Luxeon beginner.

Hello everybody. I am a beginner in lighting design. I want to built a personal light for camping and long treks. I want to carry it in my head. I am planning using of luxeon 3w leds but I don´t know wich one is the better. I want to use ims 17mm reflectors. The spot of lights like barbolight u-9 and others is perfect for my design. Lambertian or side emitter?? Which one is the main difference between star and emitter types???. Too heat perhaps??

Too much questions.
Regards to everyone.

VMaling.

Check the "custom and modified" section of the forum, LOADS of stuff there. The modders there are all awesome. Also try searching for "+headlamp +lux" (without quotation marks), or something like that in the search function. Using + is the equivalent of a Boolean AND.

A lambertian (HD for "high-dome") emitter gives the most uniform output pattern - highest output at top-dead-center and a relatively uniform decrease in output until roughly 90 degrees off center where output reaches 0.

Side-emitters (SE) are designed expressly for use with reflectors. The bulk of their output occurs between 70-100 degrees off TDC. These emitters work relatively well with the shallow reflectors designed for incandescent bulbs.

Generally, a HD emitter will yield a tighter spot than a SE, but SEs work well with smaller reflectors since they spit out most of their light in a tight region.