Bearcat
Enlightened
Is it possible to redesign the Freedom to have a Cree XR-E LED and still maintain its small size?
Bearcat said:Is it possible to redesign the Freedom to have a Cree XR-E LED and still maintain its small size?
I've considered something like this to take advantage of the higher efficiency of the Cree, the only problem is the amount of $$ dumped into a coin cell light could easily get ridiculous quite fast when you consider the following:vortechs said:Are you thinking of trying to get the higher efficiency (lumens/watt) from the Cree or are you thinking of trying to get a lot more light from the Photon microlight?
The main thing that limits the brightness of the Photon Freedom microlight (and all other coin cell microlights) is the maximum current that the two tiny 2016 coin cells can deliver. You can get some more brightness by using a rechargeable 2032 Li-Ion coin cell, but a Luxeon or Cree instead of a 5mm LED would be seriously overtaxing the tiny Li-Ion coin cell. Even if you could get enough current from the coin cell(s) to run the Cree at a decent brightness, the total lack of heatsinking would be a problem for anything other than short bursts.
If you want to give it a try, I'd suggest the microlights designed for 10mm LED's may be easier to mod with a Luxeon or Cree. I'd be interested to read about the results.
Bearcat said:It sounds like to me that the Photon Freedom is going to be left in the dust if LRI does not figure out a way to get around all those pitfalls. I love my Freedom.