No more Cree mods for me!

It was a fun little excursion. I was able to hone my skills at-

• Board modding.
• Fixture modding.
• Reflector modding
• Head position adjustment.
• Reflow soldering.
• Emitter centering.

Don't get me wrong, I had 100% yield. The beam patterns were reasonable. And the lights were always much brighter.

But the inevitable happened. A company came out with Cree XR-E performance in a Luxeon form factor.

Instead of taking a half day to mod a light, it will now take me 15 minutes to an hour (depending on how hard it is to open the head). Chances are, I will have the same beam pattern, JUST BRIGHTER.

Should I feel bad that my skills as a modder will suddenly be discarded for a simple two-wire solder job with thermal adhesive?



I have enough on order to upgrade all my Lux torches.

i kinda don't know what you're talking about.

Well Ir Paul,

Can you mod my nuwai ALX 352-L with the Q3 cree emitter?

Talkin about the new Soul ZLEDs huh?

I added a hyperlink (sorry)

hmm... maybe there is hope for my u2 yet.

He is talking about these

Seul Semiconductors P4 U binned white emitters
http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=145585

EngrPaul said:

It was a fun little excursion. I was able to hone my skills at-

• Board modding.
• Fixture modding.
• Reflector modding
• Head position adjustment.
• Reflow soldering.
• Emitter centering.

Don't get me wrong, I had 100% yield. The beam patterns were reasonable. And the lights were always much brighter.

But the unevitable happened. A company came out with Cree XR-E performance in a Luxeon form factor.

Instead of taking a half day to mod a light, it will now take me 15 minutes to an hour (depending on how hard it is to open the head). Chances are, I will have the same beam pattern, JUST BRIGHTER.

Should I feel bad that my skills as a modder will suddenly be discarded for a simple two-wire solder job with thermal adhesive?

Click to expand...

Are you starting a group buy?

Are they competetive price wise?

Here ya go, order as many as you want:

http://www.mouser.com/search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=W42180-Uvirtualkey61510000virtualkey889-W42180U

wow... well, anyone have any clue to whether or not this will work in a u2 or will the stages not work like with the cree?

The minor drawback to these is that the base of the emitter is not electrically neutral, it's positive.

LumenHound said:

The minor drawback to these is that the base of the emitter is not electrically neutral, it's positive.

Click to expand...

Isn't thermal epoxy non-conductive?

Will these fit the osink??

LumenHound said:

The minor drawback to these is that the base of the emitter is not electrically neutral, it's positive.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that is a seriously major issue. Folks better be aware of this, or they will be blowing these left and right. You will need to insulate the slug on these. This will also defocus the die, since it will no longer be at the optimum spot. Rob Peter and pay Paul.

I sure hope they actually do emit (this time) what they are claimed to do, I haven't had much luck with that in samples of their previous devices.

BTW, on this die, at least in the XR-E package, jtr1962 had surprising results, with the part hitting it's bin, even with the die heating up (normally you have to derate the output of the luxeon parts due to die heating):
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/1746547#post1746547

Looks like the dome diameter is smaller than the Luxeon III, nearly a millimeter shorter than the Luxeon III in height, the slug base is larger in diameter, the entire body is larger in diameter.

Definitely not a drop in replacement, bummer.

LumenHound said:

The minor drawback to these is that the base of the emitter is not electrically neutral, it's positive.

Click to expand...

Right LH......but something else seems to be wrong, I just can't figure it out right now.

:candle:

Ray

Well you could mod the heatsink and die plate to be reversed or you could blow up a light and option 3 get really poor thermal conductivity. And depending on the thermal epxy it is either highly coductive or not.

Don't forget the dimensional differences...

NewBie said:

Don't forget the dimensional differences...

Click to expand...

Which dimensional difference specifically are a concern to you NewBie?

EDIT: Oops, I didn't see your edited post.

Well I'm not sure about the electric conductiveness of Artic Alumina...I think they use actual silver in it. But I found an article at Overclockers.com that shows how to make your own thermal epoxy:

http://www.overclockers.com/tips683/

Dunno if this would be better, but I thought I'd put it out there...