Terralux UV Cree 1W upgrade for Minimag review

I just recieved my Terralux UV 1 watt upgrade module today and dropped it and the supplied reflector in my new host Minimag, overall i'm impressed, but i'm also a little dissapointed, the supplied reflector throws a wide, and *exceptionally* ringy beam pattern, yes it's brighter than the $7 Lighthound 12 LED UV light, but it's not $30 brighter, i don't know whether to be impressed with the Lighthound rig or dissaponted in the Terralux....

the Terralux *does* seem visibly dimmer, as it's putting out more longwave UV than visible light, the Lighthound light puts out more visible light than UV, but i just can't get past that....ringy....beam of the TL, the LH light has a smoother flood of light at the expense of output

just for kicks, i removed the head of the UVMag, then grabbed my MiniMagLED 3AA and twisted it's head off (insert appropriate screaming sounds here ), and screwed it's head down on the UVMag....

not only did the head fit (it just has a shorter amount of travel, 2.5 turns to remove the head), it also cleaned up the ringy beam *dramatically* *and* created a much tighter hotspot, the TL UVMag now actually *throws*

so now i have to find a way to source out a head, reflector and window of a MiniMagLED, i e-mailed one of the official Mag Instrument parts suppliers about purchasing the parts if they were available, it seems a waste to have to spend $23+ just to get the *head* of a MMLED, which is all i really need....

unless.....

how difficult would it be for a guy with *no* soldering experience to desolder the Cree LED module from the Terralux disc, desolder the LED from a MMLED 2AA, and drop the Cree onto the MMLED LED module thingy?

NICE!

nah.. let the cree uv stay on the module...the driver is far more difficult to understand...

now...people wll start doing what you did...the horror...

Mine showed up the other day and i feel similarly. I like the output, but the LED isn't centered with the reflector, so the beam is poor enough that even in actual use it annoys me, and i'm the kind that feels most people complain unnecessarily about beam quality. That's interesting that it gives a good beam with the MagLED reflector, 'cause i would have labeled the module as the culprit. I'm pretty sure i have some other reflectors somewhere. I'll have to find them and see if that fixes things.

Yeah, it's strange, i tried a few different reflectors, the supplied Terralux adapter, a cut and drilled Minimag reflector, heck, i even simulated a C/D cell Mag by sliding the MM into a C-cell Mag reflector, out of all of these, the MagLED had the best beam profile

the stock MM reflector chopped and drilled had the *worst* pattern
TerraLux marginally better, but still ringy
the C/D reflector focused the beam to *too* tight of a hotspot
the MMLED was perfect, a nice usable hotspot, decent spill and almost no rings

unfortunately, since parts for the MMLED aren't available yet, i'm going to have to buy a 2AA MMLED just for the head assembly....

When you look down at the LED - not that you're supposed to - is yours obviously off-center with the included reflector? I was planning on using it in one of my "fancy" minimags; that idea would unfortunately be out the window if the only real solution is the LED reflector. Mine reminds me of the stock incan, with a "hole" right next to the hot spot. Bloody annoying. Especially since the 5mm versions have such smooth beams.

Yep, same crappy beam pattern i can minimize it playing with head-slop but i shouldn't have to, upgrades are supposed to *IMPROVE* performance, not degrade it, i'm going to have to buy another $25 light just to fix a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place, i'm not happy here....

as far as the LED not being centered goes, Quickbeam had this to say in his FLR review of the standard Terralux upgrade;

Quickbeam said:

Other Things I Noticed: The LED does not remain centered in the reflector when you twist the head, but this really has no impact on output. Also, the instructions warn against over-tightening the head of the light when you turn it off. Make sure the head is snug, and then stop.

Click to expand...

Anyone knows if this new module is compatible with the Fraen LP? (The normal TLE-5 works pretty well with that though)

I am considering the Terralux UV upgrade, and I think I have a sputtered MM reflector somewhere. The Cree works good in the McLux PD due to the orange peel like reflector, and no doubt also because of the Aleph LE. What are the mA's to the Cree UV led using the Terralux LE?

Bill

Here's some pics of the Terralux compared against the Lighthound 12UV;

first, Lighthound's 12UV;

next, meter the same scene with the LH UV, but switch lights to the Terralux upgrade (with Terralux reflector) as the self-timer counts down;

this pic was metered at the Lighthound exposure setting, hence the slight overexposure, note the ringy beam pattern, especially in the hotspot

the next pic is the Terralux metered on it's own settings;
still has the ringy beam

now, the Terralux upgrade with the MiniMagLED head, once again, first shot had the lightmeter settings locked in with the Lighthound UV light;

note no rings in the hotspot, heck, no *detail* in the hotspot either, lets take another pic metering off the Terralux/MMLED head on it's own;


the MMLED reflector throws the best beam pattern by far, but the problem with the MMLED reflector i didn't notice before is there's a *LOT* of head slop, when focused to the optimal spot pattern, less than half a turn is holding the MMLED head on, the Cree epoxy dome is actually supporting some of the weight of the head, the spot pattern can be knocked off whack, so the MMLED head isn't as viable as an option as it seemed at first

oh well, back to the ringy Terralux head, maybe i should try sputtering it....

Excellent job with the shots. Can anyone point us to a high quality drop-in reflector that'll work with the MiniStar2? The Cree sits a solid 1/4" (6mm) higher than it would on your standard sandwich, so that's not an obvious question. As far as output, the Ministar2+Cree gets good marks. It *does* throw better than the 12x5mm UV and has a nice spill, so i'd say it's worth the money, but don't be expecting the throw you've seen with your sandwiches.

and some more pics, this time of my Vaseline Glass collection;

lit by the Lighthound 12 LED UV light;

lit by the Terralux but exposure set to Lighthound light;

lit and metered by the Terralux;


final pics, a ceiling bounce test, unedited pics (aside from cropping);
Lighthound 12UV;

Terralux;


strangely enough, to the human eye, the TL and LH lights appear to put out very similar amounts of visible light, but the TL is *clearly* pouring out more UV than the LH light, it juust seems dimmer to the eye as UV is invisible to the human eye, in this case the camera gives a better representation of the *true* output...

