[Available again! - BLF special edition light] new Sofirn AAA twisty high CRI 5mm LED

Djozz, thanks for sharing your test. Useful data like this is great to see, especially seeing the improvement both in output and Vf.

I’m also glad to see your test has a good match to a similar test I did with a 3200K purchased in the last 6 months. I can’t measure lumens, but I did see intensity peak at 90mA, with Vf around 3.2V. Here’s my results (along with another user’s CRI data further down the thread):

Even better, you have lumen maintenance results that I have not attempted. It looks like there was a small drop in output over the first 30 minutes as they warm up, and then fairly stable for 24 hours.

That supports a separate plan I have for a little personal project driving 9 of them in parallel at 350mA - as long as I don’t get too much current hogging due to variation in Vf or voltage drop in the wiring.

I hardly ever visit CPF so I had not seen your nice test before, very nice that my result matches yours, and I see that the assumption is correct that Yuji changed to a new make of led between 2015 and 2017.

djozz your test is nice, but it doesn’t show how hot the emitter gets on the inside and how its life expectancy is reduced. I would not overdrive them.

No, it does not show that, that is why I called the 50mA test just a hint at longterm stability. Sofirn is going to use 25mA for the AAA twisty which is within the specifications for this led (30mA maximum continuous current).

So, at 3x rated max current, it still gave ~63lm/w efficiency. :open_mouth:

Now I KNOW I need a source for a couple hundred of each tint!

Interested in:

1 3200K
1 5600K

Interested in a neutral white one

Interested in:

1 3200K
1 5600K

I don’t know much about flashlight LEDs, but it seems like you have a HUGE variation in the performance of the two 5600K LEDs. I know the planned drive current is around 25mA, and the variation there percentage wise is not as large as 90mA. But just seeing a 50% variation if Vf at the same current, and a 4x variation in lumens at the same current, makes me think the LEDs are terribly inconsistent, or you have some sort of a test setup issue causing the variation.

Not saying this to be critical, but my observations. Thanks for running the tests, I know it takes a decent amount of time and resources to do something like this.

Sbslider, that’s not actually two separate 5600K emitters. djozz plotted the lumen output as a function of the current of a single emitter as the dark blue line, and the forward voltage as a function of current for the same emitter as the light blue line.

So it’s not a test of consistency between emitters, although the result is consistent with a test I did separately.

Hope that makes sense.

:person_facepalming: Guess I should have read the legend . . .

thanks for the clarification.

Interested in:
1 3200K
1 5600K

Sign me up for 2x 3200K please.

EDIT: can natural HA III colour be an option?

I’m pretty sure that Sofirn does not do HA III coating, let go on a 6 dollar light. I guess that their silver flashlights are anodised but not to HA III.

Convoy’s have a nice clear coating but I know that Simon is keen on good coatings. But still I doubt it is HA III

interested in 3 of each tint probably

Dang, you have that much lights to mod?

I’m in for couple 56K.

Nah, I want the bare LEDs for a multi-emitter light! I’m thinking a DIY photographic ring light with tint mixing. Or maybe a nice High CRI light for my house.

EDIT: I keep saying tint. What I mean is CCT or color temp. :person_facepalming:

There have been several group buys in the past, but none planned at the moment that I know of.

I wonder if the LED’s are something Richard at Mountain Electronics would interested in stocking. They’re good for tinkering since 5mm LED’s are easy to work with.

I think somebody a few pages upthread found an Australian vendor that has them. You might see if you can find the post.

They’re not ring lights, but you might also take a look at the Viltrox panels, like the VL-162T and L116T mentioned here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/comments/7fal9w/nld_viltrox_vl162t/

I have never seen a real (good) HA3 coating on a Chinese light except for maybe Zebralight. At the very least they are not as good as they could be. The best coatings I have seen/felt are from HDS and Surefire (and I have no problem criticizing their lights for lots of other reasons). Maybe also Lupine. This is entirely subjective though. My current Armytek definitely gets way more scratches from keys than my HDS ever did.