I have put the led into a flashlight, but first an issue, look at this picture of the led, I could have noticed it directly after the dedome, but I just noticed it today:
The die is highly reflective, so it looks like there is a silicone film leftover on the die (or those Nichia dies are different from Cree dies in every aspect). And that tells me that I just may have been a lucky b*stard with this dedome; will every dedome leave that film, ot will the next one just take off half of the phosfor like in most reports of (accidental) Nichia dedoming? And would the tint-shift be different (more) if all the silicone was removed? Time for a gasoline dedome! Anyone?
Anyway, the led is in a AA-host I had waiting idle for a while already (from cnqg), with a BLF-mini driver (boost on AA with meh output, sort of direct drive on Li-ion, 2%-25%-100%, no memory, ±1000Hz PWM). I have a Nichia 219 mod (with dome) with the same driver and AA-size, so although there are differences (e.g. the dedomed mod has a AR-lens, that is 5% more light compared to non-AR), some sort of comparison can be made:
I tested with a fully loaded (brand new from IS :-)) Kinoko 14500 IMR battery. I would have expected the same current draw from both drivers, but the light with domed Nichia drawed 1.35A, the one with dedomed Nichia 1.46A, so there's a small difference. The output of the light with dome is 215 lumen, the output of the light without dome 223 lumen. Hey, that is not much different, even considering that the dedomed light draws a bit more current and has a AR-coated lens. It can have something to do with the silicone film over the die, but the 1000K tint-shift tells me that there must be a considerable light loss. The throw of the dedomed light is 5.4klux at 1 meter, the domed light has half of that (as expected from the about double effective surface area of the die).
I have walked around with this light for a day now, and I am not impressed by the output (my current EDC-light is considerably smaller and has double the output on a comparable current), but I am delighted by the tint :-) :-) , it gives everything a sunny day feeling, and I suspect that the CRI is still fairly (or very) good . It is also nice that it is a bit more throwy than most of my small lights.