Ooops, never mind, found my answer. Thanks for the review. I think the cheap IMS reflectors will work with this.

There's only one LED. It looks similar to a Luxeon, not a 5mm.

The ringy beam looks similar to the beam on the old style Jil 1.3 UV with the smooth reflector. Big square (the die) in the center, rings in the spill. The Cree seems to want a deeper reflector, like the McR-19 or the one in your MinimagLED.

MacTech said:

....the Cree epoxy dome is actually supporting some of the weight of the head, the spot pattern can be knocked off whack, so the MMLED head isn't as viable as an option as it seemed at first

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FYI, that is not an epoxy dome on the CREE 1W UV. It is a very long lasting glass lens, that doesn't degrade like epoxy or acrylics. It is not designed for any sort of load bearing, and really shouldn't be touched, as you could compromise the device.

That said, you'll find the 5mm epoxy multi-LED flashlights actually degrade quite rapidly (the LEDs themselves), even when driven in spec. Not so, with this CREE 1W LED.

Good job on the photos.

Any chance you could get both in the same photo together, lighting up the same UV reactive surface? A non-saturated and saturated photo would be awesome.

NewBie said:

Any chance you could get both in the same photo together, lighting up the same UV reactive surface? A non-saturated and saturated photo would be awesome.

Click to expand...

I'll take some pics of the teacups on their own, light one with the LH, one with the TL....

...i *knew* there was a reason i bought that set of Vaseline Glass tea cups (aside from them being cheap, that is)....

Finally got mine. The stock reflector sux big time I tried the IMS but hole's too small. Then I thought, how about optic? NX05 gives a much better beam compared to the stock reflector. Still some artifacts but the hotspot is smaller and the intensity seems to wash out the artifacts into a little blob. Throw should be longer but I think I still prefer a good flood. I'll have to wait till it gets dark so I can see if there's any scorpions outside

Thanks for the review, MacTech.

I received a 2 cell version today.

Here's some stuff I think, read, am remembering or am speculating about.

Newbie has done some testing of these quite a while back so I'll relate a couple of things I remember with my sometimes flawed memory. He let us know that these emitter send rays at different angles than do LuxIIIs. The way to get the best image return at distance (throw) is with a large deep crystal optic. I don't have one.

Newbie also reported that a "banana tip" (deep) reflector would work fairly well. So I'm not surprised that the MagLED works well. As a matter of fact the first time I saw one that's the first thing I thought. Remember that cheap MetalGear? It has a banana tip reflector. I think it would be a good host. I haven't seen a McGizmo A19 CreeUV but I understand they do well.

Newbie also mentioned that optics made from acrylic are not a premium way to go because it attenuates (absorbs and reduces) UV. So I'm thinking that the lexan lenses (windows) of the mini-mag might do likewise to a much lesser degree. I asked PhotonWrangler and PW confirmed there seemed to be some attenuation.

I don't know but will speculate that a sapphire crystal window would work pretty well.

As far as brightness goes, this application might be one where "image return" is a better term than "throw" because it is the fluorescing we are looking for and not so much the purple beam. The purple beam does tell us how well the rays are being collimated though.

I suspect that these TerraLux Cree UVs are very underdriven for a couple of reasons. One reason is that I don't think that they could be driven even at spec (I don't know what the spec is) because they have almost no heat sinking. This was no surprise to me. Another reason is because I've direct driven one of the Cree UVs w/o a host and it was much brighter than the TerraLux Cree UV.

I wanted adjustable throw so I also purchased the BA-1 Bulb Adapter . It works. My host is a Plum Purple Mag 2C (purplish blue sent to me by NightOwl). Pretty cool. Even though the TerraLux isn't very powerful I'm getting great flourescent image returns at good distance in darkened offices. I Haven't had a chance to take it out in nature yet but I think it will do fairly well.

Alas, I'm still working with a Mag Reflector and I don't think the parabola is optimal. I'm very tempted to put this thing in a Mag2D and use my ModaMag 2" deep reflector. I would except that my only Mag2D is dedicated to something else.

I blabbered about this in dental4usa's thread. New UV Question.

I just got mine a few days ago, and found similar results as mentioned here; a wide, ringy beam and no apparent heatsinking (I ran it for a few seconds in candle mode, and was surprised to find how toasty the die already was).

On the whole, its output was very comparable to my Inova X5T-UV. My particular X5T-UV has considerable variance in wavelength among its five LED's; the TL appeared to land right in the middle of those. If the Cree diodes are reliably 395nm, it means my X5T-UV had LED's randing from 390 to 400nm. (I don't have a spectrometer, I just make relative measurements usiing a CD as a diffraction grating).

Unlike MacTech's comparo to the LightHound device, I found that the amount of visible fluourescence relative to visible violet from the Inova was a bit more pronounced than in the case of the TL.

Hey CM, did you notice whether there was significant attenuation with the NX-05? I'd like to find a solution for more throw myself -- as it is, I've basically got just another X5T here. I want UV throoooow too.

Canuke said:

...Hey CM, did you notice whether there was significant attenuation with the NX-05? I'd like to find a solution for more throw myself -- as it is, I've basically got just another X5T here. I want UV throoooow too.

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No significant attenuation. In addition, with the NX05 but I get better "image return" (per Icebreak). I got five scorpions last night, all seen from distances of 10-15 yards. Though this is severely underdriven, it performs quite well especially with the optic.