On the other side of this coin, seeing a green cast on everything doesnāt sit right with my brain either. Iāve spent so much if my life around incandescent and sodium lights that a warmer tint is something I can stand however, even if its not my absolute favorite.
I still stick to the idea that blue light is something you want to AVOID in any activity where focus/depth perception is important. Amber lenses for driving, shooting sports, etc. for years have never let me down, and anecdotally cooler temps often seem to give me more āglareā at night when compared against warmer tints at the same brightness and intensity.
Spent all my life outdoors, working in construction. Wasnāt around a lot of fluorescent lighting. But when it comes time to go out in the dark and get something done I can stand a blue-white tint, canāt bear a campfire orange hue on everything, those old Maglite days are gone for me! Green hue, donāt care for it and it bugs the snot out of me but if I have something to do I can still get it done, itāll bug me the whole time though. The cool white doesnāt do that, I mean, doesnāt bug me the whole time Iām out. Too much like the new headlights on cars I guess. Man, speaking of cars, my old ā51 Chevy had those dang near orange lights and I hated em even 40 years ago! lol
I am just the opposite. My eyes just donāt like cool white at all. I can live with neutral, but much prefer warm light. Earlier today I put some XM-L Hi, U4, 3000K 80+CRI emitters from mtnelectronics in one of my Wuben T046R lights. It now gives me a very warm, orange-ish, golden light. I love it.
I feel that, the Nichias Iāve seen as cool as 6000K still look great and handle red and brown tones really well. Personally I donāt like anything south of 4000K either as its just washed out orange like you said but to some people 4000 Is SUPER warm still.
On the other hand I HATE the cool white LEDs on some new cars. Hurts my eyes whether Iām using them or another car is shining them at me, its nice theyāre a bit brighter when youāre driving with them but the tradeoff in eye strain really wouldnāt be worth it for me. Same reason Iāve got f.lux on my PC and a blue-blocker app on my phone too. I definitely think some people are more sensitive to it, and Iāve always had issues with even regular sunlight causing eye strain if Iām not wearing sunglasses pretty much my whole life (getting contact lenses helped - they block UV).
And all this, in a nutshell, is why there are no right or wrong answers.
That photo above, side by side lights with the orange on the right? Iād have those orange emitters in the trash within 20 minutes of opening the box! Read a book once where the divine wisdom was āLeave to others their otherness.ā
@DB Custom and BPlayd0h, there is the 5700k Luxeon MZ 90CRI for you, and the 5000k LH351D 90CRI.
However, donāt you both forget that there is a large difference in how 3500k and below emitters are represented in pictures.
Emitters with low R9 values and high CRI values will tend to look on the orange side of things at 3500k and below CCTs. See the XM-L2 3000k 80CRI above. That is due to the green wavelengths of the light emitted mixing it with the red, giving it a bad orange look. Doesnāt look bad, but doesnāt look good either, even to my warm tinted eyes.
Emitters with high R9 values and high CRI will tend to look towards red at 3500k and below. See E21As and LH351B 3000k 90CRI. They look gorgeous, even on a white wall. It looks more realistic since red tones are less washed out, making it look more reddish in tones, giving it an incandescent tone.
Kinda, yeah, itās got 72 dies and dwarfs the 70.2. lol It can do a little over 16A direct drive for some 4300 lumens. Iāve had them in all sorts of lights, even a chopped miniMag with 2 14250 cells. (thatās the 6V variant, I also have some 9V ones)
Iāve tried a dozen different 3000k emitters. The Oslong Square 96CRI, E21A, and SST-20 is the best. I never tried the LH351B 3000k 90CRI though and never seen any test report on that but fear it might be above the BBL yellow/green like the other Samsungs. You can get a SST-20 3000k 90CRI triple on 20mm mcpcb from KD and just swap it in the TO46R. I modded three TO46R that way. Very easy to do and direct fit. No physical modifications necessary. The SST-20 3000k 90CRI looks beautiful in this host. Does not look yellow at all.
Older eyes are generally more frazzled, even if they started off perfect. Particularly if the owners have spent a lot of time outdoors without protection from UV and high intensity. They wear out. Look after them.
10% of male eyes are defective to begin with. 0.5% of female eyes.
The blue cones are most easily damaged, hence I suspect a preference among some older people for colder tints, to try to make up for what they have lost.
My other Wuben To46R is getting the LH351B 4000K 90+ CRI soon
Texas-Ace is sending me one of his nifty Lumen Tubes and I want to measure the stock light before I mod it.
This was a super easy mod. The triple emitter, 20mm boards from mountain Electronics drop right in.
Remove tailcap and battery.
Unscrew the bezel. I pressed the bezel into a piece of foam and turned the body.
Pop the open tail-end of the light a couple of times with the palm of your hand to generate a slight increase in air pressure inside the light and the lens will drop out.
I used a fine tip pair of tweezers to remove the o ring and the optic fell right out.
Un-solder the red and black leads from the original triple emitter board, straighten the wires a bit so they donāt catch, and the emitter board drops right out.
Thank you! Looking forward to seeing more! I have heard, as SKV89 stated, that the Samsung LH351 has a green corona, though Iām not sure which exact LED it was so hopefully you have a better outcome.
Also thanks SKV89 for the tips on emitters. Iām going to order a few and get my Weller out this Winter!
I have recently used a lot of the Samsung LH351D 80 CRI 5000K emitter, I donāt see this green that has been much ballyhooed about when used in reflectored lights or certain optics, other optics do indeed shift the tint. I donāt know if thatās just the batch I got or what, but mine have been fairly pleasantly warm. This is a U6 power bin. The W6 power bin in 70 CRI 5000K is actually almost white and quite a bit stronger. I prefer this 70 CRI W6 to the 80 CRI U6, both in 5000K tint.
