Luminus SST-20-W 4000 K CRI95 color and output test

In real life I can be be very tolerant, as that is often needed to operate well as a human being, but in my hobby I allow myself some plain intolerance at times :slight_smile:

Non customizable UIs have slowly became intolerable to me… as well as Low CRI, gritty threads, mushy button, ringy beams, and so on… I’m a flashlight integrist :open_mouth:

Nah, I am not keeping them, I can’t get them myself.

I tried yesterday to get my hands on the FA3 but the manufacture is holding them with an iron grip. All I managed to get were a few samples for myself and a few others.

I can get FD2 SST-20’s but I don’t know if it would be worth the hassle as I would need to get 500+.

Consider it a peace offering after all the bugging you about firmware issues lol.

I knew you like high CRI LED’s and tint mixing so when they said they were sending you a box anyways I asked them to send you a few of these LED’s as well. I think they were supposed to send some FD2 as well?

I am actually going to try tint mixing a 2700k from KD, the FA3 sample I have + a 5700-6500k 70CRI SST-20 in my EDC with a 10511 optic to see if the final tint can get that rosy range we love so much.

I did this with XP-G3’s before and the final tint was surprisingly good, I ran that setup in my EDC for the past 2-3 years.

I’d be in for 20 if by some chance a group buy was put together.

If enough interest was shown I can get them but it is needless to say a big investment that I could not afford to hold onto long term. So I would need to know I could sell off most of them pretty quick.

Group buy pricing would be around $3 per LED I am guessing just to give an idea with discounts for higher quantities based on my talks yesterday. If I ordered 1000+ the prices would drop some but I kinda doubt there will be that much demand for FD2.

Based on maukka’s data, I think that selling 500 of the FA3 would go pretty well, but trying to sell 500 pieces of the FD2 is a gamble.

Yep, that is my thinking as well.

What is their reason for only selling the FD2 and not FA3? Would love some FA3 for the more rosy tint. If not, FD2 is still better than the current FB4 by far. Vinh might be interested in buying a bunch since he uses a bunch of the FB4 tints in his lights. Richard at MTN might be interested to stock some too if you can’t get the quantities you need.

At the moment I can get up to 2k I think.

The FA3 they are planning on using in an upcoming light and don’t want to let any go before that sadly.

Interesting idea, I could try talking to Vinh and MTN to see if they are interested in some of them.

Btw, output-wise the FA3 did just as well as the FB4 in the OP, 307 lm at 1A. The FD2 did 319 lumens. At 5 amps FA3 did 934 lm, FD2 980 lm (not using a copper hs like in the OP and graphite pad instead of thermal paste).

Thanks for the info Maukka. Surprised it is the same high flux bin considering the FA3 and FD2 is a better tint than the FB4.

BlueSwordM recorded interest in 412 x 4000K SST-20 so far in a group buy thread he was running. He already made a group buy of 3500K, but 4000K has been on hold for a couple of months due to not being able to confirm availability of anything better than FB4.

Perhaps FD2 is good enough to start trying to get a 4000K group buy in motion again?

Interesting, while the FD2 is the best tint out yet I would guess that FA3 or better would be needed to gain that amount of interest. That is about what I figured the interest level would be if I could get the FA3.

I am guessing less then half the interest for FD2.

I know I would want some FD2’s to play with I would not stock up on them to use in a lot of lights, I would wait for something better to come along.

It is possible we could get enough interest to make an FD2 buy worth it. I would need to sell at least half of them right away to cover most of my costs minus the LED’s I plan to keep for myself.

Who knows though. Some better LED could come along with less tint shift by the time you get this ideal tint

Yeah, part of why I am not rushing into the FD2. The FA3 was enough of a step up to be worth jumping into but the FD2 is a smaller step.

I received the batch of FA3 and FD2 SST-20 leds today, that Texas_Ace had sent to me. Thanks TA again for these.

This evening I did the test I was most curious of: modding 3 of the FA3 leds into my freshly received FW3A.

(I did all the tint checks with the FW3A’s AR-coated lens in place, I hope and think that using a plain glass lens will make results only slightly different, not much)

And as expected from the effect of the optic, even the FA3’s were not enough to get the tint in the hotspot below the BBL at any current. You have to start with very obvious rosy leds to get that done.

Also on inspection by eye, the beam has no rosiness to it.

Instead I got a very nice neutral tint in the hotspot (close to 3950K at all levels) that has not even a hint of green. Just as neutral white as 4000K can be :+1:
The beam next to my Sofirn C01S, that has a 4000K 95CRI SST-20 of unspecified tint (so likely FB4), makes the C01S look more green, so these leds have indeed visibly a different tint closer to the BBL.

The CRI is between 96.5 (turbo) and 97.6 (close to highest ramp level) on all currents, with R9 between 86 (turbo) and 98 (close to highest default ramp level).

Also at the lowest levels the hotspot has no visible green. The duv went from 0.0015 (very low level) to 0.0022 (highest default ramp level) to 0.0005 (turbo).

For comparison, the Sofirn C01S has a duv of 0.037 (high) and 0.034 (low). (The C01S also has a TIR optic, but it may be optically a bit different from the Carclo 10570).

I feel quite spoiled to have such nice leds in my FW3A.

Later (I hope tuesday) I will check a FA3 led and a FD2 led in a S2+ reflector at a few relevant currents.

This would be great! Thank you for sharing your findings too!

Guys, if you can offer me somewhere to put a payment, I could order those LEDs.

Would be nice for my 3rd gen BeCu springs+ LED GB.

I can order some FD2, the FA3 are not available sadly.

If you want to get some FD2 let me know. It is a 500pc minimum order last I checked.