SSC P4 U-bins tint shift at high current - recent experiences??

wintermute · Jul 3, 2007

So, I've been reading newbie's results about these P4s, http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/seoulmy.htm - and all of the issue of tint shift. All I can say, is WOW. Has anyone had any experience with pushing these newer U-bins to 1000mA and experiencing tint shift of the same level. The testing was done months ago I believe, I am just wondering if things have changed at all?

I've already got USXOH, which are slightly blue compared to other bins - I worry that pushing this thing to 1000mA is going to make it waaay too blue for my tastes. I'm just wondering if people are seeing the same type of shift they were in the earlier P4s. I have a VIP-1000 and a VIP-750 to use, and if the tint shift is still as bad now as it was, I think I'll stick with the VIP-750 and leave the VIP-1000 for some host which uses a Cree (like one of my WC tint Q4s on the way maybe).

Malkoff is using U-bin SSC P4s, pushing them to 1000mA in their drop-ins, and people seem to be happy with them. So are the new bins better then the old.

OhMyGosh · Jul 3, 2007

I have a Liteflux LF2 SSC version flashlight and 1 SSC star. I see no evidence of any tint shift. The LF2 is a 1xAAA light and max current is only ~350ma. I just ran my star up to 1 amp for a few seconds and didn't see any obvious sign of color shift.

wintermute · Jul 3, 2007

Right - but this light will probably be used at times for more then just minutes. So I am wondering if all of the new SSCs are the same after being driven for 1A for 15 minutes or more (maybe much more).

ace0001a · Jul 3, 2007

I go walking around my neighborhood at night sometimes with my Malkoff Devices 3D Mag, which runs @ 1A and it's rock solid with no tint shift. Common knowledge states that having good heatsinking helps to the longevity of LED. When pushing these SSCP4s @ 1A, good heatsinking is definitely a must have.

Gene43 · Jul 3, 2007

The only time I've experienced tint shift at 1000ma is when heatsinking is marginal.

wintermute · Jul 3, 2007

Gene43 said:
The only time I've experienced tint shift at 1000ma is when heatsinking is marginal.

Newbie had his emitters on this heatsink, and still exhibited tons of tint shift.

Newbie's images, not mine - but that was tons of heasinking. Guess maybe SSC has fixed this problem a bit. I was thinking of changing up to a Cree in a current mod, but if people really aren't seeing this anymore - then I'll keep the SSC for now.

Gene43 · Jul 3, 2007

Newbie's definitely the man when it comes to the techinical stuff. Maybe he had a bad batch or maybe they've fixed it.

FlashCrazy · Jul 4, 2007

I've run the SSC P4 between 1000-1300 mA in my Coast Focusing Lenser mod (I've done 30 of them so far) and haven't experienced tint shift. It really does depend on the heatsink and LED mounting method. I've done several other lights with the SSC P4 driven at 1000 mA...no problems there either. Some modded lights I've done, like the Coast Tac Torch V2 (7736 model) had a bit of tint shift after a couple minutes of runtime with fully charged NiMH batteries. These lights were also running at 1000 mA, but this was the OLD version of the 7736. The new version has a heatsink that is twice as thick...I've modded these, and no tint shift problems.

Norm · Jul 4, 2007

I have a quad USWOH P4 mag 1 Amp to each LED, it runs until the Shark mounted on the back of the heat sink shuts down due to overheat and still no tint shift. I'm in the middle of rebuilding it now to try and overcome the problem, might have to make a separate heat sink for the Shark.
Norm

northman · Jul 4, 2007

I have a headlamp with 4 ssc p4 that i have buildt,no tint shift problems ! in my opinion the light is more blue at very low currents! At 1 amp my headlamp shines very white ! I do not think that manufactures like Lupine would have used ssc p4 leds in their wilma x if tint shift was a serious problem !

