Future of LED...

So I think I've had my fill of LED lights for the next little while. Now that I have one of the newer piston lights (D10), an L1D, and a Defender Infinity... I don't see anything else that much better on the horizon in terms of single cell lights... (either AA or CR123).

Anyone else just going to sit back and wait for the next generation LED's to come out? Any takes on what's new and upcoming -- and by new and upcoming, I don't mean R2.

I am looking forward to the Ra Clicky. It's hopefully out this month but if not it will still be worth the wait. I am also hopeful that this will be the last light I buy for rest of this year since my wallet has decided to stop talking to me.

Think big. Think color-shifting LED


Although many on here will come up with plenty of valid reasons why it cannot be done, I think that eventually it WILL happen.

The D10 has cured my flashaholicism for a while. I can see nothing else that will ursurp it as my EDC for a while.

Of course you can never say never, which is why I still frequent here.

DanTSX said:

Think big. Think color-shifting LED


Although many on here will come up with plenty of valid reasons why it cannot be done, I think that eventually it WILL happen.

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+1. I think color shifting would be the next big thing. We already have lights that can change to any brightness we want. Why not a light that can change to any color we want? How about a light that you can adjust the white tint to whatever you want, whenever you want. It would be best if it could do invisible colors as well all the visible colors. I.R. for use with nightvision and U.V. for checking currency or even purifying drinking water (yes, I would like my flashlight to replace or backup my water filter for backpacking). Different colors of light do have their uses for the outdoors, it's just not worth taking a light for every use backpacking. Red preserves nightvision, amber doesn't attract bugs, green light isn't visible to many animals (use for hunting, getting away from bears), blue is good for tracking blood and seeing through water (nightfishing), U.V. helps you locate scorpions so you don't step on them and can purify water (Just take a look at the Steripen), and I.R. for use with night vision goggles. They do need to make one l.e.d. that will work with all these colors or it would be too bulky. We already see the steps of multicolor l.e.d. flashlights in the works (although not with 1 l.e.d.) with the Surefire Kroma, Inova's Inforce line, some of Coleman's Cree flashlights, etc. There is definitely a market for it. The technology just isn't quite there yet.

As someone mentioned, the Ra Clicky is soon coming, which is destined to be an amazing light. Also, the Cree MCE line of LED's are due fairly soon and should be revolutionary in small lights

I'm wishing that one of the next improvements in led lights would be the beam focusing ability. Sure, led lenser's already do it really well, but the other aspects of their light are not that attractive to me.

I'm still waiting on an 18650 form factor light with the UI of an NDI or O-light T20-T and devilishly good looks (Nitecore Extreme 2?). But yes as far as LEDs are concerned it looks like efficiency has platoed for a while and we can stay satisfied with what we have.... or we can drool over the new generation of higher CRI leds.

I think RGB leds are the way to go. You can achieve a higher efficiency on paper, you can change tint, better color rendering etc. We already have multi-die emitters, it wont be difficult to do. You would be able to achieve white like that right?

RGB tech is under development right now, which will allow your color change/shifting. It will eventually replace current InGan based LED's with higher efficiency.

Hmm.... Colour shifting does sound tempting... A blue/white/red would be excellent. But at what sacrifice to brightness would it come I wonder? I'm the guy who always wants smaller/brighter.

Yes, I agree that brightness isn't all one should consider when buying a light, but I still love to have the tiny EDC that everyone says "HOLY $#!^, THAT GUY HAS THE SUN IN HIS HAND!"

Give me improvement on brightness over everything else. I don't ask for much

But you don't have the sun in your hand if it emits a sickly cool beam lacking in green, yellow, orange and red compared to sunlight. At this time, you do have to sacrifice lumens for color spectrum, but the new high CRI LEDs such as the Nichia 083 with a 93 CRI or the Seoul 93 CRI LED (model #?) which put out about as much as a Luxeon III. And even though they have CRI<100, the output is close to sunlight, and is not saturated with red and deficient in blue like incandescent (again, compared to sunlight).

