CPF tendency on holding Luxeon purchase

Maybe it's time for a poll. You know why: Cree XR-E thunder, storm, hype, etc
Do you hold your luxeon purchases, either in flashlights or for lamps/mods ?
What will be your position in the next few weeks or months ?

• I'm stopping Luxeon purchases right now. XR-E is the new king.
• I'm reducing Luxeon purchases in favour of XR-E.
• I still buy Luxeon as usual, but XR-E seems interesting.
• I have faith in Luxeon only. I don't care XR-E or any other.

I voted C but as I have all the lights I am interested in, I will probably not be buying any more lights in the short term.
Unless a Cree comes wiithin my price range. ~$40-$50 using common AA/AAA batteries.

Seeing as I just recently got my interest in quality lights, and my collection is very limited, I am going to keep buying new lights whenever I can, but I'm looking forward to the new technology!

I'm still buying Luxeon, but will admit to being VERY interested in the Cree.

e. I'll buy whatever is brighter/more efficient at the next upgrade.


Why? I'm good with my lights for the time being. If I my general use/on the job light (L2P) and keychain EDC (L0P SE) require replacement, or supplement, then the replacements might very well contain a Cree or whatever is better/more efficient when I go to upgrade.

I chose A

Since I am in modding mode this winter, the XR-E is my weapon of choice for many reasons. That and I have 5 of them sitting on my bench and 7 Q2's on stars coming in the next month.

As far as production flashlights, I have all that I need and they are Luxeon based. I won't be looking to replace them with a XR-E unless I can upgrade my FF3 with an XR-E for obvious reasons. It is upgradable so I'd be a fool if I didn't.

My mods for this winter are a Quad Q2 XRE Mag, a single Q2 XRE Mag with aspherical lens for a throw monster, update my UWAJ MillerMods L1P 1.7 watt helmet light and maybe try to stuff an XRE in a minimagLED for amusement.

Since my flashlights are at saturation, the XR-E is used for mods and upgrades of existing modded lights. Life is good.

I'm ordering one more Lux III emitter at least to upgrade a previous Lux emitter light, and may get some of the steals at Arc, otherwise I'm pretty much looking at Crees until the "next big thing" comes along. So "B" for me

The postal services probably lost my recent purchase of good U##J LuxIII. In the meantime XR-E emerged, for half the price. I don't see why I would buy more Lux, at least at current prices.
So for me A is obvious.
I'm curious to know who voted for D, I should have made this poll public

I've pretty much decided not to buy anymore luxeon based lights, unless you count the LO-Ti I bought last night and the Draco I bought tonight. I'm pretty sure I've got things under control, now, at least until we start seeing the premium Cree XR-E lights coming out. Oh man, I can feel my wallet leaving me already! I hope the barrage of the Cree lights holds off for a while!

I am still interested in some of the custom lights and would buy them if given the chance. I am also in the market for some custom cree lights aswell though.

My thoughts are that most of the customs will eventually go Cree. Cree Ion, Cree Spy, Cree Gatlight...

Either hold of or just mod one onto any Luxeon III star lights u have now, since they have about the same current ratings and come on star PCB from cutter.com

glire said:

The postal services probably lost my recent purchase of good U##J LuxIII. In the meantime XR-E emerged, for half the price. I don't see why I would buy more Lux, at least at current prices.
So for me A is obvious.
I'm curious to know who voted for D, I should have made this poll public

Click to expand...

Probably a Lumileds employee!:lolsign:

Unless Lumileds can match or better the XR-E efficiency with their K2 or something else I can't see any point to designing a Luxeon into anything right now. I know I certainly wouldn't. The only downside to the Cree is that optics/reflectors aren't available yet but I'm sure that will quickly change (and it's irrelevant to the flood light market). Oh, and thanks to the Cree the Lux V is finally a dead issue (many here already felt that way even before the Cree). Now that you have Crees which can blow even a good binned Lux V away while using half the power I personally won't think highly of any manufacturer still using Lux Vs. My happiness knows no bounds just for this one fact alone. I've always felt that from an engineering standpoint the Lux V was a hack, and a poorly executed one at that. I'm just glad that now it finally lost the one niche it may have held on to for a while-namely total lumen output.

If I could hold my purchases my wallet would have more of a green tint to it. I just bought a lux 3 flashlight yersterday and I'm already jonesing for my next fix. I find myself looking forward to nighftall lately....

Take a look at my signline

Wow - looks like Luxeon light sales to CPF members has all of a sudden been cut by more than half!! Losing half your sales almost overnight - can you imagine what a organizational crisis and scamble there would be there would be at the light manufacturers if the CPF crowd's opinions represented LED buyers as a whole? For the overall flashlight buying crowd I bet 99% don't know a cree from a tree, so that should keep folks in business for a while as they work through a transition. How long will it be....I don't know but in the meanwhile we'll go custom / specialty. And will pay.

I'd be very surprised if the Cree Xr-E has put even a tiny dent in luxeon sales.

The luxeons are a known quanitity with infrastructure in place and a developeing mainstream recognition.

Mag has invested in luxeons.

According to Fred at photonfanatic.com, lumileds still has aces up it's sleave to be released during the next year. Newbie is also threatening very interesting developements in the LED market in 2007.

The Cree XR-E is most definitely a force to be reckoned with and I've got a few on the way. My excitement at the idea of a 200 lumen HDS mod useing the cree XR-E, at first had me considering drastic modifications to the light engine in order to accomadate the Cree. Since I've thought about things a bit and the quirks of the Cree are becoming more apparent I've decided that the real quality and value in the HDS is it's nicely designed and machined components other than the LED. In other words, I should preserve the value in the flashlight driver and body and be selective reguarding the LEDs I mod it with.

I am still going to play with modding my HDS light but all the drastic stuff will be done to the LED.

I hope to use these lights long term and I'm confident that the Cree is enjoying the spotlight at the moment but other semicon companies are being called up on stage as nominees in the efficiency race. It might take 6 mos but the cree efficiency will be met and beat by others in time and I'll not bemoan a Cree XR-E hangover.

I must admit, I find this Cree hype somewhat disturbing. Considering that there's not a single production light out there using it.

Or did I miss something?

So vote D for me.

It will be a while before I buy anything with a Cree in it, first something has to come out in production lights, then they have to prove they are actually worth the hype, and are as durable and long running as other options. Once that happens I will go with them, and that may take some time, so it is not going to alter my buying habits.