What is the cheapest, smallest, with heatsinking, cree 1xcr123 light

Hi everyone,

Do you all know what's the best single cell cr123 cree light? The creep4 led that's from kaidomain.com or dx seems to be decent ($14.99), but lacks adequate heat sinking. Is there one cheap, bright even if it's direct driven light?

Thanks.

If you're talking about abvidledUK test where he said the $15 Cree light got too hot to hold after a few minutes, that's a sign of good heatsinking, i.e. the heat got away from the LED and out to the body.

It's also a sign that maybe the LED is being overdriven, but that's another question...

If you're talking about abvidledUK test where he said the $15 Cree light got too hot to hold after a few minutes, that's a sign of good heatsinking, i.e. the heat got away from the LED and out to the body.

It's also a sign that maybe the LED is being overdriven, but that's another question...

Click to expand...

He also found that resutl using 3.7V rechargeables. Regular CR123 ran longer, cooler, and with better regulation -- just not as bright. The problem with those lights isn't that the thermal connection isn't good enough, but just that a light that small can't really dissipate the heat, as the light itself is too small to act as a heatsink for an LED driven very hard.

However, it is possible to grasp the light in the palm of your hand -- this is what I do with my L0D-CE on 10440 no LiIon -- your skin will conduct away a lot of the heat and it won't reach excessive temperatures.

Yeah, it's a Catch 22. The smaller and the brighter the light is, the warmer it will get... Simple physics. If you custom built two lights made of a solid piece of copper that had a 1" thick copper heatsink directly under the LED, and drove the LED at 1000mA, it would get VERY warm. And that would be a good thing!

Pretty much if the light is getting warm from the LED (and not because of the driver board components), then it has very respectable heat. But the smaller and brighter it is, the warmer it will be. Simple as that.

nerdgineer said:

If you're talking about abvidledUK test where he said the $15 Cree light got too hot to hold after a few minutes, that's a sign of good heatsinking, i.e. the heat got away from the LED and out to the body.

It's also a sign that maybe the LED is being overdriven, but that's another question...

Click to expand...

2xTrinity said:

He also found that result using 3.7V rechargeables. Regular CR123 ran longer, cooler, and with better regulation -- just not as bright. The problem with those lights isn't that the thermal connection isn't good enough, but just that a light that small can't really dissipate the heat, as the light itself is too small to act as a heatsink for an LED driven very hard.

Click to expand...

OK, here's the RT graphs to save linking:

P4 RT's using RCR123's

Horizontal 15', EV8 min useful

Having pulled the capsule out of the $14.99 light there is basically zero heatsinking and yes it may get warm but heat radiates to anything nearby so the body does get warm. That fact does not IMO mean it has good or even okay heatsinking. I plan on fixing this light so it does have some better heat sinking as I do like it but the little PCB that the Cree is on doesn't even appear to have any copper or foil in it and this PCB wasn't even down flush against the aluminum capsule. It had a small phillips screw holding it more or less in place that was not down tight as it was a pan head sort of screw put into a hole just a little to small and it got stuck before pushing the PCB down against the aluminum. I tried tightening it down more but basically started to strip the screw head out as it wouldn't turn any more and I put some fairly heavy pressure on it. This really should have a proper heat sink and then I think it will start getting a lot more use.