- The Fake-Cree LED Awareness Thread - The new "low" in Budget lights.

Thanks for all the good info. I need to take apart some of my cheapo lights and see what I have. Of course with the prices on some of these lights I can only imagine everything is fake or a clone in some way or another.

Lancman, I would fix that Negative solder connection too on that last photo.

Damn things are getting much too close! Seems like, very soon it will be time to only buy from better brands in order to get real Crees. Convoy direct from Simon will be my 1st choice. Group Buys need to start requiring pictures of the led reel and / or documents tracing to source. It doesn’t matter if the brands seem trustworthy, they themselves can be tricked if they do not ensure the source can be traced all the way back to Cree and verify each step.

Much easier to fake and not only that, very easy for someone (in China) to request a photo from someone who is actually selling them in huge quantities (in China).

IOS was the first to post reels shots with the store name written, not sure how in the mean time it was lost as a secure LED source.

This is why IOS has their name written on their reels. Of course a picture is pretty worthless without a name or better a sample of the groupbuy light in it. But your right, when it comes down to it, their supplier could have used a reel and label that is identical to cree.

With documentation of the source we should be able to verify it with the led seller, if it comes directly from an authorized Cree seller.

Here’s another counterfeit XM-L I caught in the wild today… In this case, a cheap eBay flood-to-throw zoomie a friend asked me to check out. Simple 1x 18650 (26650 compatible maybe?) “XML-T6” zoomie. The light keeps blinking and is very unreliable. Turns out to be a simple issue of the cheap press-fit driver making poor contact on the negative ring.

On closer examination:

(I tried to focus on the bond wire junctions here.)

What a surprise!?
I think they are all fake anyway.

The top one appears to have a slightly smaller die?

Possibly just a fraction. To my naked eye the main differences are:

1. The stippling on the silver base is more pronounced on the bottom one.
2. The dome has a more textured finish on the bottom one which obscures the dots in the phosphor.

If I was a betting man I would put my money on the top one being the fake as it comes from a cheap no-name P60 drop-in I won on eBay (for 50p!). They even threw in the bit of masking tape for free. :slight_smile:

Current listing

Yes, I only noticed that whilst taking the photos. Now sorted, thanks.

it is possible. as the LB clone of the XM-L2 looks very, very close to the original, but its likely not so bright, less efficient, and worse tint variations.

Yesterday I took some macro photos of a few known genuine XM-L2s...and the stippled texture isn't 100% consistent from batch to batch. Some of them are pretty smooth, and I know that they are genuine XM-L2s.

I guess that’s both good news and bad.

Good : My two LEDs might both be genuine after all. :slight_smile:
Bad : If there is a lot of variation between batches it’s going to make it even harder to spot the fakes. :frowning:

This is really obvious, and I’m not certain if this is a definitive characteristic, but I’ve not seen anyone mention it yet:

On my XM-L clones, I’ve noticed the obvious difference in the emitter base layer. While the LB clone is assembled in “Dome/Green/White” layers, the genuine Cree emitter is assembled “Dome/Green/Grey” (Or a darker greenish?) color.

I’ve also noticed that my XP-E clones are all assembled on a white base, but I don’t have a genuine XP-E to compare against. Pics on this thread seem to show genuine XP-Es with a white base, but I’ve not seen a good side view showing the difference.

Here’s another apparent counterfeit, which I find surprising! This time from an UltraFire 1226:

Not the greatest picture, but I can’t get closer until I actually remove the emitter from the light. See the squared bond wire junctions and smaller die size. This also has the smooth, green surface without the texture, and the white base I showed in the previous post.

This is strange, as this is still a very good throwing light, even with the presumed counterfeit emitter. This has a larger, and better reflector than my modded Uniquefire V2 semi-clone (my UF V2 has a slightly smaller reflector than the original V2). This counterfeit emitter in the 1226 gives me a hotspot that is similar in brightness to the V2 clone, which is driven at 3A and modded with an XP-L HI. My reference is via a white-wall comparison by eyes only, without any metering. The XP-L HI is a slightly warmer tint which may be tricking my eyes…

I assume this light will be a throw-monster when the emitter is replaced with a genuine high-bin XM-L2 (or XP-L/XP-G2) and has the current bumped up a bit… 8)

Still, the Lattice Bright emitters are surprisingly capable, as this light shows… If they wouldn’t blatantly copy their competitor’s design, and market as “Cree”, they would be reasonable budget alternative to the top-shelf Cree emitters… It’s not the LED I hate, it’s the unethical business practices.

Here are a few more photos to add some to the mix. In this case, the 100% genuine Cree XM-L2 U3 2A has very little stippling. All of these are real Cree LEDs.

RMM, only the one on the noctigon is real?

They are all real.

I see what you mean about the variation in the stippling. Maybe my bargain drop-in was even more of a bargain than I bargained for. :slight_smile: In terms of performance I can’t tell between the two.

Ouch that is disturbing.
So both the stippled texture on the die and the stippling/stippled coating on the silver base is inconsistent.
It appears that the only way right now to know if a led is real Cree is to look at the bond wire junctions, right?

Also, what keltex78 said is interesting.

Too much variation in real Crees. :~
Even the bond wires are very different in one.