15,000 Lumen Bridgelux C9000 Light Engine

Thanks for the link. I will build one for testing.

Wow, that’s awesome. How many 18650’s to power it, seven? :smiley:

With 12V in it draws around 15 amps. Power can be provided by a 4S - 8S LiPo pack or a 4S A123 20 Ah LiFePO4 pack or a lead acid battery. An pack made of IMR cells or a power tool pack would also work fine. The input voltage needs to be less than around 30V to work with the DC-DC converters that I have been playing with. My 180,000 and 540,000 lumen arrays used a custom buck converter that was driven from dual-redundant 16S A123 packs when in battery backup mode.

I was going to use the A123 cells, but those may not be readily available in the near future.

That’s Awesome, both as a stationary light or a cordless searchlight

[quote=texaspyro My 180,000 and 540,000 lumen arrays [/quote]

WHAT!? :open_mouth: Have you showcased these here? Links pics? wow!

I’m running a 30E4000 array (‘E’ for 80cri) in a retrofitted floor lamp. Bridgelux claims 4725lm at 2.1A; I’m driving at 2.5A so the Flux-Current chart on the datasheet suggests it’s running around 5600lm. Mounted to a salvaged CPU heatsink and cooled by a small, undervolted fan. A custom pyramid base was constructed to house the power supply and provide stability.

Overall it works pretty well. Light quality is better than the CFLs it replaced; it’s comparable to halogen but it has an slight pink tinge if you do an A-B comparison. I’m curious to know what the 90cri array output looks like.

Kudos to texaspyro for turning me onto Bridgelux arrays last year.

Next project will be an outdoor floodlights based on a couple C9000 arrays.

Bridgelux has a new Decora line… with CRI’s up to 98! Not sure where to get them though.

I looked at the Decora datasheet when I was trying to decide which Bridgelux array to use and it’s an impressive product line (and likewise, I couldn’t find them for sale anywhere). Unfortunately, 98 CRI comes at a price…they’re pretty inefficient relative to their 90 CRI arrays. Around 50 lm/W, IIRC, versus 90-100 lm/W.

Once they’re available I’ll consider trying a few in the kitchen or master bath.

Hey guys. new to the forum - actually I signed up thanks to this awesome thread which is totally in sync with my ideas on building a kickass HCRI array led :wink:

For the Decor line I got some feedback from distributors in Europe : Items are orderable, but leadtime is 8weeks so guessing these are coming fresh off the bake plates. Unfortunately MOQ = 40pcs… Maybe if they get stocked MPQ will be much less.

What I have been looking at are these:
BXRAW-3500-00Q0H
BXRA-W1800-00X2H

As far as I can see none of the big distribution (Farnell, digikey, newark) have registered these models.

peace K

hey texas thanks for your posts. I get it you ditched PWM running with DC/DC. Im curious to find out exactly which mods you did to the Dalewheat PWM. Still you would recommend this on battery-only application?

I’m still playing with using PWM, but it does not look like those DC-DC converters are well suited to it. Their transient response to current pulses is not good enough to work well with PWM.

For the DALEWHEAT dimmer, I replaced the voltage regulator with an LM2936 that has a VERY low standby current. I also did not install the status LEDs on the board. I also rewrote the firmware to improve the low standby current, added support for a cooling fan, added a temperature sensor, and a battery voltage monitor.

Got it. Except for driving the LED a bit more efficiently, is there really any other benefit using PWM - apart from batt. usage ? The Bridgelux as you said, seem to handle (current induced) colour shift pretty well.

Actually, PWM can be more inefficient than current control. PWM drives the LED with high current pulses and LEDs are less efficient at higher currents. For practical matters, the difference is not much. PWM is usually used since it is easier to implement than current control.

Hmmm, another possible battery. Should give around an hour on high. Easier to connect up than the A123 pouch cells, but doesn’t have the sex appeal and 1000+ cold cranking amps.
http://www.a123rc.com/goods-1558-High+Power+Lifepo4+40155+cells.html

Hi Texaspyro,

Have you ever ordered from this company or used these cells? Do you know if they are good or not. I have a project coming up and could use some of these wired in parallel. It just isn’t clear to me from their listing if the price is for 3 cells or per cell. Are these 15Ah as 3 together or the power of one cell. Thanks.

I have not used those cells (and they are not made by A123). I know people that have ordered from the company without any problems. Price is per 15 Ah cell.

A company called Headway makes similar cells. See http://www.manzanitamicro.com/products?page=shop.browse&category_id=29

Thank you Texaspyro :wink:

Hi can anyone do a tutorial on how to build a 15000 lumen light with this?

Sweet,

Your the only person ive seen on here that has used this 150w dc step up. I love your build!!! I am using these to run several of the square cheap 100w chips and they work good. Recently I hooked th e m up to a series of XMLs and it keeps frying one or two in the circuit. Maybe you can shed some insight into how I can stabilize the out put so it doesnt cook these little sensitive xmls.

The 150 watt converter that I used is not a constant current device. Unless you have the voltage set just right, the current can run away and fry things. I modified mine to do constant current (but the mod is not cost effective). I switched to using a 600 watt converter that can do constant current.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Boost-Power-Supply-DC-DC-Converter-Step-up-Module-10V-60V-to-12V-80V-600W-10A-/141015393957?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20d52c26a5

There are probably smaller units out there that can do constant current. To setup the converters you want to set the open-circuit voltage a little above the maximum Vf of the LED string and adjust the current control to what you want the LEDs driven at.