Anybody tried the eBay White LEDs from Hong Kong?

There are a couple people selling white LEDs from hong kong on eBay
for about 1/10th the price of most local dealers (ie $0.20 each for
50-100.) Has anybody tried these out? Do you have any comments
on quality? They're not advertising to be as bright as Nichia's,
but are they bright enough for general illumination/flashlight like
uses?

(I did buy some UV LEDs from hong kong via eBay, and was generally
pleased with how the transaction went, and the quality of the LEDs.
But there's a lot more that can go wrong with White LEDs...)

Thanks
Bill W

Well, my experience with the led might be different than yours as does mine with others who has buy them but here you goes. As far as the quality of the light concerned, these certainly has wider angle than the smallest angle of the nichias. I would approximate around 20 to 30 degrees. The beam also, while not excellent, certainly best for the price. These seems to require higher Vf than nichia counterpart. If you supply lower voltage, these will be greenish and if you supply the correct voltage, the maximum brightness will be white on close range and gradually change to bluish light as the range increased.
For the price, don't forget to include shipping as shipping generally increase the price each led to 1.5 to 2 times as much.
If you would like to use these leds as general lighting use, then this is a very good deal. Be wary though, i would say 3 of these would be as bright as 2 nichias. They are not as bright, certainly, but they are not that dim either. If you would like to make led array as flashlight out of these thing, i would say don't. you will be disapointed by the range and brightness of these. If, however, you are going to use it for general lighting purpose, like night time light or study lamp, then a reasonable amount of these will certainly do the job well.
Anyway, the price certainly right and i say you get more than what you pay for.
just my 2 cents

I have gotten 3 different 100 packs of white LED's at different times and 100 UV of ebay form a guy in Hong Kong ID name cephas. They were advertised to be as Bright As Nichia 9500 and They deffenantly are bright but I would guess that they are not exactly as bright.. Though I have no individual Nichia lights to compare them to. They seem to have a rather tight beam a and white compared to some of my other head lamps. (Aurory, Photon Fusion,) I have used 105 of them so far to light one of the rooms on my solar power system. 105 of them provide good lighting in a room 16'x13'. Not quite as bright as normal incandesant but enough to see what is going on. they are all driven around 30mA and most of them are used as indirect lighting, ( shining up at the white seeling and walls) the coler of the lighting is about the same as The little cheep florent bulbes in camping lanterns. The shipping on each was $6.00 and came rather quickly from Hong Kong. I have also made some neat flashlights, and mods out of them. I have been pleased with them and they have meet my needs.

got some from http://www.stores.ebay.com/id=70930951
nowhere near a good nichia but ok for tinkerers.
very narrow beam and bluish/violetish.

I bought 100 white and 100 UV LEDs from ChiWing (see previous post) and was satisfied, at 20 cents each, plus $10 to airmail them, they are great for experimenting. Sure, a good Nichia NSPW500BS is brighter and cleaner, but also 5 to 10 times as expensive. I bot some of the 9 LED PCBs from www.superbrightleds.com in order to make up some cheap "strip lights" I use lucite tubing from the local hardware store to house them. 12VDC wall wart or 12V battery for power. They outshone some allegedly "7300 to 11000 mCd"
white LEDs I had obtained earlier, and had none of the gross baby poop green-brown color artifacts that the latter LEDs have.
Air Mail Delivery takes about 10 - 15 days, and you also get a bunch of interesting HK stamps on the package.

/ed B in NH

my mom collects stamps.
i gave the envelope to her.
i can hear it now.
when are you going to order more leds from hongkong?

I bought 100UV and 50 White LEDs from ChiWing several months ago and I wish all of my eBay purchases went that well. First, the LEDs are very good--better than the stuff I've been paying well more for from the surplus outlets. The shipping was faster than UPS ground! I ordered the stuff on a wednesday and got it on the following monday. UPS generally takes 5-6 days to get stuff to me from a domestic location (I'm on East coast US).

The person I emailed with (ChiWing?) was very friendly and helpful. If I needed more, I would not hesitate to go back to them.

The stamps were cool!

Oh, as far as quality goes, the pattern was wider than I'm used to, but it was *very* uniform in both intensity gradiation and color consistancy--no banding, no discoloration. They looked like standard 'cool white'. For that, I am very happy. Some of these are going to find their way into itty-bitty lamps and such for my Fiance's doll house. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

how are the UV ones?

