Lenses for Luxeon STAR LEDs

Hi All,

I am interested in finding a particular lens for use with Luxeon STAR leds.

I have purchased a number of 5W Luxeons (Lambertian) and have made some headlights out of them.

When it came to lenses, the first place I bought lenses from (the smaller ones) seemed to have a poor radiation pattern. The lens was the one which Lumileds sells.

I talked with a guy from Future Electronics abuot it and he said that was because the lens was for a low dome emitter, and that Lumileds didn't have one for Lambertian emitters.

I then bought some of the Fraen lenses: The small (19mm) narrow and medium, and the larger (27mm) narrow and medium.

All seem to work pretty well except the 27mm narrow; it has a pretty nasty hole in the middle of the pattern. If I remove the lens from the housing and reposition, it looks better.

Anyway, my main question. I also scavenged a 19mm lens from an original 1W Luxeon Star/O and tried it with the 5W lambertian. The patter is square (from the fact that there are 4 substrates in the 5W LED), but the square is quite bright and is actually a very nice beam. It's obvious that the lenses which are available in the Star/O devices is different than all the others.

Does anyone know where I can get any of these lenses?

Thanks,
Scott

If the collimator that came out of your star/o differs from the one that you got from Lumileds (NX-05), you were lucky to get a NX-01.

The NX-01 is my preferred/favorite optic for it's size, even over the Fraen-LP. The NX-01 was also made by Lumileds but is no longer made. As far as I know no one sells NX-01s anymore. Most likely the only way you find them these days are in star/os (but not all have them) or if someone sells them here. Every star/o that I've had I was unlucky and got NX-05s with them.

Does the collimator in question look like these? (sorry not a single one is for sale)

(all NX-01s with a Fraen-LP sitting on the right)


(Left: NX-01, Right: Fraen-LP)


(Left: NX-01, Right: NX-05)


(Left: NX-01, Right: NX-05)

Hi Ocelot,
welcome to CPF. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
If you are looking for the NX05 optics, dat2zip has them here in his Sandwich Shoppe .

btw, they are not lenses, but collimators or optics. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

You are right, the optics are NX-01. Very nice pics by the way! How did you get hold of so many NX-01 lenses?

The beam the NX-01 puts out is SO much better than the NX-05 it's surprising that they switched.

Like I said in my original post, the LED guy from Future Electronics said that the NX-05 was optimized for the batwing (low dome) LED vs the lambertian LED, and he didn't like the NX-05 either. So, I ended up ordering the Fraen narrow beam lens. It's better than the NX-05, but not the NX-01.

Thanks for the information!

Scott

No problem Scott. I found them here and there in the B/S/T forums. You just have to watch for em'.

Actually the NX-01 was designed for the batwing as well but as you know it works excellent with the lambertians. The Fraen-LP is the best collimator your gonna find (next to the NX-01 IMO) for HDs for optics of this size.

If you space the NX-01 out a bit from a 1W/3W HD emitter it will eliminate the the square hotspot giving you a nice round hotspot. Some say it might be a bit dimmer but I can't tell. Never did a comparison of them together. I don't know how it will affect a 5W though.

This is the first time I've seen the optics so close. It looks like these lenses use the reflective AND refractive properties of the acrylic. Is that true? I first thought the NX and Fraen optics only use the internal reflections to collimate light.

Beamshots? I've never seen a NX-01 beamshot...

Re: Optics for Luxeon STAR LEDs - NX-01

Humn
I'm a newbie so I'm not 100% sure but the optic on this Vortex 1W looks exactly like the NX-01. Nice tight focus and bright for a $50 2cell Luxeon LD