[Review] SST-20 in FW3A is divine!

I have a light with 219b R9080 sw40 around here somewhere. I will test it when I find it.

I build and FW3A with that emitter, it really looks nice. However you give up quite a bit of output.

Does the stock Anduril for 219C safely runs 219B or you have to snooze FET a bit?

It depends on your cell. I suggest you use Samsung 35E or Sanyo NCR18650B. And, to be axtra safe, replace the LED wires with 26AWG wires. On my SW40 D220 and SW45K D200 measure 9.4A max with a fresh cell. As long as you stay below 3.5A per LED and don’t use turbo every second time you turn on the light you should be fine in the long run.

Bummer... i hoped i won’t need to reflash another one :( but i was wrong...

More than 1.8A per 219B doesn’t give anthing except heat and that i don’t need in tiny shelf like FW.

Looking forward on next test review OP.

You definitely see a substantial lumen increase on turbo. In the ramp, it’s more than bright enough with a nice tint and CRI. But in my 6A LD-B4 triple, the SW40’s run really well on high mode…

I converted one of mine to 219b’s and it runs fine with the Nichia firmware and a 30q and LG cell.

Thx for sharing your setups. I’m using my FW for work, nightshift, 8h. Cell is empty at the end of the shift cause i run it only on max and turbo.

Running it like you said, emitters will be fried in few days of constant use. Seen it, burried one triple MCPCB few months ago :(

I was hoping 219C FET will be reduced but guess not. And that horrible tint ....

Thanks!

I’ve seen results from a few people now, and it seems to range from +1.6 to +3.0 mduv on the low modes. It sounds like you got the best tint measured so far.

These things really do look nice on turbo. However, I use lights at 100 lm or less about 99% of the time, so I mostly only care about the tint at low brightness levels… and every SST-20 I’ve tried has been visibly green there. So I usually stick with emitters which are pink-biased at low levels instead, like 219B.

Personal perception varies a lot though, so “divine” is in the eye of the beholder. I find I’m happiest with tints which are roughly –2 to –15 mduv, so even +1.6 is outside of that range. As far as I can tell from research studies, the average preference is about –10 to –15 mduv, and about 5% to 10% of the test subjects disliked a +0.0 mduv light enough to call it unacceptable.


Because of these results, the researchers are proposing a revision to the ANSI standard for white light, to lower the line for recommended tints and hopefully get manufacturers to produce rosier shades in common lighting devices like bulbs.

Interesting. The second thing I did with mine was compare it to afternoon daylight bouncing off the green leaves of a tree… and the SST-20 FW3C was visibly more green than tree-bounced light. Taking the lens off helps a bit though, so I can make it more tolerable by polishing off the AR coating.

Yow, that’s some pretty serious use. I’m not sure 219Bs will last long when used that way, even with the FET levels reduced. Would probably be best to use a relatively low-amp cell like a 35E, in addition to the “219” firmware.

They should be fine when running at only the regulated levels though. That works out to only 1A per emitter, which they’re pretty comfortable with.

Getting the tint rosier is easy enough to do with Lee Zircon filters. Trying to make the emitters more throwy and higher output overall is really hard to do. That’s why I prefer the SST20s over 219Bs.

219B has little to no tint shift in its beam, but it’s not like SST20s have much either with optics lights.

Exactly. You can fix CCT and Green/Rosy shift with some filters. You can’t fix CRI.
If you look at the last page of the report you will see I have it set to recommend Rosco filters. Such as the Rosco R3318 1/8 Minus G if you would like to remove some green.

Would love the standard white to change to DUV between –0.002 to –0.003. Personally I like –0.003 to –0.004 as the optimal range. But I find even SW45K at –0.013 is still acceptable between 4000K and 5000K. Many here love that tint.

Ideally, it wouldn’t be necessary to fix anything with after-purchase modifications… especially if it significantly reduces performance.

I’ve tried FW3A in ~4000K with SST-20 95CRI and XP-L HI 5A. The XP-L HI 5A is by far my favorite of the two. It throws well, the tint is good at all levels, it has good beam consistency, and it doesn’t really get hot.

I could fix the SST-20 by adding a minus-green filter, though it would still make about half as much light and twice as much heat. But I should add a filter anyway, instead of complaining about it. :slight_smile:

There are also some 219B 4000K emitters at Illumn right now, which I should probably buy and put into a FW3A. Those should make a really nice beam.

I’m not sure how the 5A compares to whatever 4000k XHP35 HI emitter is in the GT, but those things look downright yellow next to my green binned SST20s with the minus green filter over them. I’m not referring to just what they look like on white either, but how they render wood and skin tones. SST20 indeed does a good job at high R9 rendering— equally as good or better than R9080 Nichias.

It’s not near that bad for small corrections. The filter I linked has a transmission of 89%. And if you sanded it in half to perfect the strength of correction, it could be even better.
Just throwing that out there for the more ambitious among us. It would be a lot of work for a small gain, and shouldn’t the kind of thing you need to do. But it would work.

For anyone interested, I have just posted a 219b R9080 4000K review in the same format as this review.

A transmission rate of 89% is within the range I was expecting. Looking at Bob_McBob’s review, I see a maximum of 1697 lm with SST-20 and a Carclo 10511 optic, compared to 2967 lm with XP-L HI 3D. 1697 * 89% / 2967 = 50.9% as many lumens, which is why I say it makes half as much light. It also heats up quite a bit faster, though I don’t have actual numbers for that.

At lower levels the difference isn’t quite as severe… SST-20 with minus-green filter makes about two thirds as much light as XP-L HI, instead of only half.

SST-20 has a slightly throwier beam (at about 4.7 cd/lm instead of 4.4 cd/lm), but due to having half as many lumens, the maximum throw is significantly less — about 7100 cd, compared to XP-L HI’s 12500 cd.

So I’m pretty happy with the XP-L HI 3D version as a general-purpose light, though I also use a 219B 4500K FW3A when I care more about accurate colors instead of overall performance. Have been eyeing the 4000K 219B emitters too, which Bob’s measurements indicate would probably perform at about the same level as SST-20… except with a tint I like.

It’s really nice that we have so many to choose from, since the broad range of choices covers a broad range of different tastes. :slight_smile:

Maybe I didn’t explain completely. The meter is recommending I use a minus green filter because I have the target CCT set at 5500K. It is also recommending a CC filter too, and the combination will swing down the BBL to 5500K. It’s a significant green subtraction, way more than the 2 MacAdams it takes to bring the Floor to the BBL.
My intention was to demonstrate a method of adjusting a minus green filter.
Neither me nor the meter recommend putting a filter on this SST.

We don’t need a new line as much as a “Keep Out” zone in the green area.