You can now choose color spectrum or brightness, and for most applications people would choose brightness. I understand, I have ridden on the brightness bandwagon for a couple of years now. But until you actually use one of these new LEDs (I have only used the Nichia 083) you don't quite know what you are missing. I switched my primary EDC from a WH Cree to the Nichia and had to sacrifice some output, but no way will I go back! The light from the Nichia is more than adequate to be useful for my EDC uses, and the color spectrum actually makes it useful in ways that it was not before.

It really depends upon the application and personal preferences, but as the technology advances, the gap will close in brightness due to the geometrical response our eyes have to light intensity and to improvements in phosphors.

mudman cj said:

But you don't have the sun in your hand if it emits a sickly cool beam lacking in green, yellow, orange and red compared to sunlight. At this time, you do have to sacrifice lumens for color spectrum, but the new high CRI LEDs such as the Nichia 083 with a 93 CRI or the Seoul 93 CRI LED (model #?) or the Cree 5A LEDs, which put out about as much as a Luxeon III. And even though they have CRI<100, the output is close to sunlight, and is not saturated with red and deficient in blue like incandescent (again, compared to sunlight).

You can now choose color spectrum or brightness, and for most applications people would choose brightness. I understand, I have ridden on the brightness bandwagon for a couple of years now. But until you actually use one of these new LEDs (I have only used the Nichia 083) you don't quite know what you are missing. I switched my primary EDC from a WH Cree to the Nichia and had to sacrifice some output, but no way will I go back! The light from the Nichia is more than adequate to be useful for my EDC uses, and the color spectrum actually makes it useful in ways that it was not before.

It really depends upon the application and personal preferences, but as the technology advances, the gap will close in brightness due to the geometrical response our eyes have to light intensity and to improvements in phosphors.

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Fine then. "HOLY $#!^! THAT GUY HAS A SICKLY BLUE SUN IN HIS HANDS!! (but man is it bright!)" lol

Seriously though, I do understand the importance of colour rendition. And I can't wait until something better is available with no sacrifice in brightness. Until then, I'm forced to rotate out from LED to INCAN, depending on the task at hand.

LED-holic said:

The D10 has cured my flashaholicism for a while. I can see nothing else that will ursurp it as my EDC for a while.

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That's what I said about my L1D which I religiously carried for 16 months. Now I'm a D10 person like you.

LowBat said:

That's what I said about my L1D which I religiously carried for 16 months. Now I'm a D10 person like you.

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Very nice. :twothumbs

I wonder if we'll wait another 16 months for the next ultimate AA EDC

LED-holic said:

Very nice. :twothumbs

I wonder if we'll wait another 16 months for the next ultimate AA EDC

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Nah, they'll release a D10 with TRITS, and then we'll all go buy that. lol... and while we're at it, a Nitecore Extreme to fill the empty space in the box...

foxtrot29 said:

Nah, they'll release a D10 with TRITS, and then we'll all go buy that. lol... and while we're at it, a Nitecore Extreme to fill the empty space in the box...

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Speaking of trits, has anyone heard anything lately from 4sevens about the tritium vial pistons he was working on?

liquidsix said:

But yes as far as LEDs are concerned it looks like efficiency has platoed for a while

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Is there nothing on the horizon with greater efficiency ? Thats a bit of a downer. I thought LEDs get about 25% more efficient per year on average.

liquidsix said:

But yes as far as LEDs are concerned it looks like efficiency has platoed for a while

Click to expand...

Is there nothing on the horizon with greater efficiency ? Thats a bit of a downer. I thought LEDs get about 25% more efficient per year on average.

I'm in the same boat. I haven't bought anything since my LF5XT a few months ago. I figure that, with 6 Cree lights, I need to stop for a while, since they all function close enough as to be relatively redundant.

Now, a D10 with trits, I'd buy. Not just the D10 (at least, not til they work out all the bugs)