Whats the brightest 5MM LED you can get? Thought I had a great idea but....

KDOG3

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I had a couple of those Nichia "U"s' from the shoppe and I thought hey, why don't I put one in one of those little photon clone keychain lights that Dae sells! They should be like, twice as bright! I could sell a crapload of them! Nope. I put one in there alright, and it works fine. But no brighter. Its alot whiter though. Dang. Are there insanely bright 5MM that would work and be brighter? There are 2 - 3V coin cells in there stacked on top of each other for a 6V light. I'm suprised the Nichia didn't blow! But I don't understand why its no brighter.....gah. Oh well.
 

carbine15

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Internal battery resistance in button cell setups like Fauxton lights lowers the current to safe LED levels, so no magic smoke. Dae's clone leds are very bright as it is; I've yet to see any single die 5mm led that's visibly brighter. Multi die leds like the uncut smjled and .5 watt leds might prove to be brighter (but might also fry when exposed to such high voltage). I'd try that route toward increasing the output on the Fauxton.
 

cave dave

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Check again, but this time do a bounce test off the ceiling and look at the floor. Many of the clones focus the light more so the hotspot is as bright or brighter. Overall there is less output though. The Clone LEDs can also get fried from the high voltage and will have permanent dimming with use.
 

EngrPaul

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Do a search, there was a review of white 5mm LED's. I am personally buying a bag of 50K JELED's from Hong Kong due to their tested efficiency. I plan to put the best one I can find in one of my Fenix E0's after I receive them.

My other E0 has a 100mA LED from the Sandwich Shoppe. However, of the three I received, only one was bright at low drive levels, the other two were about half as bright (I call them duds).

Unless you try to get your brightness out of good efficiency and color and a reasonable drive current (20mA neighborhood), you will probably be overdriving your package to a short life, regardless of it's current rating. That's OK I suppose if you don't mind changing your LED some time down the road. Better LED's will come along.
 

vortechs

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Tucson, AZ
The brightest I've been able to get from a coin cell keychain light is my LRI Photon Freedom modded with an uncut SMJLED (4-die LED) running on a 3.6V Li-Ion 2032 cell. The 2032 Li-Ion cell theoretically has less voltage (3.6V) than a pair of 2016 primary cells (6V), but the Li-Ion does not sag as much under load and holds its brightness better over time. A keychain light powered by a pair of 2016 primary coin cells will loose brightness quickly as the cells are drained because the primary coin cells quickly loose the ability to deliver higher currents (see here).

I could have put the SMJLED and 2032 Li-Ion cell into a cheap clone, but for the cost of the parts I figured that a genuine LRI Photon Freedom was a better choice for the host.

SMJLED Photon Mod: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/114298
2032 Li-Ion cells: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/93125
 
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