Osram actually makes LEDs like that, but only 4 dies not 9:
0 spare time
Trying to do too many things at once and getting almost none of it done.
I need to focus on a few things at a time, so after I finish building the second syniosbeam with CFT90 I will probably take a break from flashlights and focus on my other stuff.
Next year, 2019, I’ll start the next flashlight.
We discussed that before XD16 came out. Not terribly hard to do, but XD16 is inefficient. E21A is efficient, but good only for flooders as it’s too thermally limited.
Yeah I saw what easyb (I think it was him) made with 9 of them.
The difference here would be that having all the dies on a single large chip would have really good thermal performance when only one is lit up due to the larger pad on the bottom, as can be seen from the large luminus LEDs.
Then with some high efficiency dies, like XHP70.2, lots of lumens and efficiency could also be obtained.
I’m pretty sure we will never see an LED like this from cree, but it would be cool for EDC flashlights to have both throw and high output+efficiency options (without having multiple optics or LEDs or other complex stuff).
Simply by turning on different sections of the LED.
Yeah, something like that
Switching between 1 and 9 dies will go between throw and output, and focusing with the lens will switch between spill or tight beam.
This way you can have maximum throw, medium throw with large high lumen spot, or high lumen flood.
It is still a prototype but Osram is working on a 1x1 mm high power led that could be used for this, it just needs a 9-up MCPCB.
Made me also think of this: Osram is working on a 1000 ‘pixel’ led that can be individually controlled. It will however not have the lumen density to make it throw very well.
Had the exactly same idea 1.5~2 years ago, but problem is "four-nut" hole with 9x,25x etc. discrete LED arrays. To eliminate hole(s) op reflector must be used, which reduces throw significantly.
With LED like 9-die XHP-35 HI this would work with SMO reflector.
Yes, it definitely needs to be a single LED, not 9 or more LEDs soldered beside eachother.
9 die XHP35 is a perfect example, since the current one is 4 and has no visible cross.
The main feature would be turning on the center die individually.
We will likely never see an LED like this produced, but I thought it would be good to write the idea down somewhere so it’s on record
And the LEDs don’t have to all be the same. Put a very high intensity LED in the center for max throw. Surround it with bigger-die, lower-intensity emitters that can be activated for max lumens and flood.
Could make a great searchlight. I don’t think this would be practical for an EDC though unless you’re just making a mule with no reflector.
Some further thoughts on doing it with aspheric and collar….
Combining multi-led idea with collared zoomie enables making a light of the size of Brinyte B158 which delivers 500+ kcd throw and 5+ klm flood. The former sustained, the latter being turbo.
But aside from the regular challenges with collared light (patents….), there are also new ones.
If we want wide beam, we need wide collar opening. Also, collar won’t focus on the flood leds, reflecting their light partially on other LEDs (which is good as it enables recycling) and partially on the PCB.
If we want wide opening there are several options:
make a wide-open collar with mounting fixed against the LED
in throw mode, lots of light escapes the collar reducing throw
make a collar with large diameter, moving together with the lens
the light loss is at high angles, this is less of a problem than with fixed collar
collar comes out of focus quickly, making partially focused beam much less useful
complicates head construction
combine fixed and moving partial-collars
complex, costly
restricts zooming movement - they’ll hit each other quite early
Kiriba_ru had the same thought as me. Osram offer an automotive LED which basically has “pixels”. If you use an aspheric lens you basically have a projector (finally making the bat logo possible whithout a lot of effort on the optics front).
Another dream…might be hard to implement and may not even work well, but maybe…
Put Boost HX surrounded by Pures in a host. Implement zooming by varying intensities of the central and surrounding LED. Full throw has just the central LED with high intensity but few lm. In flood mode you drive all the LEDs at not-too-high current leading to high output with high efficacy. There are intermediate modes as well, they probably feature a bright hotspot and a wider secondary beam.
Now…put that in a TIR based zoomie. Synchronize the zoom head movement with LED zoom, so a single control turns the light from a very narrow high-intensity thrower to a high-output flooder.
Wouldn’t work very well because the HX has a big border.
You need LEDs that go all the way to the edge so that when they are all on it looks like one, otherwise you will end up with a weird looking hotspot.
Well, if you use only the center LED for most modes, then turn on the outside emitters when you get into full flood mode, it might not be so bad. Another option is to use a multi-emitter optic, like the 6-up and 7-up optics that led4power is selling. But, it might be hard to implement a smooth zooming function with those. I don’t know if “zooming” TIR optics are much different from “normal” single-focus TIR optics or not.
The main benefit of this idea would be the whole front area is used for a single optic, resulting in the maximum throw when a single LED is on.
Multi-emitter flashlights are good for lots of lumens or high efficiency (driving all the LED on low) but not good for throw because each LED get’s it’s own small optic.
Honestly in the near future a single LED will be able to have extremely high lumens and great throw at the same time which would make this entire idea unnecessary and overcomplicated