Cree XP-G3, testing a R3 4000K 90+CRI emitter

Hey… is this the 5 bin? I really like the 5 bin and 3 bin that I got in…

RMM said that he might have some lying around but he hasn’t posted any on his store yet.

Hi!

The other day I stumbled onto this while googleing:

https://www.cutter.com.au/products.php?scri=52&cat=Leds+soldered+on+Printed+Circuit+Boards&pg=2

What the sheesh? Now this may sound like a cheap joke but, does cutter gets the majority of high-CRI Cree leds, which may explain why it is so complicated to find them elsewhere?

Moreover, I've not taken an in depth look there but this can be read there:

“14mm Round DTP TPAD MCPCB with the U2 bin XML-2, 7D2, S6 min 90CRI”, which is bogus. That “the U2 bin” should be edited and replaced with an “an”, doesn't it?

Take care.

Cheers ^:)

Great Work Djozz!

Thanks for the test!

These look very promising. I’m ready for a 2700 lumen High-CRI triple!

I’m disappointed about the tint, but I haven’t had the chance to try all mine yet, hopefully there’s a winner in there somewhere.

They’re an authorized Cree distributor and sell a TON of LED’s, so no conspiracy, I’d guess buying power.

The owner is a member here at BLF as well as most other hobbyist sites like MTBR, CPF, etc., been supportive of our “hobby” for more than a decade.

I’m sure that’s a typo on the XM-L2, it’s in one spot on the page header, not the description. Never saw anyone complain about getting stiffed by exaggerated claims.

Djozz have you figured out that XPG3 90CRI tint anomaly?

I like the rosy similarity to the Nichia it shows!
Have you tried that specific LED with another reflector or optic?

Cutter claims to have XP-G3 4000K 5-bin in S3.

Is this a typo?

The LEDs I see tested here were R3 bin.

Is it really possible they have 90 CRI LEDs in an S3 bin?!

If so, these will be my new favorite LEDs!

Link

Most likely. It’s far too large an improvement over the high CRI competition and cree’s own PDF only has 90 CRI LEDs up to R3 bin. The 4000K S3 are all 70 CRI. See page 7 in here .

Thank you for the quick reply.

Mouser has them right here in North America, XP-G3 4000K 5-bin, but in R3 bin:

Link

I would pay the crazy high shipping to get them from “Down Under” if they really, truly were S3.

Otherwise, the highest 4000K tint I see available is 5C1 in S5 bin from KaidoMain.

Nice to see that Mouser has the 4000K 90CRI too. Still not good for Europe, Mouser’s shipping rates are almost as high as Cutter’s, when ordered from here.

I’m being delusional if I think Cutter has S3 efficiency bins that don’t even show up on Cree’s own PDF datasheet, correct?

No actually. Cutter has real CREE LED's that do not show on CREE datasheets. Cutter gets some exclusive small batches (relatively small) of rare bin/tint LED's that CREE can't list or sell normally because the yield is too small. That's small for the big buyers (say 10K plus), not small for us.

Perfect example is the XPL W2 bin LED's - yes they are real and not listed in the CREE XPL datasheets.

https://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut2840 (not in stock now but some of us bought them - Dale for example is getting about 2,000 lumens with one)

http://www.cree.com/~/media/Files/Cree/LED-Components-and-Modules/XLamp/Data-and-Binning/ds-XPL.pdf

Believe me, I've had some email exchanges with Mark Rilly and he's very much legit with this stuff.

They have 90 CRI in 4000K, 4500K, and 5000K shown here: http://www.cutter.com.au/products.php?cat=Leds+on+40mm+Round+MCPCB

I'm on the side of think'n these are legit and Mark got his hands on rare yields that CREE can't sell to their regular large customers. With small yields of exceptional LED's, CREE can't group them in lower bins because they would be out of spec, and can't list them because they can't make them on demand in high volumes to fill orders.

Thank you for the fast reply.

Your sentiments capture, precisely, exactly what I had been hoping was the case,
i.e., you translated my hopes into printed matter most excellently.

I emailed Mark R. this past week to ask him which 5-bin tint they were but have not heard back yet.
Perhaps he can chime in here to clarify:

1) Whether they really are XP-G3 S3 efficiency bin, and not the commonly available R3 bin
2) Which 5-bin tint they are

Mark, you out there…?

Ohhh - minor/major issue - he's really bad at emailing. Might not respond at all, might take weeks.

MRsDNF (Steve) lives kind of/sort of close to the Cutter store, visits there on occasion, and can help out contacting them, and Steve is very helpful. He might not be engaged on this thread though, so I'd suggest pm'ing Steve to help in contacting Mark.

