To Cree or not to Cree -

seems to me that is NOT the question. How can one do anything now but wait for this next great step and to go with the XR-E just a quickly as possible? The reported advantages and the obvious "not just hype" excitement from many experts on this site seems to point to a rare event and one's that's likely to rock our world! This is not your run of the mill event.

In computing power advances come steadily and consistently (moore's law) - seems like now for the most part in steady incremental doses every few months. You can pretty much count on it, and for example know that you can wait 6 months and get ~20% more power, or you can buy now and be 20% or so "behind" in 6 months but perhaps catch up again in another 2 years.

LED's have also advanced over the years but at a much slower rate, as has been discussed in this forum before. The XR-E looks like a step change (2x) leap in performance - after almost no progress for years I guess. So now what? I cannot see myself buying another luxeon light. I have literally loaded up on them this past year, have some great lights and no real regrets, but I am definitely at an abrupt halt now.

Will competitors step up and start a real chase now with even more major advances soon? Maybe, but from the XR-E performance base, is there yet another competitively driven 2x step change in our future that perhaps we should wait for? Somehow I think not. From the new base I'd guess there will be incremental gains perhaps over the next few years (eventually zeroing in on ~50% efficiency?). I don't want to overstate this thing, but I think there's a good argument that this may be a once in a lifetime CPF'rs dream! Wow - this is exciting stuff.

Sorry for being wordy. Interested in how other members are seeing this! Am I missing something?

Yes, it is an exciting time now. My thanks to Newbie and others for their excellent evaluation of the new light engines. I think we have come a long way in actual light body design as well. With this in mind, I suspect we will soon see many of the popular lights (that will accomodate the Cree) retrofitted with the new LEDs. New U2's, Gladius, and McGizmo products will be something worth waiting for, as well as, lights like Inova, Fenix.

fun times ahead!

I just hope that the manufacturers will not add a hefty sum to the price just because it is brighter and count on the ignorance of the masses to let it slide...

I just purchased a load of McGizmo's lights (2 x PD, 2 x 27LT and 2 x HD45) and it looks like the advent of the new Cree will relegate them to a place as a part of my "collection" unless a retrofit kit comes out or unless Lumileds produces a Luxeon competitor that can be retrofitted into them.

Truly looks like this is a tremendous breakthrough but, no doubt, it won't be alone.

These are truly exciting times for flashlights!

-Goatee

Yes this is a big leap in performance. Though Cree was the first out with this, what they have done is not so earth shattering as it may sound and should be readily implemented by competitors (licensing aside). From what I understand, this is a thinned die, which OSRAM has been doing for a while on some of their products, but Cree appear to be the first to have done this with blue. The actual efficiency of the die has not improved, only the ability to get light out of it. That is why the sudden rapid increase. I think we will continue to see steady improvement and the odd rapid burst. Certainly 100 lumens/watt does not seem to far away.

Semiman

Robban said:

I just hope that the manufacturers will not add a hefty sum to the price just because it is brighter and count on the ignorance of the masses to let it slide...

Click to expand...

I'm looking at that quite the opposite: I'm counting on the ignorance of the masses to keep prices low. I've garnered some strange looks when I've told a few how much I paid for a MiniMagLED, and we're talking U.S. prices!

:)> said:

I just purchased a load of McGizmo's lights (2 x PD, 2 x 27LT and 2 x HD45) and it looks like the advent of the new Cree will relegate them to a place as a part of my "collection" unless a retrofit kit comes out or unless Lumileds produces a Luxeon competitor that can be retrofitted into them.



-Goatee

Click to expand...

I do not think you have to worry too much.

The modding craze started with modifying stock lights.

There will be members modding existing McGizmo lights just as soon as everyone figures out the best compilations.

Remember the Cree XR-E will work with existing LE's so that is one huge hurdle overcome.

The Cree XR-E is just one of the many improvements that we will see in LED technology. I'm sure Lumiled's will come out with their answer to the Cree, hopefully it will be a meaningful answer. There are many others besides Cree, Lumileds, Seoul Semi etc. and possibly others we haven't heard about that may pop up tomorrow and trump everyone else. Ain't competition wonderful? The challenge for the lightmakers is to have the capability to tool up quickly to a new LED. Look at who has the first Cree LED torch. It's not Surefire, Arc, HDS etc (did I forget Mag?). It's a couple of hobbyist right here amongst us and you guys know who they are.

