Luxeon V Portable : 5W whites have landed!!!!!

Ah, the marketing spin is now in place on the "short timer's" 5W white. Future got some of these in yesterday and orders will start to ship, I was told. There is a case of more demand than supply on some of the models. To see the Lumiled "spin" on these, See: Luxeon V Portable

Dang, I leave Sunday for a week and a half road trip so I bit the big one and asked for my couple on order to be shipped with Saturday delivery. Ouch but you know how it is...... I want a 5W torch to take on my business trip

- Don

IMO, this is a joke! They've turned an engineering error into a "feature."

I can't blame LumiLEDS for trying to market these LEDs, but at the price they want for 500 hours of light, you could buy a lot of conventional bulbs.

d'mo,

There is merit to your statement but at least Lumiled is allowing these "flawed" units to get out for design and experimentation purposes. I don't see too many comercial products using these LED's but there is still some value in these being released, as is. With my intended mods, I doubt I'll ever see the 500 hours! Certainly consideration should be given to the possible replacement of the LED down the road. Desoldering the anode and cathode and then a heat gun to soften the epoxy and the LED *can* be changed out. This is just another minor wound at the bleeding edge!

- Don

Future Called me directly yesterday (sales rep) after I had specifically sent them a letter telling them I was not Interested in the 5W unit until the 500 hour problem was fixed. The woman proceeded to try and sell me on the "portable" and told me that 500 hours should be perfect for flashlights. I of course replied that 500 hours equates to 20 Days of use and asked her if she would buy a $50-75 dollar flashlight that would only last 20 days... I also explained that LEDs in general will lose luminance before their actual effective end of life, so these "portable" LS's would get dimmer in less than 20 days of use.... "silence"

While I feel they need to sell these units, yes, but at a very much reduced price IMO.
I then repeated my wanting to wait for the corrected 5 Watt units in which she quickly replied... "LumiLEDs has postponed the release dates indefinitely as they were not sure if this was fixable!!!"

Now, I don't know if there is any truth to this, or if she was just blowing smoke and trying to make a sale but it is disappointing at best. anyone know the truth??
I guess I should call LumiLEDS myself.

I figured the same... Hence, my disappointment.
You know now that I think about it, I did not ask for the "Portable" 5W selling price.... My only real point was...
I understand these things take time as I am an Engineer myself and I know this technology is by no means simple. I am a very patient person so I will gladly wait. However, they should not continue to expect a premium for a re-labeled defective part.

As d'mo mentioned, the asking price is my Issue.
Future wants $41.580 a piece for 20 days of use? $5 - $10 bucks a piece Max.
Again, this is just my opinion.

20 days of use? How often do you use your flashlight in the daytime and 24 hours a day? I agree they should sell those "Portable" (defective) parts at a discount. But then I'm thinking that once I make a light out of it, it's not going to be used very often for long runtimes it'll be just for short burst. 500 hours is going to give me 500 battery changes. If I use two 123 like I was planning to, that's 1000 lithium 123 batteries at $2-3 a pop. So, after a couple thousand dollars in batteries, I guess changing one $40 bulb isn't so bad.

Anybody know the part number for these rejects at Future?

If I believe Lumileds' web site, they're

lxhl-pw03 for the emitter (lambertian)
and
lxhl-lw6c for the star (lambertian)

The pdf: http://www.lumileds.com/pdfs/DS40.PDF

The old part #'s were lxhl-pw02 and lxhl-lw5c. Future lists a waiver part connected to the old part #'s though. And the old and new part numbers have the same price currently. I assume they'll update that at some point.

Thanks Andre

Seems future has it listed, but says call for availability.
I'd rather buy the tainted white than a cyan I was going to buy for testing the heat they put out. Same price.

"In the Dark"
Good point...
I guess I'm just miffed that, as always, it's business as usual for some vendors\manufacturers...
I guess, if the market will bear it, then the higher cost is what they will ask. (and will most likely get based on the buying folks here at CPF )
A discount of some kind sure would go along way showing good faith to some customers.

And yes, I will most likely cave in and buy a few myself as I want to see true 5W.
But at $41.58, Three of these are gonna cost me 124.74 before shipping and a flashlight to put them in.
Oh well, I guess it's only money!

