who is buying me a XP-E2 Torch led? Update: DBCstm did, test is in post#81

1811 lumens from a XM-L2 U3 1A :open_mouth: thats way more than i have ever hear someone reporting. Is it old stock or new?
The highest i have seen someone report on a U3 before i think was around 1500 & 5A thereabouts. For 1811 you would have to have more than 7A i would think, and i thought the U3 burnt out way before that :~
Please some more details, if this mean the good old XM-L2 is back at the high lumens game that would be very good news :slight_smile:

Tom E recently got an T6 4C i think it was really high also, in Nitro’s triple spacer order thread :slight_smile:

I don't think that the XM-L2 was ever out of the high lumens game, but it was out of the high amps game. All of the M6s I've built with the U3s were as bright or brighter than all of those I built with U2s, despite pulling about 1A less each. The U2 1As at around 6.5A each would average about 4650 OTF, but a few of them broke 5000 OTF. With the U3 1As at around 5.3A each they are almost all doing 5000 OTF. So the average U3 build is about as bright as the brightest U2 builds were, and are also more efficient. Since OTF lumens and efficiency is what really counts, I am fine with them pulling less amps now.

Since I finished late last night, this will have to do…

My modified Fenix TK-75 at 4300 lumens

The 12 XP-E2 Torch Showerhead at 2974 lumens

Cajampa, I DID get this for the XHP-70 and Lum 5-90, but the head is SOOO shallow, there’s just no way without a lathe to make that happen. So I punted.

And yes, the 1811 lumen X6 is using a new XM-L2 U3 1A emitter. I first de-domed one, it was making over 1600 naked, so I put a stock one in and sure enough, over 1800 lumens!

On these Torch emitters, I really expected them to be on the blue/white side. But they’re not at all bad, actually showing a nicer tint than the XM-L2 U3 1A’s in my TK-75. A pleasant surprise.

^ Whoa, that's got to be the tightest 12 emitter hot spot around. Can't wait to hear what you think about the spill and general usability of the light.

Is your final config DD using 2S3P cells and 2S6P emitters on copper?

It’s got the factory boost driver in it. But yes 2S3P on the cells, 6S on the emitter, in 2 groups. The driver has 2 channels, each channel has a positive and negative lead for the 6S set that it runs. There are 2 toroids as well, presumably one for each channel.

Dale, I just noticed it but the clown to the left of the fireplace is kinda creeping me out! Clowns in general give me the creeps.

In a rather unfair side by side, I shot beamshots of the TrustFire 12x XP-E2 Torch at 97 yds and 610 yds against my new SupBeam K40 VN. This K40 was a gift by a couple of friends of mine and I’m blown away, nice guys, love the light. :slight_smile:

TrustFire 12x at 97 yds.

K40 VN at 97 yds.

TrustFire 12x at 610 yds

K40 VN at 610 yds

Now, who would have thought a 12x showerhead light would be putting light on a barn 610 yds distant? The driver is stock too, going up against a highly modified thrower. Not too shabby says meself! :slight_smile: lol

Thanks for the beamshots Dale :slight_smile:

Do you have some kcd numbers on that TrustFire 12x? it looks surprisingly throwy for a showerhead light. And kcd & lumens on the K40 vn for comparison would also be interesting.

Without charging cells up, I’m seeing 1649 lumens on the K40. 376.75Kcd.
The Trustfire 12x shows 137.25Kcd.

Again though, the cells have been used, the Trustfire more so than the K40.

That K40 is impressive

Thanks :slight_smile:

Thank you Dale for the follow up and the beam shots. I was just certain that you would swap out the boost driver for direct drive. I know you mentioned frying some xpe2's in that 4 up, but figured you'd give it a go in the 12 up. Now that I think about it, the 4 up was just one cell. So I see why would didn't go that way with 6 cells.

Hard to put the beam shots in perspective, without knowing emitter current but it would be a real pain in the arse to set up and measure in that light.

Just measure one of the two strings. Since they are in series all of the emitters see the same amount of current. With that boost driver it doesn't matter if you have 100% charged high drain cells.

I am not following this forum very well since I did not seen this before. Thanks for this.

With 3 of these Torch emitters left over, I got busy on an old project today. I used one of the Torch emitters on a 20mm Noctigon. I used the driver out of my new XR55 from Bangood, 7 7135 chips at 380mA. Engaging a star gives me L-M-H with no blinkies so I’m good with that. These went into a Courui D01 assembly, the head replaced with the massive Ledil Seanna. :bigsmile:

I didn’t even measure amperage, gotta be less than 3A, 2.8? So it’s making some 200+ lumens, right? How about a 357Kcd throw from this little hot rod? :wink:

any new places to buy the xp-e2 torch ? (prefer free shipping) more specific looking for 1A tint.

Mouser still has them. l got a few last week.

They take a longer solvent dedome time for the dome to lift itself clean, time lapse shows about 8 hours on one, where an XM-L2 is about half that time if that. It’s just because there’s more dome material sealing between die and chip on a small die.

