Yup, super agree on this. White walls and ceilings is my choice for room lighting. I always use indirect lighting for as much room as possible. Place several narrow focused optics pointed upwards. Produced glareless and uniform bright ambience.
I used many of cheap Chinese CC AC-DC drivers too. They’re good enough.
IMHO, for your solar cell system you need higher efficiency drivers. Try Luxdrive or Taskled.
I meant this type of driver:
You can put 1 to 3 LEDs (maybe even 4 depending on LED Vf and Power supply voltage) in series, they will run 1 Watt each.
They’re 300mA buck drivers.
“Buck/boost” converters usually have low efficiency.
Depends on the set up.
With a “100 Watt 18 Volts” panel on a car battery i think you can get away with budget solutions.
You don’t even need electronics for charging, just connect the panel to the battery with a 10 Ampere diode.
(Although a cut off circuit at 14 Volts would be nice)
Running about 6 LEDs on 1 Watt of light, even high CRI warm tint, will last long enough for the evenings.
(Won’t it?)
Efficiency of 219C SM303 at 1 Watt (350mA) is pretty decent too.
Car batteries aren’t that great for living off, they are designed to give a whole lot of current in a short amount of time and then get re-charged immediately. Apperently they won’t last long if used with for low current drain application and slow charging. I got a decent 90Ah battery with two 18V solars pannels in parallel each 95W peak current with an MPPT controller between panels and batteries, so it’s an ok setup for what I use.
I’ll have look at those drivers. Thing is with a 12V led system I’m going to need buck/boost drivers as my battery voltages goes roughly from 11V to 14V. Now in the summer I probably will stay above 12V but in the winter and on cloudy days like now I’m between 11.5V and 12.5V sometimes even lower if I have to charge my power tools. packs for which I need my inverter. I hope I can get around that once/if my hobby charger arrives.
I haven’t been using solar that long so I’m still figuring it all out .
With 3 LEDs in series you need around 9 Volts, so you can use a simple buck driver. Or use them for 2 LEDs in series, so it can run off around 8 Volts too. (I don’t know the minimal Voltage drop)
(Those drivers that i linked have a rectifier bridge, but you can bypass that for DC power supply.)
Yeah, if only we could charge in summer and discharge in winter… 
Go with buck driver. Run parallel strings. More efficient than boost or buck/boost. With 11,5V you have plenty of headroom for (1 x 144AM @ ~6V each) or (3 x 219B/C/219A @ ~3V each).
Yep I think that would be the best way to go. I’ll have to read the link later seems interesting just glossing over it thanks.
@Jerommel: yeah or you know go into hibernation, wintersleep.
Gotta go drinking now, it’s my birthday tonight….
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Dekonz! And may your life comes in high CRI.
That makes both of us a piscean 
:partying_face:
Thanks man.
Damn those hangovers, they get worse by the years……
BTW that article bout string connecting :+1: Did not have a clue bout thermal runaway with LEDs
Would a triple with these new 4500k 9080 s2+ be better than say the same but with xpl hi v2 5a?.
Thanks!.
Depends what you mean by better, they are very different lights.
Expect much better quality but dimmer flashlight with slightly bigger hotspot. Maukka also said the tint variations between center and spill is minimal with all 219C.
In my tests XPLHD has one of the most pronounced tint variation between low and high current. Less for XPLHI, and even less for 219B/C.
BTW guys,
Please let me know what do you want for the next Nichia sales? Please post in your Nichia wish list here.
I’ll try to bring them next time [mid or late March]
Thanks,
Clemence
Well certainly more of the 4000k and 4500 9080 as these were sold out very fast!.
Yeah, it all comes down to what is better for you.
Trying to wow people that aren’t familiar with modern flashlights, go with the brightest cool-white you can get.
Trying to find these little guys for example…
…, avoiding to step on them, taking pictures of them, go with high-CRI LEDs.
You can also wow people that are familiar with modern flashlight, but not so with high CRI LEDs.
“Shine your SC600w at that tree… look at the colors… Now, turn it off. [now you’re shining your high CRI light on that tree]… Look at the colors now.”
Hmmm… wishlist…
Let’s see…
How about TIR optics?
I’m constantly lost in TIR land, but when you’re playing with high quality light they’re way better than reflectors and aspheric lenses, because a TIR usually eliminates tint shift problems.
Does Nichia have anything bigger than the 144A?
Maybe an equivalent to the XHP70? (thinking high CRI Devourer :D)
OMD Matt! Do you pet them?? Cool looking poison lizards
:laughing: I meant Nichia LEDs only. But I agree on the TIR, never really like reflector with its tint variation.
AFAIK, 144A is Nichia’s biggest unless you can cram COB in your builds
Haha, no, I don’t pet them. Those are fire salamanders. Two years ago, I went for a walk and stumbled upon them. There were lots of them, so I decided to come back with a cam the next day. There were brown fallen leaves everywhere and so many of these little guys that I really feared to step on one. They were much easier to spot with my Solarforce L2T that had a nice high-CRI Nichia in it. I had three or four lights with me, but only used that one high-CRI I had. I’ve been obsessed with high CRI lights before, but that occasion really proved the benefits to me.
nice pictures thanks ,…
amazing hcri there man!.
i like cool white for the wow, but i feel it wont last so long.
in real life use i’ll regret not using hcri.
i will be using the 4500k 9080 for a triple build in an s2+
it was these or xpl hi v2 5a CW.
many suggested stay with the nichia 4500 9080.
i will try this.
i have a reylight cu tool 4500.