A friend of mine has ordered the UV ones yesterday. I will tell you how they work out as compared to two different types of other UV LED's that I have

I haven't seen the UV LEDs yet, but somebody did mail me some of Chi Wing's white LEDs to test. I haven't tested them yet, but the beam angle appears a hair wider than Nichia whites, and the beam seems smoother than expected. Smoother than a typical Nichia, with no "nasties" in the beam at all. I haven't measured them yet, but the brightness seemed respectable in my test set.

i wonder if they are using a different die than most.
the phosphor looks different and no blue hotspot like most whites.

[ QUOTE ]
The LED Museum said:
I haven't seen the UV LEDs yet, but somebody did mail me some of Chi Wing's white LEDs to test. I haven't tested them yet, but the beam angle appears a hair wider than Nichia whites, and the beam seems smoother than expected. Smoother than a typical Nichia, with no "nasties" in the beam at all. I haven't measured them yet, but the brightness seemed respectable in my test set.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
IsaacHayes said:
how are the UV ones?

[/ QUOTE ]
Bright and even. No difference from the ones that I've purchased domestically. Any particular criteria you wish evaluated? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Just wanted to know how bright they were and if they were around the wavelenght they advertised. If they're bright then seems I should get some.

I placed an order for some of the white ones on Friday, lets hope I get an email notification from someone other than paypal before too long...

Hears a post I made about a UV flashlight I made form some of my ebay leds.

are anybody afraid of SARS viruses?

i just bought 100 UV from ebay as well
and now im afraid to get the packaged
since there was a big SARS issue at HK.

but i think the SARS virus are not capable to live in "dead material" for more than few hours.

am i right? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/help.gif

Re: Anybody tried the eBay White LEDs from Hong Ko

Kalengkong:
From the CDC websight:
In general, enveloped viruses such as coronaviruses do not last a long time in the environment. In earlier studies, a different coronavirus was shown to survive for up to 3 hours on surfaces. At this time, it is uncertain how long the newly discovered coronavirus associated with SARS can survive in the environment. In one preliminary study, researchers in Hong Kong found that both dried and liquid samples of the new coronavirus survived as long as 24 hours in the environment. Additional studies are under way to examine this important question.

Their web sight is: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/sars/faq.htm

Ed

Re: Anybody tried the eBay White LEDs from Hong Ko

Also from the WHO web sight (sp intentional):

http://www.who.int/csr/sars/goods2003_04_10/en/

Excerpt:


WHO, FAO and OIE have reviewed reports received regarding SARS transmission. To date there is no epidemiological information to suggest that contact with goods, products or animals shipped from SARS-affected areas has been the source of SARS infection in humans.

For the above reasons, WHO does not at present conclude that any goods, products or animals arriving from SARS-affected areas pose a risk to public health. WHO will continue to closely monitor the evolution of SARS, in collaboration with Ministries of Health and our partner agencies.


Just an FYI, any goods that I have received over the past several weeks originating from SARS affected areas have been sprayed with Anhydrous Ethyl Alcohol, which is a very effective anti-microbial/anti-viral agent which we use in the lab extensively, not just for foreign parcels, but ANY suspect infectious material.
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: The alcohol MUST be ABSOLUTE ANHYDROUS, or its effecacy is severely compromised. We use no less than 99.98% ethyl alcohol. I do not know how effective anhydrous Methyl alcohol would work, since it is way less expensive. The ethyl is shipped in 5 gal containers and costs approx $300 US, the methyl in same qty is only $70 US.


Ed

Re: Anybody tried the eBay White LEDs from Hong Ko

wow!
big big thanks E=MC2

i already have that anti-bacterial spray for carpet. (after reading your alcohol stuff, now im not sure with this )

perhaps, i should go to chemist to buy that ethyl alcohol things.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Re: Anybody tried the eBay White LEDs from Hong Ko

For what its worth:

I purchased 120 LEDs from Chi Wing a month ago and am very impressed! I can't compare them to the Nichia's, but can compare them to the ones from RadioShack:

Let's see, $4.99 per LED at RS or as low as $0.15 from ChiWing?... boy that's a hard decision! They seem just as bright, if not brighter than the ones from the Shack.

Before ChiWing I was scared to death of turning an LED into a friode... now, I'm not so worried!

Long story short, I was looking for cheaper than $4.99 and saw someone on eBay selling the keychain LED knockoffs. I got 12 for $12 and just took out the LEDs ($1.00 was much better than $4.99). I was about to buy more of the keychains until I found the LED section on eBay! Boy was I a happy camper. I don't think I've been as anxious before as I was waiting for the LEDs to arrive. When I got word they arrived, I left work early and raced home!

I look forward to buying more soon!