Phosphor is extremely fragile on Torches, near edges especially. You do not want to even touch the phosphor or it will dent and leak 455nm light.

Recycling works good on them, but the reflect focus is that much harder to get right because the target is so small, need a lot of patience to nail it. The RA needs to be within 0.1mm of center and that’s actually conservative because 0.1mm off-center can miss up to 20% of total die surface on return absorb pass. I turned one E2 Torch die to spotted black at only 3.15A mounted on solid bar stock with a lab supply pretty quick, so run them just like a standard E2 at 2.5A. They have high thermal resistance and they do not care for any more than 2.6A max sustained with a proper sink. That should net up around 420-450 lumens, dedomed.

Hi MEM. If I may ask… As far as I know you make use of chemical dedome methods? I’ve been skeptical about this, and this is just my perception, regarding what the chemicals will do to the ‘extremely fragile phosphor’. I still do heat dedoming, just for this reason, none else. The fact that chemical dedoming takes longer, is not an issue to me. Will you give your opinion on this, regarding the effect chemicals have on the phosphor and the quality of the dedome? I’d like to be convinced to start trying chemical dedoming…

Theres also some other questions I have related to this:

  • What chemical mix do you use?
  • I’ve seen some ugly / bad chemical dedomes? Should there be less residue, related to the dome itself, when doing chemical dedomes?
  • Can you give an indication how long the different LEDs take to chemical dedome? It seems the XP-E2 takes around 8 hours, XM-L2 around 4 hours? How long does XP-L take and which other LEDs can be safely chemically dedomed?

Thanks

I will gladly give my opinion. :slight_smile: I know that a Cree phosphor is physically weak. I have witnessed zero evidence after hundreds of de-domes that the phosphor is chemically weak against common plastic/rubber solvents. If you put a LED in a solution, it is your duty to watch it and prepare to remove it when ready. While I’ve seen zero evidence that chemical solvents effect phosphor in any way, of course you can make it turn ugly. Just leave it in solution for 2 weeks and come back. :slight_smile: The only thing I have ever seen showing a chemical de-dome changing anything on an LED, is a light brownish/orange tarnish that appears on the package metal, not the phosphor, by leaving it in for well past 8 hours (10-12 hours will usually show some light tarnish on the silver in some area, so don’t wait).

Is phosphor removed in a chemical de-dome? No.

Is phosphor removed in a hot de-dome? Around here, all the time. :slight_smile:

Why would I poke, stab, and prod a hard material (made to take heat) that is attached to a sensitive material, when I can pour liquid on the LED, and watch the dome remove itself, nearly perfectly?

I did a de-dome last night. Cree XM-L2. Complete edge swell occurs within 20 minutes. In 1.5 hours, I can probably safely “touch” the dome and it will drift off. But I want the LED clean. If you bought a light that was advertised as de-domed, and chunks of the dome were all around the die when you got it, I bet you would be more interested in the guy’s lights who don’t leave that crap there for you to look at. I would be. So I expect a clean de-dome myself. I don’t cut corners when I have to do next to nothing to make it right. I’ve never been in a situation when I said to myself, “oh no, a de-dome is needed within 10 minutes or we are gonna lose this light”. If I bought the LEDs, I knew long ahead of time they were being de-domed, while they traveled in the mail to me. So when someone says, but I don’t have the time…some of us just don’t view time the same as planning I guess. :slight_smile:

There’s no set time for a de-dome in any LED. Play it by eye. When the dome is detached and ready to float away, remove it. Larger domes have more surface area and take in more solution more quickly, creating more swell that pushes and then becomes buoyant, thus lifting quicker most of the time. This applies to square dies, MT-G2s are a different story.

I’ve tried all kinds of chemical solutions, methods, experiments in setup and positioning, when it comes to chemicals and dedoming. I can always over-complicate something if I try. But with this, for you guys, there is zero need to. It hasn’t changed over the years. I don’t know what genius got mad at gasoline, but you maybe shouldn’t have listened when he spoke. Acetone = poor. Paint thinner = poor. Gasoline = great.

As for the time lapse, I did one, and my IP cam froze a half hour in, like it loves to do when I need it most, always because of a buffer cache I forget to change from default. So I have the very beginning of video, and some of the rest, but I’d rather just make another video that’s complete instead of posting the segments. So I’ll do that, again, correctly. I de-dome about every other day so it’s no problem. Regardless, my standard camera works just fine, so I took photos of full-swell of the dome at 2.5 hours in gasoline with no tricks involved. This should however prove that whoever says gas doesn’t work, either isn’t trying, or isn’t doing something right—and I don’t know how can you mess up something as simple as pouring fluid in a glass. Not even the bond wires have material stuck to them, so I’ll never have a desire to do it the hot way. Sorry, but that’s just me.

After the first photo, I touched the dome with a zip-tie and it drifted right off the LED. Here are the photos: