XP-G's tint lottery - manufacturers hand pick em?

strinq

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May 24, 2009
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861
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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Just a little confused here.
When the XP-G's first came out (and 4sevens were among the first if not the first to utilize them), there was a thread on the green tint. Of course a lot of people posted in them etc.
After reading and following through the thread, naturally i thought it was a tint lottery. Sometimes you get one with a green tint and sometimes you don't (but still a majority got ones with the green tint).

But over at the headlamps section, someone posted that Zebralight and Fenix lights that utilizes the XP-G's seem to be free of this problem.

So my question is...is this true?
Do Zebralight and Fenix hand pick their emitters? (doesn't seem likely...)
Or do you play the tint lottery as well when buying lights from those 2 companies?
Need some feedback from owners of those lights. Eg: H31, SC30, LD10, TK12 etc etc.
Thanks in advance for the replies.
 

PeaceOfMind

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Aug 2, 2009
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Location
Ontario, Canada
One factor to consider is that how the LED is driven will affect the tint. In particular, current regulated lights will tend to experience quite a bit of colour shift on different drive levels. For example, the 4Sevens' lights that were often said to be quite green, were typically green on lower drive levels and fairly white on higher drive levels.

Conversely, looking at lights such as the 4Seven's MiNi or Preon series, which use PWM instead of current regulation, the tints tend to be much whiter since the actual drive current going through the LED is always fairly high, with just the pulse width changing.

I'm not sure whether the other lights you mention use PWM or Current regulation, but in general I'd say that:

-Chances are there's a tint lottery regardless, and I don't think Fenix or Zebralight are going to be throwing away good but slightly green LEDs or having special access to only the "good" LEDs

-If the lights are PWM controlled, the tints are probably going to be quite good regardless.

-Hearing a few people say their lights from brand X have a good tint or a bad tint doesn't give an accurate idea of anything (i.e. it's not statistically good data)
 

manitoe

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Mar 5, 2010
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Location
Belgium
One factor to consider is that how the LED is driven will affect the tint. In particular, current regulated lights will tend to experience quite a bit of colour shift on different drive levels. For example, the 4Sevens' lights that were often said to be quite green, were typically green on lower drive levels and fairly white on higher drive levels.

Agreed. I have a Fenix LD10 R4 and a PD30 R4 that are like this. Fairly greenish on low, very slightly greenish on medium and pure white on high and turbo.
 
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