleted

dda said:

The light is attractive and has a nice white beam. .

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I agree. The photo is misleading. The actual light is very classy looking.

dcarch8

Looks like mod fodder...

One more interesting thing about the LED, the emitter is part of the heat sink (star).

It appears that on top of the aluminum heat sink, they have put a layer of insulation, then copper, them the LED is directly deposited on the copper printed circuit. Therefor you cannot de-solder the emitter off from the heat sink.

This makes it very interesting. You will have very efficient heat transfer, but this design does not lend itself for large scale chip making to lower cost.

I don't know if this is a common LED design or not.

CPF experts please take a look and comment.

dcarch8

I post some pics tomorrow friday...



Enjoy...

refractrfractal said:

This is at QualityChinaGoods
http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/luxeon-light-p-397.html
and it's different from the 5W 'likki' Luxeon that already has some reviews -- which is more expensive. This one is only $9.88 shipped! Yep, that's the retail price, not the wholesale.

We gotta be talking unregulated here, but I gather that for the price, lights for sale at QCG tend to be of generally of pretty good quality. And I know Dae posts here periodically with news and special offers.

The 3W MXDL was my first ... unusual light of any conseqence, and I like it. It's a good value.

But this 5W seems unusually cheap, so I'm wondering, is this one too good to be true? Is the beam focused?, the construction at all durable?, the runtime usable? Is there some crazy color in the beam or something?

Anybody know?

Dae?

Thanks - -

Click to expand...

I have a feeling the 5.5W figure is the peak total power consumption including the resistor dissipation. $10 is a very good price if the light does indeed have a Lumileds Luxeon® V LED.

I don't have the pricing for the Luxeon V, but the Luxeon III emitter is going for around $3.50 a piece in ~10,000 quantity direct from Lumileds.

At $10 each, my guess is that it's a generic high power LED and an unauthorized use of the Lumileds' registered tradename Luxeon®

Changchung said:

I receive one today... :toilet: is NOT a luxeon and dont have a good light output...

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It's not like anyone can make Luxeon comparable quality LEDs. Lumileds should start working with the US Customs to put a halt on unscruptuous iexporters who are blatently exporting counterfeits into the US market.