I also find this thread interesting, thank you for your work on it.
Recently I got a couple of good value solarforce "yellow" drop-in's after emails confirmed they were P4 but were unable to clarify tint.
They are only $6.99 + $2 tracked postage, and the two I got are warm white, I would guess 7.. or 8..tint when comparing to the 5.. and 7.. tints I have in other lights. I like them and other warm tints for light to do tasks in (with a diffuser) as there is less glare and better color rendition of reds and browns.
Soldering the Stars I thought was hard too, but I bit the bullet and ordered 4 of those XR-E emitters for neutral upgrades all round. With a pair of helping hands (alligator clips on a metal base) and a 80 watt soldering iron with a broad flat tip, and a pair of light tweezers, Ive reflowed my emitters to stars and swapped them around with relative ease. Its actually easier than soldering wires to the star with a 40 watt iron.
I say its worth a go! Just don't buy out all the stock, I love the tint on both the 4B XP-G and 5A XR-E emitters hahaha. My personal experiences with these emitters are good. I find the 4B to be a little more green than daylight of early afternoon in australia. Otherwise its almost perfectly daylight white. The 5A is definitely more pink/orange than afternoon daylight, maybe closer to a sunset colour. In practical use, it provides increased red/brown hues and makes trees appear more colourful without being too warm.
I also think 96% of the people are freaked out by what looks like hard math .. I think it's a subjective matter that most people perfer to see as a description rather than math. They want it classified so they know what tint they like or want to buy in the future , but beyond that any talk of light shifts or vf's or cgi just scares the crap out of them. I know it does me ....If you say butterscotch and honey ,people can relate .if you say vanilla , dusty rose or minty green ..
I applaud you for laying out different commonly known lights to compare within the color charts . i think it takes something compicated and makes it easy to comprehend or relate to , I think some peoples love for complex and complicated equations , math,or science and sheer brainpower can lead to an almost arrogance and an inability or no desire to spell it out for the unwashed uneducated masses .That's why great math or science teachers are so revered (they're rare ) The inability to relate makes " Average Joe " run screaming from a topic he's already very interested in just by virtue of waking up and enjoying a beautiful sunrise .Or watching the light and color shift at dusk.
I'm interested in tint ,i'm interested in A great User Interface or driver ,I'm interested it materials and adonizing or HIII coating,percision milling, ar reflective coating etc ... All of the above .But put two guys in lab coats with beakers in their hands scribbling on a chalkboard and talking vf ratio's of vectors And I want to kill myself or them ..Don talking about properties of titanium and Thermal Processing of Carbides Bonded to Metallic Substrates the other day had me slackjawed saying ....only two words ...Oh shit..
That said still think there is a huge interest in tint ... It's one of the Only two senses we can use to appreciate the lights we so love and enjoy .. the other obviously being tactile ,feel, weight, balance , smoothness or bite.
2 of the directions i see myself being drawn to when making a subjective choice of one light over another.
... It's one of the Only two senses we can use to appreciate the lights we so love and enjoy .. the other obviously being tactile ,feel, weight, balance , smoothness or bite.
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Not true...I have all my flashlights ranked by taste.
Not being fluid in English/American English and not being an ace in philosophics, I did'nt quite get your point, sorry.
If it is about the stuff being too difficult to understand, I have tried to make it so simple as possible without loosing too much information. Of course there are intensive calculations behind the numbers but they are hidden and the most technical I have put in parathesis. I have even used the American way to write "color"
Sixty545...don't feel bad. Understanding my friend Boaz's posts can be difficult at times. That's why I've created this easy to use method to help understand them:
First, take every fifth to eighth word from his post (skipping redundant pronouns). Then insert that text into Google translate and go from English to Japanese, and then back again. The post will now make a lot more sense. Here, I've already used my patent pending method on his above post and have come up with this:
Ialmostfreaked outa description of thefutureare classified asmathematics.The light of fear,you knowgreenbutter.
sixty545 about your post #18 - how did you see/feel difference between the KD and DX XM-L? Did you see it DX more purplish or blueish or you can't distinguish between them by naked eye?
There might be also differences in the same batch, so I hope you just didn't have luck with DX. You would know only by testing another few :-(
The good thing with your measurments is that tint at both (and previously with XR-E) is moving in same direction, so we know what to expect at higher currents. Good job!
Yes of course, I've forgoten you can't look into it. It should be put into some torch and projected on the white wall. Foto camera with fixed color K might see the difference. I've got DX 1D tint, but didn't have time to test it - only that it works. Waiting also for Manfont drop-in and I have 10 days pending order for driver at KD. Then real fun begins.....
Do you possibly know anything about lower Kelvin bins of XM-Ls - something like 3B or so? My poll shows most of the BLF members are interested in some kind of neutral white tint near 3B.
This pic is the KD's XM-L 1A against a white paper at 30 cm from the wall , feed at 2.05A in one RC-G2...the hot spot look very white surrounded by a green corona which here look more blueish , the white balance is in daylight...
edit; sorry, I make a mistake, this emitter is from LCK unknown tint, the KD's one side by side isn't that green...
I guess my old camera CCD need a cleaning , too many stains , too lazy for that also...
If we look at the bins in the cree scheme then a box as bin 1A is about 6 units wide (blue/yellow directions) and about 7 units high (green/purple directions) where the unit are 0.001 CIELUV *). Don't be frightened of this unit, you just need to know that 1 of these units is about the smallest color difference that a man can perceive. 10 units on the other hand is easy to see in a comparison of two lights simultaneously but hardly if you see them one at a time. As the two XM-L's belong to the same bin (A1) they are less than 10 units apart from each other. I have calculated their color difference@1Amp to be only 3 units (d=3).
*) Technical!: The units are not the same as in the Cree scheme. A transformation as mentioned in the first post is needed. But again you don't have to know the technical aspect, I deliver the color difference "d" in perceivable units.
I have another one of the DX ones coming. Will compare.
Unfortunately I have no idea of how far the warmer tints have progressed in the system. Obviously Cree has a much higher yield of cool chips so the warmer ones have to be more expensive until the volumen is up.
As you know the bins around 3 are also my favourites.
Do xml's shift color when voltage is applied ? I had heard that cree emitters changed colors worse than others .or maybe when they are made they are just all over the map as far as color or tint . I just wondered if different cree emitters were prone to this more than others .Like a q5 vs an xpg . I didn't know if it is the emitter or driver ..but I'm seeing more and more of a drastic color change that goes from a green grey on low and straightens right up when you finally hit high .Or starts pinkish and turns nice and white on high ...i have numbers of tank 566's (some of my favorite tints) and the tints are all close to each other.. and yet all different too.
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