Andúril 2 coming to Sofirn - The general Sofirn development thread

Very interesting, thanks for the input.
My thoughts:

  • 2700+6500 will be rosier than 3000+4000+5000+6500
  • IIRC there were complaints about Emisar AR coated lens making the beam more green
  • De-greening caused by tint mixing works only when there’s significant mixing going on - IF25 will likely be greenish when driven cool or warm but I wouldn’t expect greenness in neutral

I simply wouldn’t use SST-20 for such light. Or stay within a single CRI range, limiting the ramping range. Now…given the market limitations what they’ve done is not unreasonable. But I still find it funny.

I assumed they mix 95 with 70 solely on the assumption that 95 is warm-only and 70 is cool-only. You seem to know this to be untrue.
Other CCTs are not on Luminus website. Any more info about them?

I guess they didn’t go with 2700K + 5000K LH351Ds like in the LT1 because they would be floodier than many people want but that would have been a better route IMO. Better tint, and all high CRI.

A wider tint ramping range is neat, but really a novelty since 5000K is the coolest many would want anyway.

Dumb question, maybe, but whaddya gonna do with it?

Eg, I got a coupla Zanflare T1s but just leave mine on WW, never had much inclination to change its CT. So once you find a CT you like… then what?

For some tasks or if your eyes/brain are adjusted to cooler light I think more neutral/cool tint is better at identifying colors, and in certain environments different CCTs make different colors “pop”.

Really the same argument could be made about any of the “fun, but useless” features on many lights. I think losing high-CRI for cooler temps is a big loss for this light because that serves a very practical purpose though IMO.

They don’t, 90+ or nothing.

I’m making logical assumption based on manufacturing process. See below.

This is what’s interesting. Do they have it, but not offer it for sale or do they not have it at all? As most know they can’t accurately predict the tint, cri or efficacy of the leds rolling off the assembly line. Each one is checked and they are divided up into bins.

I wonder if they physically get some WW leds with low CRI or if it’s somehow impossible, maybe due to their phosphor mix and assembly techniques. Any units that are below the 90 CRI cutoff may be put in a reject bin and sold surplus to companies looking for the cheapest led possible. Maybe they are scrapped altogether.

I can’t remember off the top of my head, but don’t other manufacturers make WW with low CRI?
(I’ve never paid much attention to CRI because I find it an overrated spec)

Yes, they tend to wash out colors with a similar effect to a low-pressure sodium vapor lamp, but not quite to that extreme.

It just depends on your use case. For example, I’m a technician and I specifically choose high-CRI lights for work so I can tell different colored wires apart or read the bands on a resistor. I’ve had problems doing this with the cool white low-CRI lights they provide for us.

Yeah, I use my headlamp for auto/motorcycle work and also need to identify wire colors accurately. I tried a few leds and settled on a 80+ CRI Nichia 319AT in 5000K. It’s about the same as a 219c in 5000K.
I tried a 90+ CRI 4000K 219c, an 80+ CRI LG351D 5000K and the 90+ CRI LH351D 5000K daogf4rts but didn’t think the colors were as good. Just because the CRI was higher didn’t mean it was more accurate for my eyes.

In my normal walking around flashlights I’m not so picky. I just try to stay away from green.

Some people are high CRI snobs, but I guess it depends on the individual and therefore is not automatically better.

I have some NW and CW emitters which are pretty decent, those “angery blue” tints are just annoying (though I can tolerate them in a 5mm in certain applications).

That said I just don’t see any reason to tolerate low cri anymore. You have the sst-20 which offers high current and output in a small size, LH351d and even the xpl hi is offered in 80+ cri flavors. I guess if you are just trying to build a lumens monster that’s one thing but for real world use why wouldn’t you want a high cri led? I get with the 219 leds you were sacrificing some max output but with newer options you aren’t, really. At least nothing that would be missed.

For example I just reflowed a 4000k sst20 into my lumintop worm. It’s still every bit as bright as it was with the xpg but now in a beautifully neutral tint with great color rendition. Still the same excellent beam shape, too!

The SST-20 is quite low output for it’s amperage. The XP-G2 blows it away. It’s close to the 219c output. It’s just a small die, so output is not so great.

Note that it’s lower Vf, so at the same amperage it consumes less power. But at what amperageis it blown away?

IDK what tests you’ve been looking at but 5000K and 6500K SST-20s are certainly not far behind XP-G2 by much, if at all.

I thought this was quite well known. Here is a direct Djozz comparison from this thread. This is a 3,000K, maybe this particular version has lower output? The G2 in this test is a 2B tint so around 5700K. Maybe it is around CRI 70? That might explain some of the big gap.

Maukka’s test above shows higher output, but I can’t find any tests from him on the XP-G2 or 3 for a comparison.

The general characteristics I remember from the SST-20 is it’s cheap, looks good, throws well due to it’s small die size, but output is lower and it runs hotter.

The 3000K and 4000K are high-CRI only and therefore significantly less efficient. 5000 and 6500K are 70-CRI only and still compete with much larger die emitters in output/efficiency.

On Emisar lights for example the max output of the former is listed at ~3000lm, and 4200+ lm for the latter.

I think all the SST-20 tests I’ve seen were a while ago and they were all high CRI because that is what people seemed interested in. Like with FW3A for instance, the SST-20 were only for the WW tints then they switched to XPL-HI for NW and CW. You could see the big difference in output and heat. Maybe I have not given the cooler tinted SST-20 enough research. I haven’t fully read Maukka’s 6500K test. Maybe they are not as bad as I thought (efficiency wise).

Yeah for sheer output while having very high illuminance the cooler SST-20s are pretty solid. Only issue is how green the beam is compared to other options like X-PL HI.

X-PL HI 1A:

SST-20 6500K:

Who’s numbers are these?
It’s not an apples to apples comparison due the dome difference, but still pretty close. Especially considering the XPL has a 2mm2 die and the SST-20 is closer to 1.20-1.25mm2.

Looks like the XP-L HI data points are from Texas_Ace and the SST-20 ones are from maukka

IDK how it’s “not apples to apples”. The X-PL HI is dedomed but the effective die size of the SST-20 is still smaller, that’s why its throwier. The point was that it’s comparable to emitters with a larger physical die in output and efficiency (but unfortunately has a pretty gross beam in comparison).

Gchart is right on the sources

Ooof, that TA chart is from Jan 2017. I think TA’s integrating sphere was reading a bit too high back then. We may need to adjust those results down a bit. When we do that the 2 LEDs are actually pretty close to each other even with different die sizes.

It would be a better comparison if it were the domed XPL compared to the domed SST-20.