- The Fake-Cree LED Awareness Thread - The new "low" in Budget lights.

Hi guys, I’m new here

I’m looking to purchase some LEDS for a project but I am worried that I wont get genuine product. I want to purchase:

10 CREE XM-L RGB+ Neutral White Emitters order code: XMLCTW-A0-0000-00C2AAAB1
And
6 CREE XM-L2 T6 5A Neutral White Emitters order code: XMLBWT-00-0000-000BT60F5 or XMLBWT-00-0000-000BT60E5

There are not many venders to choose from but I have found just a few.
HOW CAN I BE SURE I GET THE REAL THING?

Thanks for any help!

If you stick to trusted sellers, you should be alright. Mouser, Digikey, intl-outdoor.com, Mountain electronics, Illumn.com, to name a few. And sellers like ledDNA (not my favorite) should also still be ok. Actually any seller that sells bare leds I would still trust. The problem sofar seems to be complete flashlights with false led claims.

Ok…

I was looking at the xm-l2 t6 5a emitters from leddna.
And
The xm-l rgbw from topledlight.com

What about topledlight.com?

One thing I am having trouble with is determining what is actually being sold. For example topledlight.com is selling the xm-l rgbw in cool white and in warm white. Now Crees database only lists a cool white and neutral white. So there is no warm white order code. So in this example topledlight.com uses two valid order codes from Cree. The cool white and the neutral white. So they are using the neutral white order code for their warm white(3200k) listing. When I asked them about it he said that he forgot to remove the order code after copying and pasting information from another listing. And that the warm white option is not listed in the Cree database because it is a custom ordered item… I want the neutral white, but I guess I could settle for warm if I was sure it was genuine.

Does that sound right to you?
When I have been looking I see that this is very common among many venders. IDK what to think?

Cree ought to be able to micro-etch/engrave a copyrighted text or logo or something on the bases of their emitters, if they don’t already do that.

Heck, in a week or two, at the current rate of change, they can put a computer right under each emitter ….

I need to take some pictures to show you guys, but I have recently received several "fake" LatticeBright XM-Ls in lights and even a few fake XP-G2s. If you've seen a lot of genuine LEDs you can spot the difference by eye, but they are really pretty close. It is obvious that they are attempting to make them look like the real deal. Pretty sketchy.

I remember reading a few threads about fake XP-G2s a while back...I think they were probably LatticeBrights, even though we didn't know it at the time. Thread 1. Thread 2. Until these we hadn't seen fakes that were that good.

A few months ago I talked to a Cree rep. and this is what he had to say:

I’m glad that I bought mine from Mouser.

http://www.latticebright.com/En/cgxl1/2015-06/30/NewsView-220.html

Eeeeek… Look at that thermal resistance! My prototype would burn in minutes.

If we can somehow acquire one of each of these Latticebright clones, to take Macro-photos of them along side the genuine CREE emitters to display the differences would be good to help us identify them apart.

definitely the specs are inferior to the genuine CREE RGBW counterpart…

That top one looks like a rip-off of an Osram, and the other lower one (sort of resembles a XHP HI?) is only 940 lumens?

Now that’s a good idea. Richard, maybe you could send some of the fakes you found to Dale for some good side by side macro shots…

Nice thought but highly unlikely

Please do! Thank you RMM! :beer: :beer:

I suspect that the group effort here would be useful to Cree documenting what’s coming from where — once we can be sure what we’re seeing.

Hey, I’m a North Carolina boy, born in Durham; Cree’s become a point of pride there.

That’s right, someone should start a thread just for that!

Someone else please start it, nobody ever reads mine :wink:

This thread is already for the fake Cree stuff :stuck_out_tongue: the OP & title can be changed or edited to apply more if needed.

Richard… Could you elaborate on where and how you got these fake LEDs?

Most of them have come in lights, from a few different sources. I got a batch of Small Sun ZY-T08s with fake LEDs (I didn't sell them, I used them to modify, but that was the last straw and why I don't carry it anymore--I think I still have all of the fake LEDs I pulled out of them). I also got some random headlamps with them as well. I will take some pictures tonight and post them here. I don't know if I can find the XP-G2, but I know I have a few of the XM-L fakes on-hand in a baggy somewhere.

They are Not fake. They are just… Different.

Think of how many millions of lights they will ship out with clone leds in them. You know, I have always felt the aluminum used in Chinese lights was sub-par and it's been that way forever, so why not have everything sub-par? Drivers with just one resistor and no modes, leds that only put out a few lumens, plastic lenses, plastic reflectors. Heck, as long as they sell...

I'm glad I have someone like RMM to buy components from. At least I know they are legit.