I put some LH351D 5000K 80CRI emitters in my FW3A today. Note, the 80CRI ones were not even really considered as an option for the FW3A; they were just easy to get so I gave them a try.
Here’s what I’ve found:
It’s greenish, like the 219c 5000K 80CRI, but a little warmer.
With no optic at all, the emitters just look milky and opaque with no interesting visual features. This is probably a large part of why they produce such a consistent-looking beam. Cree emitters are generally more interesting-looking… but then, so are the beams they produce.
With a 10507 optic the beam is basically just a circle, almost like a narrower version of how a zoomie looks in wide mode. At the edge of the circle it has an off-colored corona, and then outside of that is a barely perceptible spill area in the shape of a triangle. So for practical purposes it’s a hotspot-only beam with no significant spill, and the hotspot has a thin warm corona around the edge. It looks a lot like a blurry projection of the sun.
With a 10511 optic the beam is totally smooth and has no sudden changes in tint, temperature, or brightness. So I’m keeping the 10511 in mine.
Otherwise, it seems to perform nicely. I haven’t done a lot of testing with it yet, but everything works well and it’s a big upgade from the XP-G3 CW emitters the prototype shipped with.
I don’t know how the 90CRI versions would look, but they should look better than the 80CRI ones I have now.
Thanks TK! I hope we can have some updates from LT as soon as possible!
Almost (or maybe more than) 2000 “lights” is a very good number (IMO), so maybe LT can boost this a little so that we can have them before the end of the year :+1: