Why does it cost more for a neutral colour temp in an led? And how exactly do u adjust the the colour? Is it chemicals, materials, or what. And why do some specs for flashlites say the colour changes when different voltages are in play? or is that misinformation?
and why is there water @ the bottom of the ocean Ha!
From what I understand.
T3 Warm
T5 Neutral
T6 Cool
But I have also seen a T6 with neutral and warm tints, the phosphorus (i think thats what it is) is darker shades.
Like the cool is a bright yellow, the neutral is yellow/orange and warm is orangeish/brown.
There is probably a lot more to it than that, but that's just based on what I have seen. I don't have actual knowledge or enough experience with different types.
T3, T5, T6 are efficiency bins, they don't repentant the tint.
It's true that manufactures choose, T3 7B for warm white light. (there's no 7B available on other efficiency) and so on.
T6 can be cool 1A or it can be neutral 3C.
define efficiency bins please
How much light they output for the current drawn. So in the case of the XM-L all of them will have the same forward voltage and working currents but the lumen rating changes. Also an efficiency bin like T6 has randomness in the output, @ 3A from 845 lumen to 910lumen. The T5 has the maximum of the minimum of the T6, 780 lumen to 845 lumen.
So in other words for the same power you get more light with the T6 than the T5. And the same goes for the U2 over the T6.
this is all great info guys, especially the wiki which i didn't know about, but unfortunately it doesn't explain why a neutral ccolour led costs more that other colours.
Thanks to that I just found a 3C XM-L T6, for $9.50.
Is there a list somewhere that shows what available tints there is for each XM-L emitter?
And is it the same for the U2 bins?
*edit*
I just found this, Its clearly missing some though.
U2 flux bin 1C 6500k+ Cool White
T60 flux bin 3C 5000k daylight white
T50 flux Bin 4C 4300K neutral white
T40 flux bin 5B3 4000k neutral white
T40 flux bin 6A3 3500k Warm white
T30 flux bin E7 3000K Warm White
I'm not sure why there is a price difference exactly. You do put more phosphorous on the die with neutral and warm. And you start putting other color phosphors as well, like red. That also gives better CRI. Is phosphor really that expensive? I don't know.
It could also be a market thing. There seem to be more cool white LED's, so maybe warm and neutrals are more expensive because they are scarce. Or maybe there is more demand for warm and neutrals in commercial applications and the flashlight people get whatever is left over, which is cool white.
It's hard to get good information on what is available in terms of tints and flux bins, other than just seeing what sellers are offering. Cree has a hundred different tint bins, but that doesn't mean they are producing all of them.
Cree neutral and warm emitters (XP-G,XM-L etc..) are pretty much "accidents" from starting a production line for cool white emitters or closing it. So there are a lot fewer of them around and demand is high therefore the higher price. The emitters are binned after production not before, hence the tint and sub-tint lottery. Dedicated high cri emitter are not accidents but were designed with a different engineering goal. Cree doesn't offer affordable high power, high CRI (90+) for flashlights, they went for maximum output with their engineering goals.
Exactly as brted said. The cool tint emitters are preferred due to their higher efficiencies or lumen ratings you can say. Therefore they are bought in higher lots (in flashlight manufacturers market) and hence the lower prices on flashlight based sources. But this may not be the case always. If you buy your LEDs from a seller mainly focused on indoor illumination neutral and warm tints are the ones going faster and their prices can be the same or lower than the cooler ones. I just ordered a couple of neutral XML emitters from Cutter Electronics and some warmer tints had reasonable prices.
I just looked at cutter electronics, the colour bins don't indicate what colour they are and has nothing on the site to say so either.
I might have to mail them and ask for info.