the rate or Luxeon Improvement leaves me with ???

I am a user and not a designer or modder, so I will be asking some pretty dumb questions. It seems that at the rate the circuits and leds are improving, the way to go is to build lights where things are upgradable in the lights. I think now that things are getting small, A wide variety of good body designs will come out. I think the body designs will not become obsolete as fast.

I have some ideas for body designs and will see if I can get someone to make them. Once all the niches are covered, I think I would like to upgrade the LED's as they come out for my favorite bodies. Then take the older LED's and move them to other uses, like stick them in a AA maglight for the tool box and such.

The CPF benifit light that I have has become my favorite EDC. My concern is that better and better 1 watt leds are becoming available. I should research this as I think that this light could be upgraded to a better LED in the future.

So here are my questions. Are most LED bodies using a Luxeon Upgradable? How good do people think that 1 watt luxens going to get in lets say a years time? How difficult is it to get hard anodized removed for a refinish? If I get to where most of my Lights are somewhat easily upgradeable. What to do with the somewhat obsolete LED's besides sticking em in lights that I don't care if I mess up or not?

Re: the rate or Luxeon Improvement leaves me with

[ QUOTE ]
JonSidneyB said:

So here are my questions. Are most LED bodies using a Luxeon Upgradable? How good do people think that 1 watt luxens going to get in lets say a years time? How difficult is it to get hard anodized removed for a refinish? If I get to where most of my Lights are somewhat easily upgradeable. What to do with the somewhat obsolete LED's besides sticking em in lights that I don't care if I mess up or not?

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, there is a note on an interview with Lumileds. For small flashlights with limited heat dissapation capabilities, they are running at close to a thermal max now. Lumileds appears to be indicating that they will have LEDs out with twice the lumems per watt in the next 5 years. So, the best we can hope for is a small flashlight with twice the output of today's flashlights in the next 5 years. Our current Luxeons wont be obsolete for a while.

Re: the rate or Luxeon Improvement leaves me with

I think the benefit light has its LS epoxied to the copper slug inside, so it would be pretty hard to upgrade. Maybe you could do it with a Dremel. Other lights might be upgradeable with some soldering, though they're not intended for that. It's like upgrading the CPU in your laptop, normally not done, just buy a new one.

I don't think I'd want to upgrade the benefit light since it's a unique piece, hand built by its creator, so I'd treat it partly as flashlight and partly as artwork, and not mess with it. If I wanted an improved version I'd buy a Firefly and mess with that instead. That's just me though.

The Firefly will use a dat2zip sandwich (some version of the Madmax or Badboy, possibly customized to run at lower current) and you should be able to swap the emitter board (or maybe whole sandwich) easily. If you're going to commission custom lights and want them to be upgradeable, you certainly should discuss that with the builder beforehand.

As to how good Luxeons can get, I think they're around 30 lumens/watt right now and I remember reading that they might reach 50 or 60 sooner or later.

What to do with obsolete LED's? Same thing you do with your old CPU after an upgrade, put it in your parts bin or on B/S/T...