Thank you for your review. Without this information no LED should be allowed to come out on the market.

Hi Mauri,

Great thanks for the test =) This is very valuable for all of us.
Sorry for my late reply. Just got home from a long motor bike trip today. As expected, the color tests showed very nice result. I don’t have a tool to validate it but my real life eye test also confirmed that too.
Yes, the high angle tint collected by the reflector or TIR (in my test) project warmer tint in the beam spot too. The best optics would be those designed for colour mixing. My all round favourite is the 5700K 9050.

Clemence

Thank You maukka!

I added the CRI to your overall diffused tints

and sorted your list by CRI
NVSL219CT 3000K R9050 = CRI 94

NV4L144ARE 12V 3000K R9050 = CRI 93

NV4W144AME 6V 5700K R9050 = CRI 91

NV4W144ARE 12V 5700K R9050 = CRI 91

NV4L144AME 6V 3000K R8000 = CRI 84

NV4W144AME 6V 6500K R70 = CRI 75

Very nice, these look hopeful.

Any idea on lumen output?

@ Jon Slider: Great! now the chart looks even more useful

The 3000k R9050 is perfect for Incan replacement. What’s more: less eye strain due to less blues too

Texas_Ace wrote:

Very nice, these look hopeful.

Any idea on lumen output?

Soon, after Maukka send them to Djozz =)

Excellent information, thanks.

Can’t wait for the 219CT R9050 to become available.

Thanks for the thorough testing maukka.

I will try my best to do a proper voltage and light output test on a few of these, but unfortunately the timing is very bad: next week monday to friday I will be supervising a school trip to London, and the week thereafter monday to friday I’m away with the family on a short holiday. I will try to squeeze out one output test next weekend, but no promises. Serious hobby time is two and a half weeks from now

Impressive tests!

COLOUR RENDERING QUALITY AND TINT

REFERENCES

219C and 144A

HIGH/LOW CRI COMPARISON

People do not give nearly enough credit to high CRI lights. Ever since trying them I can’t go back. They are just SOOOO much nicer to look at and even with less lumens you can see much better with them.

Now my big thing is tint mixing, tint mixing high CRI LED’s takes it up another level.

Texas_Ace wrote:

People do not give nearly enough credit to high CRI lights. Ever since trying them I can’t go back. They are just SOOOO much nicer to look at and even with less lumens you can see much better with them.

Now my big thing is tint mixing, tint mixing high CRI LED’s takes it up another level.

Actually mixing super LOW CRI LED is more fun
You’ll never know what you’ll get. Grey could be magenta, yellow turns green, etc…
It’s like the witch and her kettle

Texas_Ace wrote:

Now my big thing is tint mixing, tint mixing high CRI LED’s takes it up another level.

Now there’s an interesting idea.

Has anyone done tests like the ones maukka did in this thread, but with a tint-mixed light? Perhaps one each of 5700K, 5000K, 4500K & 3000K, all 90+ CRI, on a quad MCPCB and diffused together into the CRI testing equipment?

Phlogiston wrote:

Now there’s an interesting idea.

Has anyone done tests like the ones maukka did in this thread, but with a tint-mixed light? Perhaps one each of 5700K, 5000K, 4500K & 3000K, all 90+ CRI, on a quad MCPCB and diffused together into the CRI testing equipment?

I have not seen any testing like this but would love to. Some 90+ CRI 3000k + ~5700k 90+ CRI would be quite interesting.

To my eyes it is richer then a plain ~4500k 90+ and has more contrast but I don’t really have any directly comparable setups.

I do not see how a tint mixed light consisting of high CRI leds of various colour temperatures would emit a noticably different (better, closer to 100CRI) spectrum than one high CRI led in the averaged tint. Of course it is fun to make a mixed light (my S41 has two 5000K and two 3000K 219C’s), but I would not expect something special new, the resulting spectrum is a simple add-up of the separate spectra of the leds.
As maukka mentioned, mixing several low CRI leds can have an interesting and possibly high CRI result, but if you already use high CRI leds, the CRI difference between separate leds and the resulting mixed spectrum will become much lower. No miracles are happening in light spectra.

Not miracles by any means but to my eyes it is more contrasty then a single tint high CRI LED.

That said I don’t have a multi-emitter high CRI light in a single tint to compare so it is hard to say for sure.

It is kind of like HDR imaging, you are able to artificially increase the contrast and vibrancy above that which is normally possible.

But then all of this is why I would love to see some real world testing on it to see what the actual differences are.

djozz wrote:

…
As maukka mentioned, mixing several low CRI leds can have an interesting and possibly high CRI result, but…

My kitchen lamp, which I inexpensively retrofitted with two of these Markerled 10W warm white 5730 lamp boards, plus a single “18-36W” driver (300mA, 18-36 led/ledpacks in series) driving a couple of 30S2P cool white 5730 arrays in parallel (so ≈150mA of current flowing through each array, 75mA/emitter), actually displays quite a nice tint, warmer than daylight (phone's pics look slightly warmer when taken under the lamp with “daylight” white balance), and CRI is, to my naked eye (and my friend's one too) noticeably better than the one from a cool white XM-L2.

My ¢2. 

Cheers

djozz wrote:

I do not see how a tint mixed light consisting of high CRI leds of various colour temperatures would emit a noticably different (better, closer to 100CRI) spectrum than one high CRI led in the averaged tint. Of course it is fun to make a mixed light (my S41 has two 5000K and two 3000K 219C’s), but I would not expect something special new, the resulting spectrum is a simple add-up of the separate spectra of the leds. As maukka mentioned, mixing several low CRI leds can have an interesting and possibly high CRI result, but if you already use high CRI leds, the CRI difference between separate leds and the resulting mixed spectrum will become much lower. No miracles are happening in light spectra.