Flash,

The funny thing is, if I didn't know what the original price was for the 5 watters, I might have actually bought a couple of these "portable" ones. But now that I know the price is (or was) about $45 bucks, I feel like I'm wasting my money for one of these 500 hour 5 watters when I know I could spend the same amount in the future and get one rated for 100 times longer. If Lumileds had not released the pricing before figuring out this problem, I would have just assumed that $45 dollars was a discounted price for defective merchandise and would have thought it was a good deal. I guess I don't know what a good price for a 5 watt LED is since currently there's nothing else to compare it to.

Are you gonna have time to put up a few beamshots before you leave Sunday?

Well, I for one am going to buy some if they let me. If the brightness of the Cyan and other colored 5-watts is any indication, a white 5-watt Luxeon will be awesome indeed.

Most here know my profession. When coupled with the fact I am on a permanent midnight shift assignment, telling you I use my flashlights a lot would be a laughable and gross understatement. In fact I would venture to guess I use my flashlights more than most any of you.

So in my opinion 500 hours of flashlight usage is a long time. And when you consider that Lumileds is going to make sure there is a safety margin in there and not rate their products right out to the edge of their actual expected durability, 500 rated hours will probably turn out to be an interminable period of longevity in the real world.

Besides, this rating is presumably when the 5WLS is driven at spec. I am thinking to underdrive them slightly anyway. If the results of my tinkering with 5WLS coloreds is any indication, a marginally underdriven white 5WLS should be brighter than almost any 1WLS mod to date. And I think it is safe to assume that underdriving would extend its lifespan further yet.

Lumileds appears to be building Luxeons for domestic and industrial applications. Those are the true primary markets, after all. As opposed to turning on a flashlight for a few minutes to check out something in the dark, home and business lighting applications involve turning the lights on and leaving them on for hours, even days, a performance threshold the white 5-watt Luxeon has apparently not yet been able to achieve.

So here, Lumileds has set its sights lower, going after the portable, intermittent light user.

Sign me up. Those who want the as yet non-existent "good" 5W white Luxeons are welcome to examine my beamshots and test results while they wait. And wait...

Flash,

I don't think *she* is blowing smoke. She was probably Jennifer and she can only convey what she has been told. Consider Nichia's missed March release date of their 1 Watt emitter and I think it's clear that there are some real manufacturing issues with these mega bright LED's! A $50 to $75 flashlight with a 5W LED? I reckon that is well down the road! Oh well, I still prefer the option of the "portable" to nothing and we can only hope that the design and manufacturing bugs can and will be resolved in a timely fashion.

- Don

Although I don't like 500-hr LED, I think it might not be a bad idea afterall. Flashlight manufacturers are *forced* to design a user replacement LED flashlight. While it would be much harder for design work due to its heat sink issue, it does provide long term incentive for manufacturer because of recursive income from the replacement LED. What's good for us, consumer? As we all know, LED technology is growing pretty fast. User might be easier to replace their 5W/120 lumen LED with 5W/200 lumen for $10 in future without buying a new complete light.

Just a thought.

Alan

A most Excellent Point, Big Al! I hope to replace mine (when it finally burns out in 5 or 10 years) with a 25- or 50-watt Luxeon, and hire it out at movie premiers as a searchlight.

My wife nags me at times about some of the things I buy, saying I should wait for prices to come down. Sure, why don't I wait till they only cost a dollar? Then I can buy a whole bunch and play with'em during my last 5 minutes on my deathbed...

"A hundred years from now, none of this is going to matter" -- indeed.

I wish I could get my hands on a 5W white but I can only pay via money order. I think Future only takes credit card orders. If someone gets a handfull of these I know they would be able to sell to some of the members on this board who don't have a credit card. I for one would pay a little extra for someone to go through the trouble of ordering one from Future. Damn, just to see a 5W white would be worth it!

ordered in multiples the price drops a bunch, a group order could save us all a bunch of duccets as well (hint hint). although, from what i've seen of the 1W side emitter that may be much better suited for my needs.

Originally posted by papasan:
ordered in multiples the price drops a bunch, a group order could save us all a bunch of duccets as well (hint hint). although, from what i've seen of the 1W side emitter that may be much better suited for my needs.

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Well, count me in when you organize that big group buy for 1W side emitters.

For most of MY needs (short-throw, smooth-pattern; blinding friends) a few 1w LS/o's and a 5w cyan Pocket-Zorch fit the bill. Much as I'd love to start replacing normal houshold lights with LED's, I'd need multiple 5w whites per fixture (as a bulb-replacement) or just lots of underdriven 1w emmitters scattered across the ceiling, like stars....