I was think'n about ordering a couple of those 7X boards - looks like copper DTP. Gotta check but that TPAD board with the 50 mm optic, or 40 mm with a lens, might be a good fit for a SRK, but you'd have to build up under the MCPCB with a pretty big spacer.

Ohh - hear is an email excerpt I got from Mark back In October. This was about an XHP50 originally:

Hi Tom

Sorry thought you may be aware of this, Steve may want to chime in and confirm as he has been here and purchased non published bins from us on a fairly regular basis. The problem for Cree is they will often yield higher than published bins but only in non commercial qtys, they only officially release the bin once they can supply everybody, occasionally works in reverse, just has Cree drop a led 2 flux bins as they are having a yield issue

Cheers

Mark

Okay, that makes sense.

I would feel better before ordering if I could confirm.

The triple xp-g3 4000k 90cri has been available for quite some time at MTN electronics. It seems that everyone is building their lights with Nichia 219c’s instead. The xp-g3 seem to have much higher output than their Nichia 219c 90 CRI counterparts.

Why is this LED not getting any love? Is the tint that bad compared to the 219c? Anybody build more lights using this LED and care to share their experience? Any beamshot comparisons with 219c’s?

I am thinking of putting a triple of this LED in a jaxman e2L… Any thoughts?

Thanks for all the info posted already.

I have a triple with this (bought from Cutter) and it is really good. It is not as popular as the Nichia because it has the yellowish corona around the hotspot that all new Cree’s have, and the tint is slightly greenish, that is why people prefer Nichia.
Both drawbacks are quite minor in a triple IMO, and arbitrary (personally I like the slight greenish hue), I can imagine that the extra output makes up for that.

I actually swapped from the 219C triple to a XP-G3 based triple a few months back in my EDC.

I now run a mixed tint setup with a 90cri 5700k, an 80cri 5000k & 3000k emitter setup. Works out to a bit under 5000k final tint with good CRI and good output. I get a little over 3000 lumens on turbo with it but I generally run it closer to 2500 lumens with a GA cell to keep the heat down.

I did have to switch from the 15007 to the 15011 optic in order to get rid of the tint shift but that works great. I now have a nice smooth tint and a pretty good beam as well.

Total throw is about the same as the 219c with the 15007 as well due to the extra lumens from the xp-g3.

I want to build a triple XP-L2 and see what they would do.

Thanks TA! This is really good info, the kind we've been looking for in the FW3A project. Maybe you mentioned it there already and I missed it or forgot (I do that a lot lately). I (or we) need to actually do a similar test though and do some comparative tests, hopefully with pictures, but just haven't had the time.

Also my personal preference would be this sort of EDC - super quad with a great tint. Along the lines of the FW3A, Astrolux S42, with something in the realm of 4000K-4500K, and the XP-G3 seems like it fits the bill, though the XP-L2 would be the power choice, but not sure about combo of power, tints, and CRI choices.

Did the 15011 cut down the tint shift or completely get rid of it?

I doubt I mentioned it in the FW3A project as I have no idea what you are talking about lol. I have not been on here much the last few months. Got a link?

I have been thinking about the perfect EDC light for some time now and I have a design I have been working on for awhile. All the EDC’s lights I have now just leave something small that bugs me.

I have thought about the triple vs quad setup but I don’t know about you but the S41 quad optic seems very inefficient to me. For example with the same LED’s I noticed I got about the same lumens OTF as my triple yet it was pulling over 20A. Plus the throw was worse and I just saw no reason to use that.

A mixed tint XP-G3 setup works great although finding 3x of a good tint XP-G3 could prove to be just as good. I had to work with what I had access to. I personally find that the sweet spot for tint for me and those around me is right around 4500k-5000k depending on which way the tint shifts (green or red).

The 15011 worked amazing, it completely removed all the tint shift from the edge of the beam unless you really look for it on a white wall. It also still have a noticeable hot spot and a good overall beam.

The XP-L2 would prove to be a better option for output obviously and is available in the same tints as the G3 IIRC. The real difference is the cost, the L2 costs ~3x more. Although I think that it should be capable of hitting ~4000 lumens in a single cell triple, at least as I have it in mind.

Ohh - the FW3A thread/group buy is here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/45538

It's a custom 18650 EDC triple LED design done by Fritz15 from the German flashlight forum (TLF - http://www.taschenlampen-forum.de/). It's got a distinct look (I think) and somewhat unique feature with a tail e-switch.

It started because he was gonna do a small run, but the interest on TLF was overwhelming, so they decided so look around to see if it could be made in bigger #'s in China, reduced cost as well, and teamed with BLF to do it.

Fritz though is calling the shots, rightfully so, - this is how I understand, and agree with it.