35K - not just another incremental upgrade

This is pretty scary stuff. I too thought that the 35K mcd LED was just a routine incremental upgrade in the grand scheme of small 5mm LEDs, because after all we were used to 26K, which I dare say was pretty darn bright. So I sat on my lazy rear and forgot about taking beamshots since I didn't think I'd see anything significant.. it's just more of the same thing, right?

Heck no.

If we could get this kind of performance increment out of Luxeons there would be no end to the queue lining up to buy them. As it is we get excited over very much smaller gains.

I'll let the beamshots speak for themselves.







So it takes THREE LEDs in an A2 Aviator to take this one on.. I am estimating the A2's LEDs may be 12K mcd each, since it seems to be about equal. Pretty amazing!

& in 5 years from now we are going to laugh at the 35k mcd's!!!!!

Are these the ones currently offered in the group buy?

THX - John

Wow, my only negative thought is what is the lifespan of these LEDs running that bright? Also does it come at a cost of higher current consumption? But very impressive. These are not Nichia's right?

Now they just need to get Mr. Blue into some anger management...

If they could only get rid of that nasty green, blue, and yellow rings and make a smooth white with that output that would be great.

Kevin,

Are you going to make any of your keylights with this mod? :naughty::naughty:

Tom

vontech said:

Kevin,

Are you going to make any of your keylights with this mod? :naughty::naughty:

Tom

Click to expand...

I had a look earlier today and it looks like he already is:
http://kevin.htgk.org/keylights-orderform.php

From the beamshots it looks like there is 4 separate led dies(?) in there. is that correct?

Do you have a new nichia CS to compare to?

I found that these had a very close spot output brightness as compared to the NichiaCS. However, don't plan on running these much higher than 30mA for any duration.

Paul

Ah, cool. I was looking for your head2head thread again but my link was broke (new cpf) so I had to do more digging. I already have some Nichia CS U rank on the way to me, so if these aren't much brighter I'll wait for the next gen. Thanks Paul.

Just one die with the characteristic splotchy blue color of 5mm LEDs. No 'snow' LEDs here unfortunately! But the lil sucker sure is bright.

Milking high continuous currents out of CR2016 cells is quite a feat, so in a way the "direct drive" protects the LEDs. You would probably get your hundreds of hours at least running these on CR2016s because their output falls off so fast. You'll overdrive the LED in the first couple of minutes, then the output will drop off. Agreed with chimo that these are probably best at below 30mA. The specs I have received say 20mA nominal.

BUT - I run my Luxeon Vs at 1.3 amps too anyway..... :devil: john2551's got a good point, by the time they go toast, hopefully we will have our 350K mcd 5mms and ZY0H Luxeon 1s


Tom: Yup, all upgraded to 35Ks. Let me know if you have any further inquiries by PM, since this thread is about LED performance and it's in the wrong section for sales-related stuff anyway.

Kevin,

Thanks to your post, it has inpired me to do this little SF A2 mod with the 35k mcd leds...it really breathes new life into the A2 and it is so much brighter than before(don't have my other A2 handy, but you could check out the before and after pix as comparison)

Here is the link to the SF A2 modded with 35k mcd leds

Wow, NICE mod and even better pictures! I wish I had the guts to do that but I think my A2 is staying the way it is.. (I don't quite trust my modding skills and SF is not likely to sell me a new ring if I fail! oo

Kevin, can you measure the current that's producing that brightness?