First LED brighter than 50W halogen lamp

Someone pointed this out to me, thought I would share it here.

First LED brighter than 50W halogen lamp

I cant wait till we are replacing our HIDs with LEDs of equivalent lumens,
and small enought to still be focused
Seems the day might not be too far off.

~John

jtice said:

Someone pointed this out to me, thought I would share it here.

First LED brighter than 50W halogen lamp

I cant wait till we are replacing our HIDs with LEDs of equivalent lumens,
and small enought to still be focused
Seems the day might not be too far off.

~John

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I cant wait till we are replacing our HIDs with LEDs of equivalent lumens,

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That'd be something. Except that a 50w HID is able to deliver 6000+ lumens and has much more surface brightness than LEDs (important for throw requirements).

Outdoors Fanatic said:

That'd be something. Except that a 50w HID is able to deliver 6000+ lumens and has much more surface brightness than LEDs (important for throw requirements).

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Who mentioned a 50W HID? Run at 350mA it seems this will put out more lumens than a nominal 10W HID at less power - this LED uses a lot less than 50W (the only reason for the 50W halogen comparison is for normal people who don't even know what an HID is!)

If you can focus it and if you can get the heat out (an aspect which I think might limit you to running at 350mA) this LED could make for a very impressive single LED light - twice the power input of a Lux V, but over 5 times the lumens! You could even run it at 175mA for the same power input as a Lux V, but getting on for 3 times the lumens. How big are the dice on a Lux V, so how does this compare in size with 6mm2?

You beat me to it chrism. Here's the article from my digital edition of electronics weekly. I had to do a screen dump. Presumably the reflectors are from fraen.

It's an OStar. 6 LED die in series. Operating voltage is going to be fairly high if it's like the other OStar parts - more than 20V at full power.

In fact, the higher OStar flux bins will exceed 500 lumens at 700mA assuming perfect thermal conditions.

I suspect that this announcement is a result of an overall improvement in OStar quality rather than some revolutionary product announcement.

It was dicussed before :

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/153459

I was going to say that this was a desklamp type LED that we will be making torches out of in June, but if it's 20V, that will be more difficult. That is good mod LED for the SF M6 (I know, 3V x 6 = 18V, not 20, but that is only 10% low...), not the 1 or 2 CR123 lights I prefer.
Unless the mad modders come up with a 6V to 20V boost circuit, the M6 may be the only application. But a ~1000L M6 with 3.5 hour run time would be a nice option for the M6 crowd.

Thanks for the additional info and pics guys.
Seems a bit smaller than I expected, assuming that even close to a typical star in size.
Though there is a good bit of space between the dies.

Wasnt thinking of the high V needed though,
that could put a damper on handheld plans.

~John

Blindasabat said:

I was going to say that this was a desklamp type LED that we will be making torches out of in June, but if it's 20V, that will be more difficult. That is good mod LED for the SF M6 (I know, 3V x 6 = 18V, not 20, but that is only 10% low...), not the 1 or 2 CR123 lights I prefer.
Unless the mad modders come up with a 6V to 20V boost circuit, the M6 may be the only application. But a ~1000L M6 with 3.5 hour run time would be a nice option for the M6 crowd.

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The M6 is a 9volt light.

Have you seen the heat sink required? A cube of 80 mm sides, that is more than 3 inches. A flashlight made out with this LED will not be carried "lightly".

chris_m said:

Who mentioned a 50W HID? Run at 350mA it seems this will put out more lumens than a nominal 10W HID at less power - this LED uses a lot less than 50W (the only reason for the 50W halogen comparison is for normal people who don't even know what an HID is!)

If you can focus it and if you can get the heat out (an aspect which I think might limit you to running at 350mA) this LED could make for a very impressive single LED light - twice the power input of a Lux V, but over 5 times the lumens! You could even run it at 175mA for the same power input as a Lux V, but getting on for 3 times the lumens. How big are the dice on a Lux V, so how does this compare in size with 6mm2?

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Pay attention to the quote in my post.

yes, but that'll be intended for continuous operation. but it'll still need an excellent thermal design.
i think another major downside for flashlight use will be bad focusability, even with bigger reflectors, let alone optics.
if i wanted to build my own 1k-lumens light, i'd go with 6 Crees or SSCs and separate reflectors/optics. this leaves you the 'free' choice of operating voltage AND these are simply more efficient.

What are the chances of one of these showing up in a Projector? Imagine a projector that didn't eat bulbs like candy....

I must be missing something but it says it produces 20w of heat. So how much is actually powering the LED? 25w? 30w? Sorry, even if it was only 20w, thats still pathetic compared to flurorescent.

zigziggityzoo said:

What are the chances of one of these showing up in a Projector? Imagine a projector that didn't eat bulbs like candy....

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Funny that you should ask about that...

Minjin said:

I must be missing something but it says it produces 20w of heat. So how much is actually powering the LED? 25w? 30w? Sorry, even if it was only 20w, thats still pathetic compared to flurorescent.

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Fluroescent lights and LEDs are two entirely different beasts.

Fluorescent lights are made largely of glass, radiate away most of their waste heat, need to operate within a given temperature range, and have signifigant mass/surface area.

LEDs are made of various semiconductor materials, radiate away almost none of their waste heat, operate best at low temperatures, and have tiny mass/surface area.

Given that LEDs are operating at greater wattages without getting much bigger, offer up orders of magnitude greater intensity per surface area, and are solid-state devices, a little heatsinking isn't unreasonable. A 20W LED is probably going to produce about as much waste heat as a 20W compact fluorescent anyway. Lumens per watt for the latest LEDs is closing in on fluorescent with every new generation of product.

Who mentioned a 50W HID? Run at 350mA it seems this will put out more lumens than a nominal 10W HID at less power - this LED uses a lot less than 50W (the only reason for the 50W halogen comparison is for normal people who don't even know what an HID is!)

If you can focus it and if you can get the heat out (an aspect which I think might limit you to running at 350mA) this LED could make for a very impressive single LED light - twice the power input of a Lux V, but over 5 times the lumens! You could even run it at 175mA for the same power input as a Lux V, but getting on for 3 times the lumens. How big are the dice on a Lux V, so how does this compare in size with 6mm2?

Click to expand...

The bottom line is that HID is most efficient at high wattage, and efficiency severely drops for anything lower than 35W/3000 lumens. LED on the other hand is most efficient at lower current, and generally gets less efficient as they are driven harder, so it makes sense to me that for a long time to come, LEDs will be best for lower-powered point sources, or for spotlighting, and HID will be best for flood lighting huge areas (streets, stadiums etc.)

The key to higher power with LEDs will be higher efficiency -- if an LED can be designed that wastes less power as heat in the first place, more power can be run through that same LED before it reaches the same temperature, so eventually we'll start to see some overlap for LEDs/HID, I example I can see is LED replacing HID vehicle headlights -- as with the LEDs, they can be flashed off and on, and with multi-emitters things like multiple modes of projection other than just the simple high/low beams might be possible. Also, that's somewhat on the lower end (in terms of lumen output) for HID as it is.

I wonder if this is using the cree ezbright1000 dies? #'s seem to add up... 20w/1000lm would be equal to 6 dies at 1amp with a Vf ~3.4 or so, putting out 160lm each...

I think it would be compatible with police and fire light bars, other than those contracts go to the lowest bidder most of the time. Cost-wise it probably can only compete as a headlight HID substitute.

Outdoors Fanatic said:

Pay attention to the quote in my post.

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I read it, but did you? (given there is no mention of a 50W HID in the bit you quoted, and not even the implication of that, whatever you seem to think).

Given they mention 50lm/W, then the 1000lm is at 20W (so rather less than 20W of heat - ~15W at a guess given latest efficiencys). Heat will be a big issue, but then as I suggested in my first post you run it at a maximum of 10W rather than the rated 20W - which gives you improved efficiency too (I'm guessing 600lm at 10W, which is still pretty impressive for a single LED) Yes 20V may be an issue, but you simply need a boost driver board - not that difficult, and something that is done at present with Lux V lights which need 7-8V. Meanwhile the focusing is not significantly more of a problem than with a Lux V, given only 50% more die area, and plenty of very effective lights made with those. You're not going to make a long distance thrower with one of these, but for many of us we're not after that. I'd be very surprised if somebody doesn't put it into a portable light of some sort - if nothing else us modders will.

Scott Packard said:

I think it would be compatible with police and fire light bars, other than those contracts go to the lowest bidder most of the time. Cost-wise it probably can only compete as a headlight HID substitute.

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I know a lot of new fire engines are coming with LED warning light packages. The decrease in power drain is significent.