Before I get all cranky, I'd like an opinion from others who have purchased from cutter electronics. I recently bought a bunch of lenses, emitters and stars from cutter and I'm somewhat disturbed by the markings on a U2 XM-L Star that I bought.
The star is labeled (with sharpie) U2 1C (what I ordered).. But I can clearly see the shadow of an older marking "T6". It looks like the T6 was removed with alcohol, and then U2 1C was written in its place..
Since Cree doesn't mark/label the actual emitter in any way, it's pretty much impossible to know whether this was an honest marking mistake, or if cutter is remarking T6s as U2s - knowing we can't tell the difference...
I'm a bit preterbed right now, but like I said, I'd like some honest thoughts from others in this hobby...
PPtk
Look closely at the star, and you can see the shadow of an old "T6" marking
It appears that someone made an error in sorting, and corrected it.
Since there is no factory indication of binning, I would opine that the writing was for your benefit - one LED looks much like another, once it hits the pile.
If this was any other vendor, I would be concerned.
Cutter or not I find that highly suspicious. If these were labeled in this fashion I would think it would be done straight out of the box from cree, ie 100 at a time or more. Its not like the person doing it would have multiple bins scattered about in front of them at the same time.
If they label emitters when packaging an order, I can imagine the mistake being made and corrected, especially if you also ordered T6.
I know I've made a similar mistake - ie. I recently sorted all my pennies (copper vs copper on zinc) and sometimes, after a long string of zinc I'd read the date, think 'copper', and toss it in w/ the zinc anyway...then correct my mistake.
If they label emitters when they receive them, they would have to handle an individual emitter (at least) 2 times instead of only when packaging an order.
Anyway...it would bug the heck out of me, too.
edit: consider this - if you were trying to pass off a T6 as a U2, wouldn't you make sure you rubbed off ALL of the T6 marking ;)
I think that there is nothing to be afraid of cutter. They would never do something like that in purpose. They are one of the most reliable cree official dealers.
So far, i have bought really from everywhere leds. Last year i bought more than 60 xm-l leds. Most of the where from cutter(40-45 i think) and all of them proved to be the best i bought. On the other hand, i am not sure that other dealers are offering what they sell. Only for Led-Dna i was quite happy with his leds. A bit worser than cutter's leds, but still very good, within specs.
And honestly, me, i can tell the difference between a T6 and a U2. It is measurable. Moreover, a T6 led is possible to have the performance of a good U2. T6 is minimum rating, not maximum.
But in this case, i am pretty sure he did a mistake or he had a lot of stars marked as T6. Reflowing leds from one pcb to another is not a problem for him, he might have been out of stock of 20mm stars, so he had to pull out one from his T6 leds.
If you want to hear about bad led dealers, i won't tell you, because i don't know if it is their blame or their source. But cutter never sent me junk. Really never, even from his last batch of xp-g S2 2T that i got, some leds at 700ma almost match up the performance of U2 xm-l leds.
I've calmed down a bit.. Appreciate everyone's comments (and general support for cutter).
Unfortunately, I've come to the conclusion that I'll never know. I have several T6 LEDs to compare it to, but how do I know for sure that I don't have strong (better than minimum) T6s? Is it possible for a (within spec) U2 to be less bright than a T6 - absolutely... Additionally, I don't have ANY 1C tint LEDs to compare this one to, meaning my lux-meter is going to be off in a comparison anyway.
I'm just going to have to trust that cutter made a mistake, and corrected it. Nothing else I can do. I'm not about to make them ship another LED all the way to the USA over a T6 vs. U2 POSSABILITY that I can't even prove..
Yeah, I could.. But does it really matter what they say? Will it be the truth - maybe. Will it be a lie - maybe. Will I know? nope. Can't test it, don't know whether to suspect it, can't measure it... So.. It just doesn't really matter.
I guess it falls into the "I don't love it, but I'm over it" category...
Yes, for me it does matter, because you are a customer and you are embarrassed by what you saw! This thing definitely needs an explanation. Of course in case they put a T6, they would never admit that, but at least, we are showing that we demand from out dealer to be honest and responsible. This discussion here will help a lot. Just post a link from here to the email you will send. Publicity in forums has high impact on their attitude. Even though in this case, about this dealer, i am pretty sure that they did nothing wrong, for me it is the most reliable source for leds by far.
@E1320, to be sure about that, you have to measure the leds under the same equipment, circumstances, same pcb, stable amp driver(possible Vf difference will show different result!). How did you test yours? Bear in mind the case that you got a very good led from shiningbeam, it is possible that too. You will be able to come to safe conclusions if you have a lot of leds, not just two.
The very fact that the tints are different may explain the difference in brightness. In my experience 1A tint emitters are much brighter than anything else I have.
I think the same ergotelis, and also, think this way: Cutter is a big supplier, if they sent you a wrong LED, may be they admit the mistake and send you another one, they can't know if you may be someday will test or not the LED and discover a possible lie, may be not now, but someday maybe you might want to do a test; Does a single ~USD15 LED worth a lie from a big official supplier?
I just looked at the dozen emitters I have, sourced from Cutter. None of them were marked, only the bags in which they arrived. I would guess that the marking was one of courtesy that went awry.
FWIW, most of Cutter's major customers would have the equipment with which to measure the output difference between bins.
