Lumileds Luxeon MZ 5700K CRI90 (LMZ9-QW57) color, CRI and output test

Led4power.com sent me a Lumileds Luxeon MZ LED (3V) for color and CRI testing.

Datasheet:

I tested the 3V version, but there’s also 6 and 12V versions of the LED.

The sample came already reflowed on Led4power’s 20mm DTP MCPCB. The Luxeon MZ has a 4040 footprint and may be difficult to solder onto an 3535 XP/219 board, since the solder pads are not exactly the same. It should be possible though.

All tests except for tint vs. current were measured at 2800mA at which the Luxeon MZ is specified.

I tested the emitter bare without a reflector and with a medium sized orange peel reflector from an Olight M2R.

As was the case with the Luxeon Z ES I tested earlier with a bare emitter the 0° angle tint is perfect at duv –0.0005 and 5750K. There’s is still significant tint shift when the observation angle changes, but not as much as with the Luxeon Z ES.

With a reflector this results in a slightly greenish hotspot (duv 0.0042). The shift within the beam is very small and totally a non-issue which also makes the slight skew above the BBL pretty easy to ignore.

On the other hand, there is a dark spot in the middle of the beam (donut hole). With the M2R reflector it wasn’t too horrible and probably wouldn’t matter that much in real use. Even with the dark spot and a slight greenish tint I would rate the beam consistency as good. For perfecting it, use a diffusing optics and a minus green filter.

The color temperature increases and the tint moves below BBL with higher currents when the emitter heats up. With better cooling the shift is smaller.

Bad cooling

Good cooling

CRI Data

The Luxeon MZ sample meets its specification of CRI (Ra) 90 and even exceeds R9 90 sometimes.

Bare emitter 0°

With M2R OP reflector at the hotspot

Current/heat doesn’t affect color rendering very much. This test was done with bad cooling.

200mA https://i.imgur.com/UzpgsCf.png

1400mA https://i.imgur.com/JYYSJRd.png

4800mA https://i.imgur.com/7rL67Ur.png

6000mA https://i.imgur.com/ALJHe2F.png

Output

Output in lumens and forward voltage up to 6A with the MCPCB mounted on an aluminum heat sink with fan cooling.

Measured in a 50cm integrating sphere

Finally, thanks for the test!
It matches my own observations.

It hardly has any Cyan-defficiency compared to the Z ES. At high-currrent it’s at 45-50%!

In many ways this LED is quite special. You can actually buy it from Mouser unlike the special high-cri Nichia LEDs. It’s also way brighter and more efficient.

If there is enough interest, I could open interest thread for this LED, price would be lower than on Mouser, somewhere in 5,5-6,0€ range. Currently, I have 16 and 20mm DTPs for MZ, soon BLF Q8 will be available (4x 4040 footprint), and in about a month, triple and quad boards for CUTE-3,CUTE-4 and ANGIE optics.

Here’s with better clamping, thermal paste and fan added. Better cooling significantly changes output at high currents as expected. Also affects the tint somewhat. Also as expected when the emitter is kept cool, its tint stays more consistent. The tint stays above the BBL even at higher currents and doesn’t turn cooler in color temp.

Nice measurements, thanks!

With its low voltage, this led in the Q8 should do 6000lm, it is tempting to get the board+leds from l4p :slight_smile: . It will have a donut hole though. I have overcome that in my S2+ with Optisolis leds by carefully sanding the glass lens to opaque, that should make the Q8 a fantastic area lighter!

Maybe Thorfire could make OP reflector for Q8?

Just for reference, adding thermal paste and better pressure against the heatsink dropped LED and MCPCB surface temperature 24°C at 3 minutes at 2800mA. Fan didn’t really have any effect to the already good thermal contact.

Shitty thermal path:

Good thermal path (no fan):

Disclaimer: the heatsink was already a couple of degrees warmer on the shitty test.

That could be a nice part for many leds.

Barry from Thorfire recently asked the Q8-team if they could make upgrade parts for the Q8. I answered that a battery extension for 2S2P batteries would be welcomed but that Thorfire should not expect more than say 100 to be sold (only dedicated modders will buy one because also driver and leds will have to be changed). Barry answered that they will not do that.

But an OP reflector will be a much easier part to use and it will even be interesting to use with the stock leds for who likes smooth beams. And for many other leds it will help a lot (like XP-L2 and this Luxeon MZ).

