Re: Why can\'t companies just use bright white luxe
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gadget_lover said:
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Yes, they may each cost $18, but if they spend $18000 to buy 1000 of them, and only can use 200 of them, then what happens? Lumileds isn't likely to buy those LEDs back after they've been mounted on a light, tested, then taken off. How many people here would pay for 'used' LEDs that didn't pass Surefire's muster? Where do you think they'd recoup the costs? Given that a Surefire light already costs between $160-200 for your 'standard' LED lights, imagine how much higher the costs would get if they had to effectively throw away $80 worth of LEDs for each light they produced?
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I could be wrong, but
1) Seeing as these come in reels, I can imagine a few ways to automate the testing.
2) There is probably a market that would buy the rejects that Surefire could not use. They'd end up in cheap imports.
3) There seems to be a perception that up to 80 out of 100 are unusable. It's my opinion that the rejects are the exception, not the rule (unless they are buying seconds).
4) Why would rejecting substandard parts be bad? Would you buy a $160 light with scratches and cross threaded parts?
Some premium lights ARE sold based on the components. ARC said they cherry picked. Mr Bulk said he'd use only the best in the VIP. I'd not have paid $160 for a VIP if Charlie said he'd use whatever Luxeons he could find.
Now for the fun part:
Simple marketing could be used to offset the cost. Imagine the marketing opporunities;
For hikers; "Extra light in the yellow spectrum to enhance foliage contrast"
For teenaged girls "Soft violet overtones to bring out your best features"
For CSI wannabees "Shows blood 5% better than a pure white!"
For CPF members; Your choice of YO, XO or V0 bin! (W0 extra)
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Daniel
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Answering point by point:
1) Yes, they come in reels. So, you're willing to pay for the salary of whatever person they have to hire to judge the tint of each and every light they produce? What's the purpose, especially since - unlike CPUs - these variations do not ultimately affect the light's performance? Yes, it's aesthetically pleasing to have a more yellow or white light, but does it affect the light's ability to throw out 60+ lumens? No, it doesn't, and that's what they're mostly binning on. I still do not trust any machine currently out there to reliably judge tint, especially since that on the sensors and programming involved.
2) Again, who would they sell them to? The Chinese manufacturers are a possibility, but would they rather buy them 'used' from Surefire, or get new ones straight from Lumileds at a reduced cost? I don't see Surefire deep-discounting for any potential competitors, just as I don't see Mag selling scraps or rejected parts to Dorcy, should they have any. Again, it would cost Surefire money to buy them, test them, reject them, and then ship them to whoever is buying the lights. Either they have to lose money on the deals, or else the price of your light goes up another $50-100 dollars per light to make up for the extra time and expense involved. Or are you telling me that police departments are literally overflowing with cash?
3) If you're being that picky about tints, then (at least to judge from what I've seen, and from people's experiences with Quantum-IIIs and Dorcy Luxeon lights) that's probably a guess that probably has more than a bit of truth to it. Even if you only reject 20% of the LEDs you have, that's still a bit of a loss, and that'll be reflected either in your bottom line... or in the prices you sell to your customers for. I don't know many companies who are willing to sacrifice profits in that way.
4) Because they're not bad in the eyes of the manufacturers or most of their clients. Cops do not reject pistols because they've got a burr in the engraving of the name of the manufacturer, or because the pistol's color on the grips are a bit off - and with LEDs, tint is aesthetics.
And these are mass-manufactured parts - Surefire does not make these for the hobbyist, and they run through these in what is, from what I recall, more of a production line environment. Comparing those to any creations by Mr. Bulk, McGizmo, or Jets22 is like comparing a mass-produced Sears-branded leather shoe with a handmade Italian one; you're paying more for one than the other because of the extra effort involved... and because it's a status symbol, or potlach.
Do you really care about how your wrenches look, or how your pistols look? Or do you care more about if they're strong enough to do the job? Same thing with the Surefires. They have to be made in a way that makes them profitable without being onerously expensive... and given that the Lumileds technology is rather new, compared to some, it means that they're still going to have some issues with tints until those methods are perfected. While they've gotten much better over the last two years, you're still going to see a few issues with something that is fairly close to 'cutting-edge', as far as commercial products go.
They already bin them by tint (roughly) and by Vf (not so roughly). If you're going to be THAT picky about the light, then forget mass-manufactured goods and go custom. You pay for what you get with that, at least, and can control (to some extent) what goes into it. Most people don't care - it's not the tint that counts, but the fact that it can blind a guy or create a wall of light some fifty yards away. They don't care if it's yellow-white or white-blue, just that they can see the guy with a pistol well enough to shoot him.
And again, look at who Lumileds sell their LEDs to - do you THINK that Surefire cares if the light is more blue-white or yellow-white? Look at who Surefire mostly sells to. If these were fancy luxury items like cars or clothes, then that tint would probably count more, or if Surefire was selling to yuppies or fashion-conscious flashlight holders.
Again, this is like apples and oranges, at least as far as marketing goes. Most people I know don't give a damn whether the light's yellow-orange, yellow-white, or white-blue, save when their livelihood depends on it (photographers, lighting technicians). And, last I looked, a greenish-tinted Surefire light has yet to get a policeman or soldier killed in the line of duty.
"Officer slain for having cat-urine-green LED flashlight"
As far as the manufacturing process goes, Blinded, if it's like any other sort of semiconductor manufacturing.. there are things you won't be able to control, and those things are what cause tints and Vfs and fluxes to differ even within the same binned-batch of LEDs on a strip.