Photon II MicroLight with Flood/Diffusion LED

I needed a microlight of some kind to put on the lanyard of my GPS receiver, to save using the backlight in some instances.

I had a couple of "milky white diffusion" LEDs from whiteledlight sitting around, so I put one in a Photon II.
It is a 70° 420 mcd LED, but it is plenty bright. Keep in mind that the wider the angle of the LED, the lower the the mcd reading with an LED of the same brightness.

I did have some of the 50° 1500 mcd LEDS, as well. I don't at all like the beam from these, as they just cast a blue circle, with a large dark spot in the center.

I wish I had a digital camera, so I could post pics, I really like this LED for this purpose.

It is a very even flood, I see no artifacts whatsoever, and it is very white.
Compared to an arc AAA LE, the flood of this LED is about the size of the whole spill/corona of the arc, from the same distance, and the arc is quite blue in comparison.

I think that the LED would be better in a Photon III, though. It would be nice to be able to dim it, as there is not much light needed to illuminate the GPS screen at about 8". It should increase the runtime, as well.

I did think that getting the LED leads bent just right was kind of difficult, though.
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I'm very pleased with the light from this LED, and there are many of you out there that like lights with floods, as well.
If so, you might want to get one of these LEDs to try for yourself.

I am wondering now, though, for general use if it is feasible to diffuse the output of a very high mcd LED.
For general use, you need much more light than I need.

Shankus, try massaging those crappy Leds that you don't like with some steel wool. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Ahh, good suggestion. I didn't think of that. Thanks vcal!

Crocus cloth, or 400/600 grit emery paper works to and it's easier to control. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I tried the steel wool on the LED that came with the Photon II.

It softened the beam, but I couldn't get the same effect as the diffusion LED.

So, I used a Dremel cut-off wheel to "file" on the LED. Then I "polished" the LED with the steel wool. Again, still there was a beam to the LED, not the flood I was looking for.

So, I cut off the dome. I cut it just above where the curve starts into the dome. Then I polished it with steel wool.
This mimics the diffusion LED pretty well.