LED Retailers

Where do people buy LED's for home brew'd lights? What places are most trustworthy and give you the best deals. (If possible, PLEASE help supply information worthy of becoming "sticky" so other home brewing enthusiasts can spend less time searching and more time building)

I'm summarizing what we have so far:

http://www.kaidomain.com/

http://www.dealextreme.com/

http://www.litemania.com/

http://www.ledsupply.com

http://www.componentsuperstore.com/store/default.aspx

http://www.luxeonstar.com/

www.besthongkong.com

On the CPF Market Place: Photonfanatic, ROK, Erasmus and Endeavour

Please add more retailers that I have missed as well as constructive consumer reviews (simply post it and I'll transfer it up to the first post). Thanks for suppling all the info so far.

And thank you for the nice reviews Nick:

Doh!Nut said:

If I were to add some qualitative comments to the above.

Litemania - Nice Heatsink at a good price arrived after a LOOOOOONG wait - aperently he was changing jobs, ConUS members have the advantage of getting some of his stuff from Fenix-Store (more heatsinks than LED.)

BestHongKong - Good but unexiting - They dont do the top bin Crees or at least not with an obviously advertised way of garanteeing the bin, But they are very good for 5mm type LED and cheap if you buy 50+.
Also the prolight 3W LED have decent output for the COLOURS for a good price.

LED-Shop.de good range of LED, pretty nearly the only place in Europe you can order an R2 Cree off the shelf, prices OK on the screen but some fairly hefty shipping charges (within EU) and they charge you for paypal etc. Watch out for their "daytrade" where they randomly vary the price of a specific product during the day.

Dotlight.de - Source for SSC in europe also Cree and Coloured Luxeon and some weird ones like samsung and kingbright.

Nick

Click to expand...

http://www.kaidomain.com/

http://www.dealextreme.com/

http://www.litemania.com/

easiest way to get leds is to just head over to the cpf marketplace dealer's corner. At any one time you're bound to find the latest binned p7's, p4's, R2's and various dropins from all the reputable sellers.

Photonfanatic hands down. Fred is always my first choice & I always buy from him whenever I can. Great service, fast free shipping, & offers quantity discounts. Plus you know what you're getting when buying from him. Litemania is also one of my preferences.

darkzero said:

Photonfanatic hands down. Fred is always my first choice & I always buy from him whenever I can. Great service, fast free shipping, & offers quantity discounts. Plus you know what you're getting when buying from him. Litemania is also one of my preferences.

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+1

PhotonFanatic is the way to go for quality.

Do any of you use Best Hong Kong (www.besthongkong.com)?

Another vote for Fred. The nice part is you can ask him all the stupid questions you want before you buy!! And I had a bunch my first time. Seriously, unless you know exactly what you want/need, Fred can advise you very very well. He hasn't missed with me yet.

By the time you figure out the big guys versions of LED's....Mouser and Allied Electric also sell Seouls, you are maybe within a couple of bucks of what Fred sells them for. (tax and shipping can be a killer)

I use LEDSupply for my Micropucks though, and theledlight.com has also been very good for drivers....again, pretty much use Fred for the LEDs.

Bob E.

Future Electronics is where I buy all my Luxeon Rebel LEDs:

http://www.componentsuperstore.com/store/default.aspx

Choosing SEMICONDUCTORS and then LIGHTING SOLUTIONS gets you to the products.

Their service is great, and pricing is as good as it gets.

Jeff O.

Photonfanatic for the best communication, education, and shipping!

LEDLightingSupply.com Great prices, great service, just a min of a $50 order.

I've spent approx $250 at Best Hong Kong since getting into this hobby a while back and have had a positive experience with them. I have never tried any of the others.

Another vote for Photonfanatic/Fred. Best service ever. I just wish he stocked Cree's.

ETG sells Cree's in the U.S., but you get what you get as far as tint goes. No choice on the matter for little guys. Cutter is the best source outside the U.S., and you can order exactly which tint you want, but shipping can take a long time. Three weeks on some of my orders (not Cutter's fault though). I try to keep Cree's in stock that I will use in the future. Too difficult to get them in a hurry.

ahx66 said:

(If possible, PLEASE help supply information worthy of becoming "sticky" so other home brewing enthusiasts can spend less time searching and more time building)

Click to expand...

And are you expecting people to wade through this thread to find recommendations? Would you care to compile a list in the first post with details of what these places sell, with a short summary review?

Packhorse said:

http://www.litemania.com/

Click to expand...

That seems to be quite a cultural experience. Or am I missing something?

TorchBoy said:

That seems to be quite a cultural experience. Or am I missing something?

Click to expand...

Korean is quite like Maori once you get to know it

I'm summarizing the information so far in the first post.

I'll have to jump on the Fred wagon. If you're going to buy any LED, especially a P7 you should definitely go with Fred due to the excellent packaging on his LEDs. Other places that I will not mention send the LEDs with one layer of small bubble wrap in a small manilla shipper.

I have received a few damage LEDs this way and find it totally unacceptable to have to deal with this problem since the shipper takes forever to send items anyway.

Nice start with the list, ahx66.

CPF member Erasmus is sometimes a good source for cheap yet high-binned Cree LEDs

Erasmus, I know that was selfless plugging for yourself, but for everyone else.......I have gotten some led's from Erasmus and it was a good experience. NO, no cancel that....it was a great experience.

I believe I even got some correspondence in on tint bins and such. It was a while back (loaded up pretty good), but I can honestly say Fred or Erasmus and you can't go wrong.

And again, like others have said, with these two guys you can pretty much count on getting EXACTLY what you ordered. You want a certain tint, you can find out exactly what the number is before you order unlike the big retailers who get what they get but may or may not know the specifics that all of us want to know to make that "perfect" led flashlight.

Bob E.

If I were to add some qualitative comments to the above.

Litemania - Nice Heatsink at a good price arrived after a LOOOOOONG wait - aperently he was changing jobs, ConUS members have the advantage of getting some of his stuff from Fenix-Store (more heatsinks than LED.)

BestHongKong - Good but unexiting - They dont do the top bin Crees or at least not with an obviously advertised way of garanteeing the bin, But they are very good for 5mm type LED and cheap if you buy 50+.
Also the prolight 3W LED have decent output for the COLOURS for a good price.

LED-Shop.de good range of LED, pretty nearly the only place in Europe you can order an R2 Cree off the shelf, prices OK on the screen but some fairly hefty shipping charges (within EU) and they charge you for paypal etc. Watch out for their "daytrade" where they randomly vary the price of a specific product during the day.

Dotlight.de - Source for SSC in europe also Cree and Coloured Luxeon and some weird ones like samsung and kingbright.

Nick