Gryloc · Jul 4, 2007

Hello wintermute. Yeah, I feel that the problem of tint shift, for the most part, has passed. I cannot recall if it was the same thread by Newbie that you read (much later on -maybe 3/4 way in), or a different one where he found that one of his SSCs were defective. The die was not properly epoxied to the slug and a corner of the die was lifted. He noticed horrible tint shifts with that particular LED. That was not his only SSC that had some tint shift (that one was by far the worst).

My very first SSC, which was a T-bin, was driven in an old Sreamlight 3AA TaskLED Luxeon that was modded to house a Fatman to power an old Lux V star. The Fatman was sort of messed up where it would dump as much current into the LED that my AA NiMHs could dish (faulty pot and its connecting traces). Anyway, Heatsinking was not the best in that, even though I made a thin aluminum heatsink to fit in there. That SSC P4 T-bin recieved up to 1500mA on a fresh charge of batteries. That sucker was bright! I believe that at a little over 1A, the tint begins to slightly shift blue. Not too bad, though. However, when driven over 1300mA or so (fresh batteries), and after about 5-10 seconds, the tint started to turn an angry blue. That LED later found a new home elsewhere, but it survived. I killed it with a bad boost driver months ago, but if I had it today, I would have tried to experiment with those blue-shifts. Oh well.

My next SSCs were UWO's (or equivalent) from DX a few months ago, after they were available as bare emitters. I ordered 6 of them. 4 were for my quad LED 2D Mag, powered at up to 1A each, and 2 were used elsewhere. These are very nice and none of them have showed me any tint shift! I have powered them all at 1A (those four run at that level for long periods of time, decently heatsinked) with no trouble. The max these were driven at were probably like 1100mA or so. None even shift blue even just a little.

So far, I am still sold on these things, because of my good experiences. That T-bin was pretty old and it still did okay up to 1A. Past that, you noticed the blue shift. I think that we are more in the clear now with the SSCs. Even though Seoul is a "lower quality" LED maker, compared to Cree and Luxeon, they seemed to have gotten all the kinks out of the P4 die and its new phosphor. I am sure some will have those SSCs that are buggy or missed QC, though...

-Tony

TorchBoy · Jul 4, 2007

Do they still have the colour temp varying by beam angle? Newbie's pics with the Mag reflector show a yellow central beam but quite blue spill.

wintermute · Jul 4, 2007

Sounds excellent guys, thanks for the input. I was really wondering if I should put this light down in the 750mA range instead of the 1000mA range due to the tint shift issue. The reality is, I will have to experiment and see if the 1 x U-bin SSC in this light will dissipate enough heat to prevent any possible shift. I've got a couple here actually, since I am using a 2xAA body (the older Elektrolumens XM-3) I have really had to improve over the stock setup to take care of heat dissipation (basically having to wrap the aluminum "pill" which houses the LED with heatsink tape from Chomerics.)

With my old setup of the LuxIII running at 750mA, the heat got quite hot - a good sign that the heat was making it's way out. So, I'll try the 1000mA VIP driver in this first to make sure things are stable now that I've heard enough from the experiences of those here. I'll be setting up all of my H Vf SSC emitters (which should be 0.03v lower the Lumileds...so 3.00v-3.24v @350mA) and figuring out which one has the lowest Vf, and putting it in...we'll see what happens when everything is done.

Thanks for all the input - anyone else, please don't hesitate to add more info if you have some. All the best.

Flo · Jul 4, 2007

I'm a lucky owner of a Lupine Wilma which uses 4 SSC P4. There's is no tint variation over the whole drive range - it's just THE flawless perfect white light :twothumbs.

Art Vandelay · Jul 4, 2007

Gryloc said:
Hello wintermute. Yeah, I feel that the problem of tint shift, for the most part, has passed. I cannot recall if it was the same thread by Newbie that you read (much later on -maybe 3/4 way in), or a different one where he found that one of his SSCs were defective. The die was not properly epoxied to the slug and a corner of the die was lifted. He noticed horrible tint shifts with that particular LED. That was not his only SSC that had some tint shift (that one was by far the worst).

