Update 08/08/21: I’ve contacted LampMan via Email and he says the LT1 boards have been sent to production and he should receive them in September. He apologizes for the lengthy time it has taken.
Update 03/23/21:
Seems like LampMan is bringing this to the preorder phase
If you are interested, please go to his website here and order the specification you want. He will send you an email to pay and once we get 10 orders/payments, the design/testing phase will begin.
Based on LampMan’s history on BLF and the favorable tests of his products on BLF, I believe this project is in good hands.
He would create and sell a board with 16+16 2700k/5000k sunlike 2835 SOL emitters with a CRI of around 98.
You could also choose your own tints from 2700k, 3000k, 3200k, 4000k, 5000k, and even 5600k if you wanted to.
660nm Red will be available
With 16 of each emitter, efficiency would also go up, by my calculations the LT1 would run about 1000 Lumens with 7 amc7135s active instead of the 840ish it currently makes. With more emitters spread out and each individual emitter being less intense, the glare and the harsh spots like these should also be reduced significantly.
Efficiency should also increase slightly and the top of the lantern should run a bit cooler with the base being just a tiny bit warmer which is desirable since currently the top of the current LT1 heats up a lot much more than the base. Runtimes would not change since the 7135s let through the same current but will burn off more voltage since these have a lower Vf than LH351Ds.
Tint should be pretty decent. It looks like there will be a bit of green when only one set of emitters is active, but that will quickly disappear when you start tint mixing.
It seems like this could be done with the final cost being about $12 a board+$4 shipping. This would be designed as a direct replacement for the LT1. Buyers would need to hex key, screwdriver, soldering iron, and some thermal paste to do the swap.
Edit: looks like the price would be closer to $14 + $6 for shipping+$1 to cover the PP fee ($21 total)
What do you guys think?
I don’t know how much of a difference this will make since the LT1 already has some pretty good emitters. Perhaps someone who has used some sunlike bulbs can chime in. This is an incremental improvement and I don’t know how visible/noticeable the difference will be but $16 is not a bad price.
Sure there might be slightly better emitters out there but I think this might be the only shot to getting something like this made and available to everyone.
I’ll keep an interest list in this thread, let me know if you’re interested or your thoughts for how you would do this differently.
I am not super knowledgeable about tints (green and rosiness) so some input by you guys would be very valuable.