Yup, I think so too. CRI can’t be combined like CCT or lumen. There has to be proper mix/rato between each spectrum’s for a particular CCT and CRI. My thinking goes like this, For example: simply add a 6500K cool white and 2700K super warm “normal” LED would result in approximately 4600K with worse CRI than before because now the 480nm spectrum region curve would be even deeper in contrast to those to the left and right scale.

Most high CRI normal LED’s spectral curves are very different from the true high CRI LEDs like Yuji, Ledengin, Nichia, Citizen (vivid), etc… They have fatter than average curve in the 480nm and yellow – red zone. Adding several LED like these would result in less CRI rating decrease compared to the skinny curved high CRI LED.

Note: This is just my thinking, not really sure until someone publish a valid test.

Put the CRI aside, the mixed results is indeed interesting and perceived differently depends on each set of individual eyes

@clemence:

thank you for those excellent beamshots! They are perfect for demonstrating what high-cri really means because you used two cool white LEDs and didn’t move the camera at all. It’s a very obvious difference.

I think tint-mixing can have some effect if one combines warm white and cool white high-cri LEDs. Cool whites have more blue and more cyan (most LEDs produce very little cyan) and warm-white LEDs produce more red light. It would make a lot of sense to use a warm-white LED that produces a lot deep red light (the other area of the spectrum that most LEDs are not good at). Doing this should result in a more balanced spectrum, but with too much green and yellow (both LEDs would emit a lot of this).

Another way of doing things might be to use a triple optic and combine one high powered cool-white high-cri LED with one cyan and one deep red led (with less power). This would basically make the spectrum more even without adding more yellow and green light.

Thanks for your testing maukka!
That 219C 3000K tested great, Ra (94), R9 (70) at only 700mA.

The higher you push the Nichia the greater the CRI.
Where can one purchase these 219C 3000K? I’m looking for 3.

Updated the comparisons:
http://budgetlightforum.com/comment/1021851#comment-1021851

clemence wrote:

Updated the comparisons: http://budgetlightforum.com/comment/1021851#comment-1021851

Very nice!

144A 4500K R9050 1A current
test

I would generally agree. I have mixed 219C 4k 9050 in pairs with XP-G3 4 and 5 bin hi cri and I really like the results. Visually there seems to be more contrast.

Texas_Ace wrote:

Not miracles by any means but to my eyes it is more contrasty then a single tint high CRI LED.

That said I don’t have a multi-emitter high CRI light in a single tint to compare so it is hard to say for sure.

It is kind of like HDR imaging, you are able to artificially increase the contrast and vibrancy above that which is normally possible.

But then all of this is why I would love to see some real world testing on it to see what the actual differences are.

I have actually moved my EDC to a mixed tint XP-G3 85cri triple convoy S8 setup.

I really like the final results with a 15011 optic, good output with 3000 lumens on turbo and the final tint is somewhere around ~4700k with 1 each 5700k, 3000k and 5000k LED’s. I wish I could have found all 90CRI LED’s but I had to mix in some 80CRI due to availability.

overall the tint shift is virtually eliminated due to the optic and the final light is very pleasing on the eyes which still being bright enough to handle business.

I noticed that tint mixing is even done in the pro level high CRI manufactures, so there must be something to it:

https://store.yujiintl.com/collections/high-cri-led-strips-ribbon/produc...

AEDe wrote:

144A 4500K R9050 1A current test

Thanks AEDe, the results is outstanding from R1-15. Maukka also tested the sm453 with more/less similar result

- Clemence

TA, the Yuji ribbon that you link has the warm a d cold leds on a separate circuit so you can use mixing to achieve any desired colour temperature in between. (There was a flashlight that did that too).

It is a bit of a myth that you can make ‘better’ light by mixing different tinted leds than simply directly use the correct led of desired colour temperature.

Notwithstanding that, colour mixing is fun!

I am not saying it IS better, just that on the surface my tint mixed lights appear better to my human eyes.

Although I was not aware that those strips were on separate circuits, that is really neat actually. I want to use those to light a few rooms at some point down the line.

Now in some cases tint mixing is worse, it takes the right mix of tint to work. I mixed a few 90 CRI XP-G3’s that were fairly close together in tint, the result was not that great, had a bit of a green tint to it.

I think the key is using tints as far away from each other as possible. I like 5700-6000k with 2700-3000k for example.

Texas_Ace wrote:

….I think the key is using tints as far away from each other as possible. I like 5700-6000k with 2700-3000k for example.

Tjohn wrote:

Texas_Ace wrote:

….I think the key is using tints as far away from each other as possible. I like 5700-6000k with 2700-3000k for example.

Just a shot in the dark here, could physical distance between the emitters also have something to do with providing contrast and depth by shading/defining the edges and textured surfaces of objects when tints vary?

Possible but doubtful as the beams are completely mixed together after a few feet and they are only like 10mm apart at the light itself. Plus I do not really notice the same effect with a single tint in the same setup.

Which is a good point, I think the key to tint mixing is it balances out the good and bad of different tints. For example you get the deep reds of a 3000k emitter and the popping blues of a 5700k.

The only single LED I have seen that can match my tint mixed triple is the 9080 4500k 219B. They are very close with the 219B being slightly rosier. Of course if I was able to get all 90CRI XP-G3’s I think that would balance out some. As it is, the 219B just edges out the XP-G3’s in CRI by my eyes but not enough to outweigh the loss in lumens.

The biggest difference is that maxed out the 219B triple gives me around ~1800 lumens IIRC and the XP-G3 gives me over 3000 lumens with very similar tints.