Thank you for the re-assurance! I did a lot of thinning out of my existing lights to get these and I absolutely love them.

-Goatee

My answer is "to Cree"
I have 5 of the P3 bins coming in from Cutter in Austrailia as we speak. Four McR19 reflectors and pondering a minimagLED light reflector for the 5th XR-E. There is a group buy going on for the Q3 bin and if it pans out, that will be 10 XR-E LEDs to play with.
The huge jump in output with a big drop in heat and forward voltage gives the Cree the "go to" LED for single AAA/AA lights. Sure, you can be a nut like me and build a Quad XR-E in a Mag for a photon monster but I am also interested in modding my 1.7 watt MillerMods L1P with a Q3 bin. A mediocre binned Cree will put out 3 lumens at 17mA (1/20th of a watt) so a single AAA alkaline can run 20+ hours at that level. 3 lumens is what the old version of the Arc AAA put out at 50+mA!
No matter how you slice it, from 17mA 3 lumens to 700mA 110+ lumens--the answer is "to Cree". I will be busy with my XR-E mods of a 2D Mag and MillerMods 1.7 watt L1P in the meantime. This will allow time for a 3-stage regulated single AAA/AA light that will throw 50 lumens on a NiMH battery.
Life is good :thumbsup: :rock:

This is the time and my chance to delve into modding since ive never done so before. I just hope I know what Im getting myself into, lol. Good times!!!

With this much justified buzz about the XR-E, I hope aftermarket reflectors and optics are made for it, and soon. Most reflectors are designed around the Luxeon. With XR-E specific reflectors available, the door opens wide for many creative mods: DIY bike lights, magmods, custom dive lights, retrofits, etc.

Sorry guys, kindda outdated here. Cree is a new type of LED that is 2X more efficient?

Exactly not Creee but "XR-E" - Yep you should read this thread :
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/138503&highlight=xr-e

I'll be looking forward to seeing some mods with led. Mag mods are always nice, as it's cheap host that almost all of us have.

Benthead: Which reflectors will you be using in your modded mag?

I'm looking forward to modding some lights with these new XR-E Leds

I started with stock Surefires, got into LEDs a bit, wandered into Hotwires, and am now looking forward, like many of you, to tweaking a Cree.

A hot-rodded HAIII anodized 2D Mag with a Cree would be a slick number.

Ok - we need an entire Cree subforum... it's getting too hard to keep track of all of them!!

I too anxiously await the Cree but I'm not putting off purchases of lights that I like now. I used to put off purchases of new computers until the next new thing came out, but when the next new thing came out, there was another new thing about to come out, and so on and so on. My new philosophy is to buy what's good today and I'll deal with tomorrow when it gets here.

lightrod said:

Will competitors step up and start a real chase now with even more major advances soon? Maybe, but from the XR-E performance base, is there yet another competitively driven 2x step change in our future that perhaps we should wait for? Somehow I think not. From the new base I'd guess there will be incremental gains perhaps over the next few years (eventually zeroing in on ~50% efficiency?). I don't want to overstate this thing, but I think there's a good argument that this may be a once in a lifetime CPF'rs dream! Wow - this is exciting stuff.

Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. I agree there will be incremental gains over the next few years culminating in ~50% efficiency and >150 lm/W by about the year 2010 or sooner. After that, my guess is it'll be much slower incremental gains and 200+ lm/W by 2020. After that, who knows? My guess is we'll eventually hit 70 to 80% efficiency but I might well be on Social Security by then. Of course, there is always the chance of an odd breakthrough or process improvement which brings us closer to 100% efficiency way before that. In any case, I'd say putting off LED purchases after about 2010 because of possibly future improvements will be pointless since they'll probably ultimately only get maybe 20 or 30% more efficient (150 to 200 lm/W is a 33% efficiency increase).

I'd say that 100 lm/W is less than a year away, and hopefully by more than one manufacturer. Progress will be even faster if the different LED manufacturers start trying to outdo each other in terms of efficiency. The good news is that it seems the focus is now more on efficiency rather than just pumping more watts into an LED. The latter is ultimately a losing proposition unless you start out with a more efficient LED. Just look at all the multidie 5+W LEDs from Lamina and a few other manufacturers. Most can't even break 30 lm/W so all they're really doing is being miniature space heaters just like the incandescents they're seeking to replace.