90 and 100 lumen Rebels available now!

Lumileds just announced 90 and 100 lumen (at 350mA) Rebels, available now. I can confirm the availability, as last night Future Electronics was showing both 90 and 100 lumen parts available for purchase, even in quantities of 1 (which is still true today). I will be ordering a few to characterize.

Press release:

http://www.luxeon.com/newsandevents/releases/PR74.PDF.pdf

Hopefully this means that the new LED construction will be available in the K2 and other lines soon as well.

Good news for us! More bright LEDs is always better.

Wow I think 2007 may be marked as the year LED lighting really took off and went mainstream.

That is Awesome!

I have been using the Cree XR-E LED's to make some custom car lighting for a while, but i think i may need to switch over to the Rebel. Now the only problem is they are sooo small that i'll need to find a way to make a custom board and have the re-flow soldered for me.

Any idea where i can get a custom board made for the Rebel's, and have them Soldered for me ??

This is excellent- competition is always excellent. We're in the Cree Q4 arena now with these rebels...great stuff.

Yeah, they had the 0090 and 0100 parts for sale at Future last night. We thought that some funny business was going on! Cree lovers, watch out! Lumileds is almost back! I was going to order some of the newer Rebels last night, worrying that this supposed glitch would be gone, but I can relax a little now.

I thought that this snippet from the above announcement was very interesting:
"Design confidence is critical too and therefore we provide useful minimum performance data as opposed to 'typical' or 'up to' output numbers that aren't useful in the design process"

That is great! I bet they still test the lumens the same way as before (pulsing), but maybe they are more conservative with their numbers. It would be nice to see some sort of official, neutral party testing for some of their products (like how Cree did the NIST testing). I think that Lumileds learned something from Cree and the XR-E , as well as their K2 experience. Thats a good boy, Lumileds. Now fetch me some of those Gen-Xs!


-Tony

Won't Rebels be easier to design effective optics for than the Crees because they're so much smaller?

hey guys... just wondering if there's any point to getting the rebels... considering that Q4's are at 100lm @ 350ma.... ???

is there any advantage to the rebels as opposed to the q4/q5's???

i'm thinking off modding a light.... but just don't know which route to go...

KraZy

krazy89 said:

hey guys... just wondering if there's any point to getting the rebels... considering that Q4's are at 100lm @ 350ma.... ???

is there any advantage to the rebels as opposed to the q4/q5's???

i'm thinking off modding a light.... but just don't know which route to go...

KraZy

Click to expand...

It depends on what you want it to do. Rebels are the smallest surface-mount high-power LEDs on the market... and that means surface intensity is higher than on a Cree for the same light output. They have a smaller footprint than a Cree, but they should be slightly more difficult to work with. I'm not sure what kind of output they have at higher currents though... according to the datasheets at www.luxeon.com, they're about on par with Q4 or Q5 Crees up to 1000mA. They seems to have a slightly lower forward voltage, around 3.4 instead of 3.7. That will make driving them with a single Li-Ion battery a more pleasant task once application-specific drivers are available, since it should be easier to provide constant-voltage regulation at that level...

you also have to worry about attempting to solder these as well. they are so small that i feel it will be almost impossible to do a clean job trying to hand solder these.

If there is enough demand for the 100 lumen Rebel, I can get some, but I'd like to know how many people might truly be interested, since I'd have to order a reel.

smaller footprint is a good/bad thing...

it does take up less space... and it can be easier to focus... BUT... it's hard to work with... (i got huge fingers!!!)... heat will be a problem...

I'm just not sold on the rebel idea... i was assuming that the rebel will beat the cree in terms of lm output when they release it... i mean... if it's the same output as what's out on the market.. and it's not a helluva cheaper... than who's gonna bite?? (besides everyone at CPF???)

KraZy

I hope someone make a series of reflectors and optics that take advantage of the super small reflector opening of the Rebel dome (only 2.5mm). It does not make sense that there is not a company that has created matching reflectors and optics for the Rebel yet. Sure, you only gain a few extra millimeters of reflector surface, but that means a gain in lux. There was that reflector made a long time ago for 3mm LEDs, the McR-8. That would be nice for that to be created again. Wouldn't it be nice to use the small size and Lambertian radiation pattern in your light, especially since the light almost performs as good as the Q4 XR-E? The XR-Es, even though I always like them, still have a funky way to distribute photons, using the awkward glass dome and holding ring. I hate that! anyway, I hope this means that the Gen-X will be released soon. That way we can use this newer efficiency while drive them harder.

-Tony

Gryloc said:

...using the awkward glass dome and holding ring. I hate that!
-Tony

Click to expand...

I've always liked the idea of the glass dome and holding ring. Allows the reflectors and optic holders to be attached directly to the LED instead if having to use the host (or glue) to hold them on. Different strokes...

I am wondering if I could replace the Nichia Led of a Fenix E1 with one of these Rebels. Anyone knows?

They also have the 70 lumen neutral white ones now avalable. I have been patiently waiting for a long time and just placed an order for some to test out along with some of the 100 lumen cool white ones. It should be fun.

Brlux said:

They also have the 70 lumen neutral white ones now avalable. I have been patiently waiting for a long time and just placed an order for some to test out along with some of the 100 lumen cool white ones. It should be fun.

Click to expand...

The neutral white ones are obviously better; they have 'PWN' right in the model number!

PhotonFanatic said:

If there is enough demand for the 100 lumen Rebel, I can get some, but I'd like to know how many people might truly be interested, since I'd have to order a reel.

Click to expand...

A few issues:

1) These don't look easily hand-solderable, so it might be good to have them mounted on a star

2) Weird emitters aren't very useful by themselves - can you source some reflectors too?

Toshi

As a commercial user, if these things meet the specifications, they should be able to withstand much higher operating temperatures while still maintaining long life. Time will tell I guess.

When SMT equipment, these are dead simple to work with. I realize that not everyone has that type of equipment, but to commercial users who drive the volume, using these is no problem.

Semiman

krazy89 said:

smaller footprint is a good/bad thing...

it does take up less space... and it can be easier to focus... BUT... it's hard to work with... (i got huge fingers!!!)... heat will be a problem...

I'm just not sold on the rebel idea... i was assuming that the rebel will beat the cree in terms of lm output when they release it... i mean... if it's the same output as what's out on the market.. and it's not a helluva cheaper... than who's gonna bite?? (besides everyone at CPF???)

KraZy

Click to expand...

hmm... well.. if you're talking commercial level... i'm sure they aren't a problem to work with...

i'm talking about the average joe... that just loves flashlights.... i can smell the smell of seared flesh already...

having said that... i think i'm gonna grab a few and try them out... and compare them to P4/Q4....

KraZy

My 100 lumen Rebels should be here on Friday. I will have a full write-up on them soon.


Before, when the Rebels were only 50 lumens, I wasn't overly impressed, and didn't try too hard to devise a clever mounting system.

However, at 100 lumens, they are much more compelling and I will have to try a bit harder. Hopefully, I can come up with something simple that will also give good thermal performance.