Before I suggest this to Barry, does anyone have a remote idea what the sales for a OP reflector will be?

Yeah, this really is a special LED. 3 V, 6 V or 12 V with CRI90 option at 2700K, 3000K and 5700K (according to datasheet). Plus royal blue.

At first glace I am not too impressed by the overall light output (compared to a XHP70.2), but after all it is CRI90.

Could the 12 V version be a replacement for a halogen bulb without a driver or would the transformer do strange things?

Neven,I’m definitly intrtrsted in buying MZ q90 emitters and pcb’s from you.I’m ordering 1 from Mouser Fr with other stuff,but will hold back on more.

MZ is more in XHP50(2) class, XHP70 is much bigger led, with 2 times larger total die area, and dome( very big LES - very poor throw in smaller lights). MZ is pretty old LED too, last datasheet update is from 2015!

Main advantages over XHP50s and XHP70s are 3V Vf, and much smaller size, so MZ can fit in large number of optics. There is donut hole if you use it with smooth reflectors, just like with older XHP50, but that can be fixed with op reflectors, frosted optics etc. XHP50.2 doesn't have donut hole, but it has actually much worse "purple/yellow" hole (not to mention terrible tint shifts in whole beam), which is much more annoying from my experience, so you again must use some non-smooth optics/reflectors to fix that. Domeless structure is advantage for MZ in this case, since throw still can be decent even with OP/frosted optics; XHP50.2 has dome, so LES is ~2x bigger, which means you can forget about any decent throw if non-smooth reflectors/optics is used (I'm talking about small-medium sized lights).

I finally mounted the Luxeon MZ on a real heatsink and measured the lumen output in a sphere.

A fan was also used to enhance cooling. The setup seems good and at 6 A the output steadies after about 3 minutes at 98.9% output which according to the Lumileds spec sheet corresponds to a temperature of 41°C. The output at 1 minutes and 37°C equals the numbers during the current sweep which was used to measure output.

Since the temperature isn’t very high with my cooling setup (25-37°C) you need to divide the output numbers with 1.059 (25°C) on the low end and and 1.048 (37°C) at the high end to scale for specified 85°C.

This would give 760 lumens at 2.8 A (805/1.059) vs. Lumileds’s specified output of 770 lm typical, 700 lm minimum.

Here are the numbers without temperature compensation applied. Every current step was on for exactly 10 seconds without pauses in between.

I would be very interested in one or two OP reflectors, if they would smooth the beam sufficiently so I could use it as a video light for longer focal lengths, or fill light for still photography, whilst still retaining the excellent throw. Ideally with high CRI LED conversion (on topic).

I have experimented with diffusion film, but not had an ideal result.

Meanwhile my Astrolux MF01 (Nichia) makes a good area light, but a smoothed-out Q8 would also be very useful.

I suspect my reason for wanting an OP reflector is rather specialist though. As an outdoor torch the SMO is fine, the beam pattern is not really noticeable except when e.g. shining at white walls at close range.

An accessory that would be popular I think is an improved, more robust tailcap, with lanyard mounting holes, something like that on the MF01 would be perfect. The current design is thin-walled, and I am always worried that a small drop onto the tail would damage it, particularly since there is no provision for a lanyard.

Sorry for deviating from the thread :frowning:

.
Compared to Luxeon V 4000K is the only advantage of the MZ is higher CRI?

But you give up considerable output and have to deal with the donut hole, (plus at 5700K it’s more CW than NW)

.

………………………………Luxeon MZ 5700K CRI90……………………………………………………….Luxeon V 4000K CRI70
.

The Luxeon MZ also has much lower forward voltage. At high currents the ~20% lower efficacy isn’t too bad at all considering this and the high CRI. Donut hole is a problem for sure. We should see how the Q8 with OP reflector looks like.

Luxeon MZ is available in low CRI and should be more efficient than Luxeon V in such variant(though seeing maukka’s numbers…zi have doubts). It’s factory dedomed as well, with a dome you have more efficient Luxeon MX.

thanks for test,
nice efficiency for HiCRI.

Stupid question: would this led be any good on a FW1A?

Or SP33?

Tempted to get a few of these but how are they fitted and focused in reflector flashlights? Are custom gaskets required / available? Or is the best option standard XM-sized gaskets?