My very first SSC, which was a T-bin, was driven in an old Sreamlight 3AA TaskLED Luxeon that was modded to house a Fatman to power an old Lux V star. The Fatman was sort of messed up where it would dump as much current into the LED that my AA NiMHs could dish (faulty pot and its connecting traces). Anyway, Heatsinking was not the best in that, even though I made a thin aluminum heatsink to fit in there. That SSC P4 T-bin recieved up to 1500mA on a fresh charge of batteries. That sucker was bright! I believe that at a little over 1A, the tint begins to slightly shift blue. Not too bad, though. However, when driven over 1300mA or so (fresh batteries), and after about 5-10 seconds, the tint started to turn an angry blue. That LED later found a new home elsewhere, but it survived. I killed it with a bad boost driver months ago, but if I had it today, I would have tried to experiment with those blue-shifts. Oh well.

My next SSCs were UWO's (or equivalent) from DX a few months ago, after they were available as bare emitters. I ordered 6 of them. 4 were for my quad LED 2D Mag, powered at up to 1A each, and 2 were used elsewhere. These are very nice and none of them have showed me any tint shift! I have powered them all at 1A (those four run at that level for long periods of time, decently heatsinked) with no trouble. The max these were driven at were probably like 1100mA or so. None even shift blue even just a little.

So far, I am still sold on these things, because of my good experiences. That T-bin was pretty old and it still did okay up to 1A. Past that, you noticed the blue shift. I think that we are more in the clear now with the SSCs. Even though Seoul is a "lower quality" LED maker, compared to Cree and Luxeon, they seemed to have gotten all the kinks out of the P4 die and its new phosphor. I am sure some will have those SSCs that are buggy or missed QC, though...

-Tony

Good point. Newbie was way out ahead of everyone with this. If you look at the dates, it's clear he had some of the earliest of these LEDs. I think he was one of the first to find this problem. The page is in a log style. He describes the problem very well. Farther down the page he has large photos and even videos. Even farther down, he finds the problem and solves it. Poor contact led to heat not being drawn from the LED, which led to heat, which led to Blue tint after 500mA. He also noted that some LEDs without this problem could go "up to 1000mA before they shift much".

It's possible Seoul has gotten better with the thermal paste since Newbie evaluated them about eight months ago. It would be interesting to see the same tests run on latest LEDs.

Newbie also has some other interesting pages on his main page. http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/led.htm

FlashCrazy · Jul 4, 2007

TorchBoy said:
Do they still have the colour temp varying by beam angle? Newbie's pics with the Mag reflector show a yellow central beam but quite blue spill.

I have one in a Mag reflector, and several others in Mag styles reflectors (different company, but very similar)...I haven't noticed this. I'm away from the house but will be home in a couple of days. I'll have to check out the modded Mag's beam in more detail and let you know.

TorchBoy · Jul 4, 2007

Thanks FlashCrazy. I'll stay tuned.

3rd_shift · Jul 4, 2007

It's true.
The early production ssc p4's do seem to vary quite a bit.
I bought some early USVOL's from member photonfanatic.
I had some go blue at under 1 amp, while others did fine at 1.3 amps with minimal tint shift.
Makes one wonder if better quality control might make the ssc p4's do well at over 1 amp consistently.
That would be cool!
:popcorn:

THE_dAY · Jul 4, 2007

Art Vandelay said:
Newbie also has some other interesting pages on his main page. http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/led.htm

there is a wealth of info in that link! NewBie will be dearly missed.

LEDcandle · Jul 4, 2007

That sample that NewBie tested somehow got 'delaminated' and thus turned all the way to blue.. not sure if it was because of over-current. Read the thread long ago and am a little rusty about its contents...

I've been using an SSC P4 in my Gladius and usually use Max... which some have measured to be about 900++ ma, and it seems to be fine so far. In fact I wish there was a little more blue in my tint as mine is a kinda murky white that doesn't render color as well as another Cree I have which is really the perfect white for me!

SSC P4 U-bins tint shift at high current - recent experiences??

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