We have basically grown up on Luxeons and many of us have been around through the pee green years to where the Luxeon's of today stand.
If you look at comercial offerings on flashlights, typically little is offered beyond a statement of flux (often best case and sans any transmission losses) and possibly runtimes.
On CPF, we have become much more intimate with these LED's than most dealers selling lights containing them.
Plain and simple, no white LED is white. It has a tint of some sort. The question becomes how far from white does the tint vary and then the subjective call of where do you like your tint to be. With years of experience having luxeon as the only real game in town, we have become adept at viewing the Luxeons and frankly for wont of something better to do with our time or money, we have replaced LED's and whole lights for what most would consider incrimental gains of some sort; be they a change in tint or flux.
Now the EZ1000 chip from Cree makes the scene and by the standards set by the commercial industry (flux output alone) the EZ1000 is something to contend with! In generall, double the flux at the same power.
It is likely that the comercial providers of flashlights will bring about product with these LED's because of competition among themselves.
These companies will not be disclosing bin information now for the same reasons they have not provided it in the past. There are a number of reasons I can think of but not to get side tracked.....
Now on CPF, we go by bin so what's the deal here?
Well with the Cree XR-E, a reel of LED's contains 1000 LED's. Cree will sell these with bin preference bringing you down to say 4 possible tints within a certain flux range. The price of lottery tickets is pretty dang high!!! :green: There are some of us like myself that can step up to the plate for a single reel but what I get is what I build with, plain and simple! Couple that with the fact that IMHO, these lights are close enough to white to serve their intended function of illumination then I personally will not open the lottery door in my offerings! I am still sitting on hundreds and hundreds of premium Luxeons with no demand for them now. WHy so many? Needed to have various bins available....
Ironically, had the EZ1000 not taken the wind from Luxeon's sails, we would be dealing with a larger number of possible tint bins than last year in case no one has noticed. :green:
Does a known bin tint of a Cree XR-E insure a LED of known and predictable tint? I say no if it is a bin region that straddles the P line. Hell, a Luxeon X1 could be one of a couple colors in my experience and this is no doubt why Lumileds has further broken down the bins.
If the manufacturer or distributor will sell specific bins in small numbers then it is one thing to expect a builder to offer this information but even then, the builder may not have the flavor
you want or will they be able to keep up with the ever changing flavor of the month.
To make specific bin LED's available in small quantities, someone has to step up to the plate and buy a bunch of LED's!!! Be my guest.
Now in the case of the Seoul P4, this LED is so new that we haven't been able to get a taste for what is being offered. Newbie has done some investigation with a small sampling of one or a couple bins and seen variations among the LED's as well as as a function of drive level. Uh Oh! I am working with a reel of 250 pieces and fortunately I have not seen tint issues with them that I feel justify any concern beyond recognition that the LED's do have a tint! Duh! They all do!
What does the P4 have to offer? Well it has the EZ1000 at its core and from my bench testing, the EZ1000 does shine through. Is it as controlled as in the case of the Cree XR-E? possibly not. Does it have some advantages over the Cree XR-E or the Luxeons for that matter? Well if you want greater lux from an existing optic, probably yes.
The CPF market is very much demand driven but if expectations or requests are unrealistic, don't expect supply to supply. :shrug: I have stated in the past few months that I felt things were going to get very confusing on CPF and that the market would be unstable. After sampling the Cree and Seoul LED's I felt justified in making these statements and for personal reasons, elected not to justify the statements at the time I made them.
There is a revolution under way and there will be blood let. Many of us may end up leaving the field entirely.
I think it is real safe to say that the revolution is not over and really, it is just beginning!
Consumers will have more and more choices provided someone elects to make them available. This will be true here on CPF as well as in the "real" market overall.
I have recently read some suggested bars to clear and hoops to jump through that are simply unrealistic and if such an obstacle course is set by the consumer, don't be surprised if there are a small number of entries to the contest; if any. Limit enough players from the contest with your rules and don't expect those who do elect to play to have to compete very hard!
