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

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 Iā€™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, Iā€™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 Iā€™m good with that. These went into a Courui D01 assembly, the head replaced with the massive Ledil Seanna. :bigsmile:

I didnā€™t even measure amperage, gotta be less than 3A, 2.8? So itā€™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. Itā€™s just because thereā€™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 thatā€™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 askā€¦ As far as I know you make use of chemical dedome methods? Iā€™ve been skeptical about this, and this is just my perception, regarding what the chemicals will do to the ā€˜extremely fragile phosphorā€™. 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? Iā€™d like to be convinced to start trying chemical dedomingā€¦

Theres also some other questions I have related to this:

  • What chemical mix do you use?
  • Iā€™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 Iā€™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 donā€™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 ā€œtouchā€ 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 guyā€™s lights who donā€™t leave that crap there for you to look at. I would be. So I expect a clean de-dome myself. I donā€™t cut corners when I have to do next to nothing to make it right. Iā€™ve never been in a situation when I said to myself, ā€œoh no, a de-dome is needed within 10 minutes or we are gonna lose this lightā€. 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 donā€™t have the timeā€¦some of us just donā€™t view time the same as planning I guess. :slight_smile:

Thereā€™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.

Iā€™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 hasnā€™t changed over the years. I donā€™t know what genius got mad at gasoline, but you maybe shouldnā€™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 Iā€™d rather just make another video thatā€™s complete instead of posting the segments. So Iā€™ll do that, again, correctly. I de-dome about every other day so itā€™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 doesnā€™t work, either isnā€™t trying, or isnā€™t doing something rightā€”and I donā€™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 Iā€™ll never have a desire to do it the hot way. Sorry, but thatā€™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:

Hi MEM,

Yes that is perfect de dome method :) Thanks for sharing and posting all those pictures.

I told several times in few threads that Tom-E gasoline method works far best for me, and I really tried every other mentioned methods here. Yes gas de-doming changes emitter tint towards green if left plenty of hours/days or weeks(i tried).

But I do them in less than 50 minutes. No any tint shift. I leave residues around emitter wires that are fairly thick(if left up to 50 minutes, if left more than 1,30 hours they start to crumble) and they protect wires(probably not needed but I tend to leave them).

The most important for me that there are no junk leftovers on phosphor layer because it messes my aspheric die projection. Not so important for reflector lights.

MEM did you tried XP-E2 de doming? It should be much harder than XM-L2 cause silicone is harder.

Hi MEMā€¦ Excuse my late reply. Thanks for your informative feedback, lots appreciated. Ok, so youā€™ve convinced me to start experimenting with gas dedoming, thanks :slight_smile: As mentioned, the time it takes to chemically dedome is not an issue to me. I believe in patients. It normally pays off. It seems also in this case, but, the proof is in the pudding. Iā€™m starting with some experiments soon. Will reply with my findings.

Just to confirm, do you experience a 100% success rate with gas dedoming, in terms of not loosing LEDs related to ANY defects?

And, regarding the MT-G2s. Is it a long procedure? If possible, can you comment on this?

Hi MEM - little late posting, but very interesting... (scratching my beard). I could feel vindicated from your post, I suppose. I started believing all the hoopla bout bad gas/good heat, etc., and experimented a little with heat, but just can't get good and consistent at it.

To each his own of course, and many feel very comfortable with the heat method - it's quick when you do it right. Obviously I wasn't the first doing the gas method, but helped make it more mainstream here.

You do though, make me feel sooooo much better - I'd been thinking I led so many astray...

Thanks MEM!! Merry Xmas, Happy Holidays!!!

Gas is absolutely no. 1 method for me also.

At summer days dome fells of at approx 55 minutes, at cold days after 2 hours. So obviously temperature plays its role in how quick will dome fall off or how fast silicone will decompose.

My domes never float fully... I try with toothpick to see if it is ready for compressor air cleaning. After some practice you simply know when to take it out (like with cooking and everything else :) )

No tint shift if done fast. Look at my tint with gas dedome with newest B158 50mm aspheric(340kcd):

I got similar numbers as most guys that modded it (KKW, Djozz).

Thanks for replies guys, I appreciate the feedback. I also had completely missed Shrickā€™s post, sorry Shrick. Sometimes the email method of trying to follow my BLF updates gets a little congested and hectic when Iā€™m still marking the loads of spam out of my email inbox, and I donā€™t always catch my subscriptions that get new posts. Iā€™ve been rushed lately. You all know, X-mas, it gets us all tied up whether we like it or not. :santa:

Then thereā€™s this other thing. ā€œBudgetā€? Letā€™s see: The belief that something is needed because its price is lower than normal. Thatā€™s my definition for products I find while lurking here and the web in general at X-mas time. :slight_smile: I think I just bought out every deal over the last 4 days on ā€œgoodā€ lights that might take my aspheric-lens treatments when I use custom nylon spacers, and at the least, all of these holiday grabs will benefit in throw greatly from a tune-up if the reflector is even kept on. Iā€™ve got stuff to do on Christmas break in the flashlight domain, thatā€™s certain. I have messed with these XP-E2 Torches more since early on, and am a firm believer that they are a great throwing LED when de-domed, and used in the right host. Similar intensity can be reached with them vs a G2, and fully driven, they arenā€™t going to heat soak even the worst host designs that put all the needed cooling metal in a head that is attached by a friction fit via greased O-ring. You probably know what Iā€™m getting at. This is why I love ā€œzoomingā€ or ā€œfocusingā€ lights, but hate them at the same timeā€”90% of the time preferring to do a ā€œfixed throwā€ arrangement. Low power LEDs are what is going to hold intensity longest and provide maximum usable intensity across a longer runtime simply because of churning less power in the process and of course, keeping a 1 cell arrangement at a higher forward voltage across that running time. My uses tend to be specific, though, so an E2 Torch is typically going to be spotting buoys on the river, or illuminating a target for night shooting. Where that coverage area is less important to me, but battery swaps are more important NOT doing, or more hassle during the use when concentrating on something else. This is why I really do like E2s for smaller lights and even some ā€œmediumā€ sized lights. They can excel at intensity with a recycling aperture thatā€™s smaller, too. Soā€¦long live the E2!

So yeah, I did one of those ā€œgrab what you see and try not to look at the cart totalā€, shopping sprees.
ā€“20 more Olight M3XS-UT Javelot as I canā€™t keep them on hand once modded -These are significant thrower deals for the anodizing/aluminum, weight-ergo, 2S 18500 or 2S 18650 operation. Once I tear them apart and replace parts, emitter, o-rings, MCPCB, etc., they rip. With a lensā€¦ :evil:
-OLight M22 Warrior dealā€¦swoosh. Gone! Donā€™t even know yet what to do with them, but theyā€™re getting a hefty mod run, might even get the right aspheric in there. :smiley:
TR-S700 ā€”3P 26650, yes please! I took them, sorry, please restock more! 0:) Not the aspheric potential of other big lights, but the cooling potential for some mad XHP50s is there with some bolt-on copper round sucking the heat up.

A single one, for myself, a Surefire Scout with Malkoff P60 head mod, it is definitely getting a 20mm lens and going on a new AR-15 build Iā€™m completing (with Elftman bearing trigger, and a special, second registered upper, the CAN CANNON :evil: .

I turned the Malkoff head bezel open, as for some reason they used about a 14mm hole for light exit, with 20mm of clear bezel space. :quest: No idea, but itā€™s fine now.

Lenses? Yes of course more came. I can live on lenses. :bigsmile:

20, 25, 30, 50, 50mm, all AR-coated.

Yes, Iā€™m giddy. :santa: :party:

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!!!