so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

Just ordered 2 rebel lights from DX for a guy here at work who wants to give it to an uncle - who is a doc somewhere in the Far East and uses some large, heavy and crappy light. Before we "tested" some other ones, but output of most production lights tend to be too much on the blue/green side.

So, as is typed in here always, I tried a Rebel, didnt have any before .

The 1 AAA Tiablo is great. (But not too much different from my preferred Cree tint in my modded lights)
the other, a 1 AA Rebel light, is crappy as hell. Its a rebel, but the light is more on the blue side than with most Seouls I have seen so far (and which I dont like because of this).
Seems there is not the "perfect for all Rebel", its still Luxeon lottery at its best.

Reduces it to what it has been before: "if You dont know what tint is offered, You might get something You dont like."
Or has anyone really just gotten warm tint ones, no bummers?


PS: the Tiablo is offered to be a 2-mode output model, but is on/off only. No manual there. Is there some special trick to get the low, or is it just a single mode?

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

yellow said:

Just ordered 2 rebel lights from DX for a guy here at work who wants to give it to an uncle - who is a doc somewhere in the Far East and uses some large, heavy and crappy light. Before we "tested" some other ones, but output of most production lights tend to be too much on the blue/green side.

So, as is typed in here always, I tried a Rebel, didnt have any before .

The 1 AAA Tiablo is great. (But not too much different from my preferred Cree tint in my modded lights)
the other, a 1 AA Rebel light, is crappy as hell. Its a rebel, but the light is more on the blue side than with most Seouls I have seen so far (and which I dont like because of this).
Seems there is not the "perfect for all Rebel", its still Luxeon lottery at its best.

Reduces it to what it has been before: "if You dont know what tint is offered, You might get something You dont like."
Or has anyone really just gotten warm tint ones, no bummers?


PS: the Tiablo is offered to be a 2-mode output model, but is on/off only. No manual there. Is there some special trick to get the low, or is it just a single mode?

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No-one who knows what they're talking about has ever claimed every single rebel is a lovely warm tint, more that they tend to be warmer than crees.

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

If the light is for a doctor have a look at the McGizmo light called the SUNDROP. It uses a very specialo HICRI emitter which is very good for looking at noses and throats and stuff like that. It has a color rendering index of something like 93. It is a perfect led for this porpose.
Yaesumofo

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

It will be nice when the day comes that we can specify the tints of the LED lights on our orders.

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

The Tiablo A1 is single mode - it's the MA1 that has two modes. Other than that and the annodizing color, the two flashlights are identical.

TONY M said:

It will be nice when the day comes that we can specify the tints of the LED lights on our orders.

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Well, LED Cool has something of the sort going on in his LF5XT sales thread. However, I agree that it would be great to go to order a flashlight and see beside the reflector selection menu a tint selection menu.

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

yaesumofo said:

If the light is for a doctor have a look at the McGizmo light called the SUNDROP. It uses a very specialo HICRI emitter which is very good for looking at noses and throats and stuff like that. It has a color rendering index of something like 93. It is a perfect led for this porpose.
Yaesumofo

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As a physician, I agree with Yaesumofo, 100 percent. Even a warm Rebel will not be good enough for medical usage. Except for for the SunDrop, I have found every LED light, even the warmest Rebel, deficient in the important pink/red range of the color spectrum. If the physician is using the light to look at a throat, for example, a Cree or even a Rebel will so attenuate the pinks that a pharyngitis will be missed. The physician is better off using an incadescent with a more even spectral output than an ordinary LED. For the $400 cost of the SunDrop, it might be difficult to justify the expenditure when an incadescent could do the job. Still I like the SunDrop because the beam is much brighter than any otoscope or any flashlight. Furthermore, the light is regulated and the ouput doesn't change over time as an incadescent does almost immediately.

Still, there is one problem with the SunDrop, which makes an unmodified SunDrop impractical for medical use. McGizmo designed the light as a flood light, not as a medical light. It has no reflector, just a saphire lens. The beam is much too wide to use as oral or nose exam light, because the bright light would shine into a patient's eyes. I have had mine modified with an inexpensive acrylic lens which focuses the beam so that isn't a problem. Don or I could tell anyone how to do this, if they were to go the SunDrop route.

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

Good thread in Beyond Flashlights > LED on 3200K-3500K WW Tinted Cree.

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

Hate to steal the thread for a moment, but BabyDoc have you tried the SF A2, as a regulated incan., for exams? If you did, I'd be interested in hearing how it worked for you and if it was too much light for said usage?

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

DM51 said:

Good thread in Beyond Flashlights > LED on 3200K-3500K WW Tinted Cree.

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I say one of those in an UltraFire C3 (or something) would be great.

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

RWT1405 said:

Hate to steal the thread for a moment, but BabyDoc have you tried the SF A2, as a regulated incan., for exams? If you did, I'd be interested in hearing how it worked for you and if it was too much light for said usage?

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Yes, I have tried the A2. It is fine as an incadescent, but the size of the light is rather imposing when you take this out to examine a patient, not to mention that it isn't as easy to carry around as a single cell light. I haven't used my A2 in a while, but as I recall, I had to fire up the LED's before the incadescent comes on. I found that a bit annoying, particularly since the LED's, although supposed to be white, are actually quite blue. Perhaps the cold LED's were a good thing since incadescents can actually have a yellow hue.
Because the size factor of the bigger A2 was a deal breaker for me, I never compared the A2 to the SunDrop, although that might be academically interesting to do, since they both have about the same lumen output. The A2 with its cold LED's on may be close to the Sundrop. The SunDrop has the color balance of the Sun and not an incadescent, alone. On a white wall it appers a bit like incadescent. In actual use, there is no yellow tint to its color rendition.

