Nichia 219C, testing a 5000K 83CRI emitter, comparing with a XP-G2 S4 2B and other leds

Wow thank you Djozz for such thorough testing and comparison!

I am interested in your thoughts on the tint/color rendering of this 5000K/83CRI version.

Thanks!

I didn’t realize the die is larger.

Also, someone above had a good point. The Vf is almost too low. You would have to use a linear driver with this one, no FETs. And it still isn’t as efficient as an XP-G2.

I fail to see the problem. A guppydrv flashed Q.lite and extra 7135’s is cheaper than a good FET driver. Besides the 1504 doesn’t last all that long with a FET driver and XP-G2 anyway. I doubt I’d notice the 10 minutes it loses, not everyone will feel the same way though.

Besides, the die is only about .3mm² larger, so if you can increase the output 13% over the Vf limited XP-G2 you’ve you’ve eliminated the advantage. While it’s not quite there at startup (the XP-G2 will throw slightly further) as the voltage drops the Nichia will overtake the XP-G2 because the Vf is so much lower.

It is more efficient than the XP-G2, the lower Vf makes more than up for the lower output. But in a single li-ion flashlight it runs less efficient initially because the overvoltage of the battery is just burnt up by the driver. Once the battery voltage goes down during drainage, the Nichia runs more efficient than the XP-G2.

The problem is very vain in nature: I like single-sided boards :bigsmile:

I usually prefer linear drivers, but many times I have gone with a fet just for aesthetics. Otherwise, yes, the uber-low Vf is a huge plus. If the high CRI version is as good as this one is, I’ll be replacing a lot of XP-G2’s in my lights.

edit: thanks for the correction Djozz. I see lower lumens at the same amperage and just think “less efficient”. The effect of the lower voltage on efficiency didn’t even register.

Well I looked up n10sivern's test numbers and the XP-G2 S4 2B drew 3.8A in the 1504, I assume that is at start with a full battery. That is 1170 lumen in my graph. The 219C gives off 1170 lumen at 4.7A, it will easily run more current than that so the output will be more than the XP-G2. But the 219C die is about 20% bigger, so it will never throw as well as the XP-G2 with the battery full. But that changes when the battery drains. Actually I did not measure the die size of the 219C, still have to try to dedome it, I just assume it is the same size as the 219B.

Thanks for the work, djozz! :beer:

Thanks for all the support, it makes this place what it is :-)

Now for some sad news: hot-dedome attempt failed. I have succesfully hot-dedomed Nichia 219's before, but with the succesful ones a thin thin film of silicone remained over the die. however, not with this one. Perhaps next attempt would work, but this will be my only attempt for a while, I'd rather leave the one remaining emitter I have alone.

I don't think I'm the only one that thinks this but your the man. The graph with all its lines is only to easy to read. You have chosen the colours well. The lower voltage of this led to me makes it more than worth looking at. The light still has really good output when most batteries have fallen on their face in single cell use. Thanks again for the outstanding work and invaluable information.

Awesome work djozz! Thanks for sharing it.

Can you see if the S4 bin XP-G2’s die is any bigger than usual?

I dedomed the XP-G2 S4 2B also (this one worked fine except for a small piece of silicone on one corner of the die) and made pictures of the two emitters under the stereo microscope at the exact same magnification, then Photoshopped the dies next to each other (I did not match the sizes, both leds are indeed the exact same size), the dies look the same size too (so is the S4 bigger than before? I don't know). I have to go to bed now, so no further measurements, but last thing I did was measuring the XP-G2 emitter with caliphers and I measure exactly 3.5mm (if we did not already know that, but I never measured it myself), so you can work out the real size of the dies from the picture below (good luck ;-) )

EDIT: Oh shoot, took out the ruler and I measured it all the same, I measure the XP-G2 die size at 1.48x1.48mm. Apparantly the 219C die is smaller than the 219B die :-) (and now for the succesful dedome, who can do it?)

I’ll gladly try a dedome once I get my dirty paws on one of these gems

Wow, nice photomicrograph! Worthy of a scientific journal. I always enjoy your reviews. And it looks like this emitter is going to find itself on many shopping lists.

Man you are a record H) thanks for the whole work, guys like you makes the life easy

But i have a question the Nichia leds have a very nice tint so why dedoming it as long as using them are not meant for throwing ?

Thank you djozz!
.

I wanted to do a little mod with this led, to see what it does, and to be able to judge the tint. Thinking about how to make use of the low voltage and high output, it was going to be a small 16340 EDC-light, not surprisingly my favorite type ;-) . But I think where this led really stands out is a 18350 battery EDC, like the Convoy S2+, with a FET-driver and a smooth reflector for some throw. But I did not have that host. Oh, and a single 18650 triple on a FET-driver will be a beast (2500+ OTF lumen), comparable with triple dedomed XP-L's but a bit better throw and light quality (even more true for the 90+ CRI versions of the 219C).

So I had this little Supfire S1:

The mods that were done:

*changed the switch to a small Omten instead of the dubious stock switch (had to mod the tail section a bit for this)

*bypassed the tail spring with 20AWG silicon wire

*Nichia 219C 5000K 83CRI on a 16mm Noctigon, Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste

*AK-47-A1 based single-sided FET-driver, 3 modes (5,25,100) + memory

*AR-coated lens, changed green o-ring for black one.

Glamour shots of the led (actually this led does not look that elegant with those white blobs on the side):

Performance (on a Efest IMR 16340 V2 550mAh):

*3,3A on high, quite steady, not skyrocketing down at all (how's that for a 16340 battery!)

*800 OTF (djozz-) lumen at start, 700 lumen after 30 seconds (mostly heat-sag). The light gets very hot after a minute, but keeps performing with handcooling.

*Convincingly bright hotspot, (have not measured throw yet, but mind it is just a small OP-reflector..)

*Nice neutral tint. It is difficult to judge the 83CRI for me, my brain has been trained to associate high CRI with a warmer tint (my favourite colour temperature is 3500K) and this tint is over 5000K. But the tint is very pleasant neutral white with no hints to green or red or whatever.

Conclusion: this is XM-L2 performance in a 3535-package. The only competitor for this performance in small EDC's is a dedomed XP-L (which is comparable throwy and a bit more efficient). But when the 90+ CRI version of the 219C is there, all my lights will have swaps again!

Thanks for the update djozz. You have to love the low voltage requirements of this led.

Any idea when we can expect them?

I can't find in which thread it was, but DBCstm asked them on the phone and if I remember well they answered somewhere september.

This LED is astonishing! If we consider that there is a CRI 70 Variant that is one brightness bin higher (D320) and somebody would succeed in dedoming these bad boys… Yeah Cree, better come up with something.

Too bad, that there isn’t a NCS…Version, like there was with the B and B-V1 series. To me, it appears, that the NCSL and NCSW have smaller dies than the NVSL and NVSW. If I got that right, NCS where binned at half the current of NVS, have little less efficiency, but share the same maximum ratings for current.

There are some things people should try to understand when talking about Nichia LEDs. Not claiming, I know all that stuff about these Nichias, but I’ve seen many comparisons between 219A and 219B and got the feeling the one who did it didn’t know that there are many 219A’s and B’s… They compared tints, saying 219A is warmer than 219B, that’s like saying XP-G is warmer than XP-G2 :wink:

EDIT: forgot the most important part: thank you djozz for testing. You should be considered for the MVT-award (most valuable tester). Would you mind taking some beamshots to show us a hint of the tint?