bin codes help please!

StoneDog

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Maybe this should be moved to the LED forum?

The "T" is the luminous flux (how bright it is). The higher the letter the brighter the output.

The "WO" is the tint. WO is generally white. XO and YO are also generally white but will tend ever so slightly towards green and blue respectively. When you get into the other tints (WA, YA, X1, V1 & VA) you risk more blue, purple, green and/or yellow.

The "J" is the voltage drop (forward voltage) of the emitter. The lower the letter the lower the voltage drop wich is generally considered a good thing.

So, your emitter's bin indicates that it should be very bright, very white and have a reasonably low forward voltage which means long runtime for the badboy and nexgen sandwiches or higher output for the madmax sandwiches.

Jon
 

setherd

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thanks!

I think my problem was I was thinking the color code ws only a single letter, I couldn't figure out what the 4th letter was for.

these apply to 1, 3, and 5 watt luxeons correct?
 

Perfectionist

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WOW ..... where can I get X binned LED's !! ??

And what causes the Min-Max Lumen range ?

So would a XWOE bin be the very best available at present ?

And if they are available ...... why aren't any manufacturers using them ??
 

asdalton

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The best available bins with current technology would be something like RW0H for the Luxeon I, UW0H for the Luxeon III, and XW0S for the Luxeon V. (I'm not certain about that last one, though.) Keep in mind that the Luxeon V is actually four Luxeon die in a 2x2 arrangement, and its forward voltage is about twice that of a Luxeon I or III.

It is not reasonable to expect an E voltage bin for a white LED, since these LEDs work by the production of blue light, which requires around 2.8 V as a bare minimum to get any light at all. This is basic physics and not an engineering problem that can be worked around. Future improvements in LED efficiency will come through designs that require less current to produce the same amount of light, or more light for the same current. The very low voltage bins correspond to emitters that produce warm, single colors like red and orange--not blue or white.

The very best conceivable bins don't necessarily exist in a real product yet, and even the best existing bins aren't widely used because they're rare and expensive. Sometimes you can be lucky; I recently found a RX0H Luxeon star in a cheap Brinkmann headlamp. As Lumileds' manufacturing technology improves, bins that were once very rare are now becoming more common. But getting something like VW0H bin Luxeon III, which is theoretically possible, will require a major advance in technology and not just an incremental improvement to the existing manufacturing.
 

Perfectionist

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I see ..... so that table was more theory than practice !! :(

When would a single LED be able to throw out 250 Lumens .... 1 year, 5 years, 10, 20 ??
 

StoneDog

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Probably less than 5. The new K2 emitters from Lumileds are going to be up there (100+ lumens I think). Those are sort of the next generation of Lux3.

X binned LuxV are extremely rare - pretty much not available anymore to hobbyists unless you've got serious connections and/or cash.

Not sure how many U??H Lux3 we've seen, if any. I've got a UYOK that's pretty nice.

The bins are sort of a guideline anyway. Lumileds will assign a bin # to an entire reel of emitters but from specimen to specimen they are likely to vary in all three of these dimensions. This is what people call the "luxeon lottery", although it applies more to production lights that can't guarrantee any sort of bin at all (Inova, Surefire, Nuwai, etc).

As an example of how off the binning can be, I bought a W??T LuxV a while ago. I am overdriving it at 1000ma and it is only marginally brighter than a V??T that I have running at 750ma. Either I have a great V??T or a stinker of a W??T.

Jon
 
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