Mod: LS in TurtleLight - not quite so good

So, I built this:


to replace the bulb/holder assembly in a TurtleLight. That's a 1W low-dome white Luxeon emitter, thermal epoxied to a 3/8" aluminum pedistal, which is thermal epoxied to a low profile TO-3 power heatsink. (with some plastic spacer things to make it fit in the reflector housing).

Anyways, because of the low-dome beam profile, the spot focused by the TL's reflector is slightly larger, and only a little brighter than the original single white Nichia LED. Not only that, but the source of light for the center spot appears to be light from the edge of the Luxeon's beam - meaning the pea-green stuff yuck!

Any suggestions? Should I just bag this and turn it into a candle-type thing? Is the low-dome emitter pretty hopeless for reflector applications? I've tried positioning the emitter in all different depths in the reflector.

-Darin

Put a standard LS collimator/lens directly on top of the emitter, and you will be surprised with the results.
IC-LEDS

I tried this with a Turtlelite II and a Pro Bulb. I found I had to use a spacer to get the beam reasonable.

http://www.navitsky.org/lights/turtle/turtlelite.html

My goal was a tightly-focussed beam from the LS (which is why I chose the TL reflector). I have lots of LS's with the standard optics - which make nice floodlights.

I've also tried all depths in the reflector, so the spacer idea won't help. I was really hoping someone had maybe tried grinding down the lens of a LS emitter.

I switched back and forth between the original ground LED, and my LS piece. What I saw with my setup was that most of the light was being projected forward at an extremely wide angle, causing a huge secondary light (as if no optics or reflector were being used). Only about 20% was being projected and focussed into a tight, ugly-green center spot.

Grinding down the emitter lens would be my next step, but I'm not going to do it unless someone else already has and knows that it works well.

Thanks for the thoughts though.
-Darin

I doubt grinding would help. It already has a more or less flat top.

If you want a tightly focused beam, you might try a Maglite reflector.

My Pro-Series bulb works pretty well in a Maglite as long as you stay on tight focus.

-john