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

So you ordered a no-name flashlight from DX and you're surprised it's crappy?

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

If you want a Nice Light, i really liked my MTE C2 Rebel....

Crenshaw

no, actually I am impressed with the quality of the tiablo and even the other light is ok

what I was wondering was, that a Rebel could give ugly blue light - something I havent read in here before
(its the opposite, Seoul and Cree got bashings for not being as warm tinted as Rebels)


... given the price of the Sundrop, that seems to be a light the user has to justify the purchase. As a gift - a bit pricey
... ist that Nichia available? just get some hits leading to forums, but no shop

where might that 93 CRI led be, tint wise?

totally in the middle (b2), or?

http://www.nichia.co.jp/de/product/lamp-color.html

... cant find any info/source

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

Thank you BabyDoc for taking the time to reply!

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

yellow said:

no, actually I am impressed with the quality of the tiablo and even the other light is ok

what I was wondering was, that a Rebel could give ugly blue light - something I havent read in here before
(its the opposite, Seoul and Cree got bashings for not being as warm tinted as Rebels)


... given the price of the Sundrop, that seems to be a light the user has to justify the purchase. As a gift - a bit pricey
... ist that Nichia available? just get some hits leading to forums, but no shop

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Yes, the price of the SunDrop is rather high. A good reason for the high price is Don's limited production run, his time in making them individually, and the expensive materials, which include an all titanium body and a saphire crystal. To be fair to Don, he has made available the SunDrops's light engine for only $15 (actually 10 for $150). He sells another all aluminum light, the MULE, for $105 which can easily accept this light engine. Add an acrylic lens and you essentially have a SunDrop for a lot less money than $400. Actually the prototype light Don sent me to try out for him, was a Mule so modified. I went on to buy the SunDrop but I still have the prototype and there isn't much difference.

I guess what is encouraging about all this is the HI CRI Nichia 083 is an affordable LED. It could be incorporated into other mass production lights if there was a demand for it. Still, I doubt there will be. The cost of the Nichia isn't the money, it is the loss of light output you get when you coat the inside of the LED with enough different phosphors needed to give a more balanced light balanced spectrum. The SunDrop puts out only 40 lumens, which is more than enough for me and my medical usage, but most people today buy lights for lumens even if they don't really need them. The more lumens the better for the mass market who wouldn't sacrifice them for the sake of color. Hopefully, there will be a time when we can have both. One thought would be to incorporate multiple separate LED's each with a single different phosphor into a single flashlight. This would be a tricky balancing act, but is a possibility.

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

The first rule for any enthusiast forum is that there are NO ABSOLUTES, there are ALWAYS exceptions to EVERYTHING you read.

Folks may rant about the color tint of the Lux Rebel, but there is always going to be production variation. Furthermore to try and extrapolate the performance of any given light based solely on the emitter BIN used is a shot in the dark... at best. IMHO the design of the DC-DC driver circuit, and battery used plays just as important a role as the emitter BIN. The three each contribute a significant amount to the overall performance.

That being said, I have had very GOOD results with my Sportsman extreme 2AA. It uses a Low bin Lux rebel, spits out about 65 Lumens, nice hot spot with smooth transition to side flood. Its the closest to Xenon color tint LED that I own. It has a slight yellow tint that turns more green as the cells deplete. Its only $25 at walmart and runs for a decently long time off alkalines and NiMH cells.

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

I'd go with the McGizmo's Sundrop as BabyDoc said or build your own with a High CRI emitter.

The warmer tint emitters are nice,much more pleasing to my eyes than the cooler ones,the problem is they still have a lower CRI than what you would want to use in a critical situation as the one described.

Cree Warm Tints:CRI 80

Nichia Warm Tint:92

Seoul Neutral Tint:93

Seoul Warm Tint:93

I have some of the Seoul neutral tint on the way,I'll report back as soon as I get them.

Thanks,
Michael

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

TexLite said:

I'd go with the McGizmo's Sundrop as BabyDoc said or build your own with a High CRI emitter.

The warmer tint emitters are nice,much more pleasing to my eyes than the cooler ones,the problem is they still have a lower CRI than what you would want to use in a critical situation as the one described.

Cree Warm Tints:CRI 80

Nichia Warm Tint:92

Seoul Neutral Tint:93

Seoul Warm Tint:93

I have some of the Seoul neutral tint on the way,I'll report back as soon as I get them.

Thanks,
Michael

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Cree is reporting a CRI of 94 for its LR4 fixture. We can only speculate, but that fixture almost certainly contains warm white MC-Es or XR-Es.

Re: so much for that "rebel = nice and warm and better than everything else"-say

I was going by the datasheet:

Typical CRI for Cool White & Neutral White (3700 K - 10,000 K ) is 75.

Typical CRI for Warm White (2600 K - 3700 K ) is 80.

Xlamp 7090 XR-E datasheet,page 2.

Maybe we'll get further information soon,sounds interesting.

Thanks,
Michael