NEWBIE:Question about heat disapation

I an new but have been reading off and on for a while.

I remember when the 1W lumiled first came out and the modifications were just starting. Now we have a ton of choices, but the question for me still stands as before.

With some of the new lights like the Q3 and teralux 2W M*G dropin replacement, they still must generate heat and disapate that heat the the flashlight.

Can anyone help me understand
How are lights like the Q3 disapating the heat from 3W protection of the LED?

Is the LED driver just more efficient or not overdriving the led as much so less heat sinking is needed to protect the LED?

How might the teralux 2W LED/driver deal with the extra heat? Is it just conducting it to the M*G case? If so, does it really get that warm, like some of the early MODS used to make the M*G so hot you almost could not hold them?

I am so happy about geting a LionCub soon. But was curious how warm this might get? I have no comparison to it. Can someone tell me if the driver for the LionCub is the same as the LionHeart, how warm did the LionHeart get?

in the Q3, the star sits on top of about an 1/8" thick alumnimum spacer ring, which connects to the aluminum body. and yes, Lux3s are more efficient than Lux1s. I put together 2 of lambda's SMD+ kits for another CPFer recently and those get ungodly hot, VERY FAST, without potting materials, but thats the circuit itself, not the Lux that it's driving.

i'm designing a ZLT+CCR2 pill that uses a solid silver heatsink for the emitter /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif total pill diam is 0.625"

Leon.

The ring heatsink of the Q3 was depressing, so I modified mine.





Then i put entirely too much thermal compound on it, with a thin layer of epoxy /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif




The result is that heat is pulled away from the star much more efficiently. The stock Q3 heatsink didnt have the flat plate in the middle, just the round pipe looking piece. The reason that was sufficient for a stock Q3 is that it is underdriving the star, but mine has a TW0J in it and is being overdriven by a rechargeable battery. I didnt want to fry a $18 led.

hehe, thats cool, but it doesnt hold a light to what i have coming /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif.

Leon

I bet it cost a lot more too, thats just a penny that I shaved down

Can you tell me what a "TWOJ" is?

T = Flux bin (intensity)
WO = Color bin
J = Forward Voltage bin

http://www.luxeon.com/pdfs/AB21.PDF



I've noticed a number of lights are starting to get pretty whimpy on their heatsinking of luxeons, I've got one that has a steel plate (poor thermal conductivity), and several I've purchased that has the emitter mounted on a PCB, which has an extremely thin layer of copper on it to carry the heat to the flashlight body. (about 1.4 mil (0.0014") of copper on the board surface). Both are very poor methods IMHO. Though both are asian made and low cost, so what do you expect...

Leeoniya, pm sent

Good job on the improved heatsink /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Will