High CRI led bulbs

Nice find, I tested ordering two GU10 bulbs, but the shipping was $25. More suitable for larger orders.

Philips also has new dual peak(410nm+450nm) COB leds called CrispWhite:

BTW, this place also has bare LEDs for sale. Nothing that looks like it would be in the XML/XPG class though… They do have a 100 watt array chip, some 5mm LEDs, and some SMD leds. Also some 5-10 watt array chips (looks like 20V though).

Thanks for the link! Very intriguing .

CRI is a bit…. misleading
Read pls

I am working as an engineer in an engineering and construction company, we use lots led lights in our work, Phillips and Osram aint what they use to be- good stuff is at ROFL prices, its 2014, those companies should wake up
30 euros for a good7w MR16 85+ CRI bulb…
When we have 90+ cri demand we usualy make the lights ourselves( at this moment and current prices)

For a home use, i would suggest making 90+ cri bulbs yourself, with a quality emitter

Look what i did in my home:

I have 37 of those, modded chinece 1.4$( as ordered in mass via Alibaba ,with a fairly okay reflector) bulbs
The driver costs another 1$, emitter itself is Bridgelux BXRA-30G0540, 90+ CRI, with e real measured R9 above 90
That was the test setup:

So, for 7 or so $ you get a 6w(in my case) 90+ cri, that with cant buy at this moment, and never ever on that price

http://www.yujiintl.com/img/yuji.png

Wow, that’s the UV measured at the eyeball — light like a halogen or sunshine, they say.
But halogens use a heavy glass shell to block the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, and sunshine, we know about.
That much UV is not something you want to be exposed to full time without some protection for the eyes.

But their page shows examples of where it’s likely to be used — supermarkets and butcher shops.
Yum.

Museums, not so much — they’re very careful to reduce damage to artwork from UV and blue light.

What driver do you use?

Unfortunately the Bridgelux BXRA-30G0540-00 is no longer made. The –03 has to be bought 250 pieces at a time (@ $3 or so each). Also the 18V Vf can be a problem. Many 12V MR16 fixtures can deliver close to that much voltage when lightly loaded. 18V is in the area where boost converters may not work. I originally designed my own replacement fixtures for my MR16 lights and ran up against that problem. I wound up using a simple bridge rectifier, filter cap, ballast resistor for the driver and Bridgelux LEDs driven at around 14 watts. I built a few of them, but was not all that satisfied with the results.

I now have Philips 10 watt bulbs in my MR16 fixtures. They deliver 490 lumens and put out more light than the 50 watt halogens they replaced. And, yes, they cost $30 each at the time (now can be had for around $20). None of them have failed in over two years.

In my case, considering the Total watt per emitter i required, and the cooling power of my bulb heatsinks, i use buck-step up driver, 350mA 18v ones( imput V is 12v).
This way i run each emitter at arround 6w, real 450 lumen: the temp near the emitter should not reach 80deg C: in a year, running this way, the luxmeter said the emitter did degraded arround 5%, as you can see at the photo above the sillicone-ph emitter coat is at great shape!

@texaspyro

30G0540-00 can still be found, especialy in the US :slight_smile: Its a great emitter though, great! Maybe your driver wasnt that good, you can also use a meanwell current driver to drive them in pairs, they are cheap and a very good option

Phillips emitters ……its actualy Cree you know, and there arent many high CRI with good R9 value mr16 or whatever kind of bulbs arround,plus in US it maybe 30$, but in EU (cause we are ritch:)) its above 30euros(40:money_mouth_face:
For me, luments and total watts arent that important, but the CRI… your skin looks pale, red oak is looking like shit, CRI 80 is way low, if you ask me they should ban(for indoor use) everything lower than 90

Datasheet for that led says:

"Typical R9 value for 90 CRI product options is 50."?

They said its AT LEAST 50, the CRI meter of that bin 00 says its very high, i think they are insuring for some reason, unkown to me:

Its a very good emitter realy, the price is lovely too, especialy for a spotlight use

Look at this Nichia

R9 its mentioned to be 0 :slight_smile: Well…

Btw, mentioning R9 is the ultimate proof for me that the company is serious enough

Companies that dare to write something abou tit are Cree, Bridgelux and Nichia, all the rest are silent about it - for me, its not serious

Something curious, Vero series ,

Claim to have R9> 70, yet, its lower than ES Star array ,arround 80, maybe cause its more powerful( one reason) and i used generic MW drivers to power then
CRI (R9) depends alot also from the driver, Linear Technologies have so called “chip pre-heat” technology in order to rise the Total CRI.

Something that is good to know:

There are lotsa Taiwan BXRA clones…that are not even near the quality of the american chips, look at this Edison chip, the price was tempting, so i took several samples for evaluation

So what had happened after 6 months/ 24/7 test, running at its deault , on an open air, with a suitable headsink, the temp in the control point of the emitter was arround 62-3deg C all time, room temp 25-27deg C

Burned out SP coat, dramatic crom shift( from 3000k to nearly 3800k), great drop in the CRI too

Only for 4k hours….great, Edipower 2…Taiwan manifacturers are way behind USA ones

But are light years ahead of the mainland clowns…

Vero stuff looks good, but I have not done much with them. The BXRA stuff is being discontinued… alas, poor C9000… I knew him well…

Well… in general, considering mass stock in Alibaba( or M.I.C) you maybe right, there are emitters that are a shame for the industry indeed :slight_smile:

Things are changing rapidly

Its a public secret that MLS invented the COB emitter back in 2004( or it was 2005?), regretably i havent touched their product yet, no EU suppliers, Asia ones demand orders above 1k
With 5 billion produced emitters and official reniew of above 500 mill they have everything needed to produce quality stuff….yet, we aint sure about it .

Back to the topic!

I wonder, how did i missed this?!? Maybe my age you know, whatever :slight_smile:

Yet, another great option that i implemented recently:

CREE - CXA1304 A430F bin, rated CRI is 95, measured R9 is always >96 !

The price in EU is like 2.5, maybe in the USA you could find it way cheaper: the better option over Bridgelux matrix emitter

Even more, its working at 9v/300ma, and there are tons of that kind of bulbs in Alibaba, realy cheap, with good drivers and reflectors but hella crappy emitters

I have bought a bunch of these to modify my LED security lights. For $4.64 it’s hard to beat. Beautiful 5000K 90+ CRI. R9 @ 70.

The CXA’s available at Digikey with >90 CRI are $20 plus!

Ive been playing with 97 CRI 100 watt Bridgelux RS emitters for a while and really enjoy the high color saturation. Its nice that more high CRI options are trickling down to the consumer market.

UV spectrum should be a warning to all, a slight CRI benefit is completely outweighed by the negative, if the price is exposing yourself to more UV spectrum.

Exactly.
My first thought, no thanks.