I have one UltraFire Cree T6 and two UltraFire Cree Q5’s. So I opened them up today.
The T6 was LaticeBright- it has a poor blue tint
One Q5 has a board that says HT-PE. It is the brightest of the three but has a cold blue tint that is worse that the “T6”.
The other Q5 is another LatticeBright. It is the weakest of the three but has a great “frothy cool white tint”. The emitter is very small compared to the other two.
So who knows what is actually in these things? I would swap out the emitters, but that wouldn’t help unless I put in drivers too. I may do that though. MntE’s has some good choices.
I have some pictures but I don’t know how to post them.
The new T-43 was a little surprising, but not really - Small Sun's are almost always cheaply made with the 1 or 2 exceptions like the T-08, but the T-08 had quality problems. The original ZY-T11's for example, are worse quality than the UltraFire and other clone ZY-T11's out there.
The nastiest one above is the T-43, because the MCPCB is marked CREE, but the LED definitely has the signs of an LB.
This is my first time posting pictures and I can’t seem to get a link to imbed each picture so I just pasted the direct link to the photos.
I don’t have a camera and my iPad couldn’t focus up close. I could get better pictures if someone realy wanted them
Easy. Use the 'tree' icon on BLF, next to the anchor. On the imgur website, rt. click on the picture and choose 'copy link'. Paste the link into the 'Image URL' field that show when you click on the tree icon.
wow indeed. It looks like this is only the icing on the cake were all about to encounter now with entry-level budge lights from China sellers…
Good thing here with seeign these photos is the more photos we can find and look at of the various LB fakes, - the more aware we will become in identifying them and able to file claims, false advertising, etc. to the sellers.
Thanks for the photo Tom, i will post this one in the OP too.
Also i noticed in the comparison and other photos of the LB LEDs is that the phosphor appear to be more “pale” and thinner, that may explain why some mentioned the tint is of a more bluish harsher color than genuine CREE Cool white emitters.
Another scary thought on this, is if the phosphor is actually thinner & less dense, is there a possibility there some harmful U/V spectrum light emitted from these fakes from the original emitter die? can this be tested?
No UV. Our white Leds use a blue led to excite the phosphor. UV can be used instead but it has a shorter life, is less efficient and I believe it’s more costly. I’ve seen some special high CRI white leds use UV.
we need to continue to
post the fakes vs genuine comparison pics. this has been a big problem with HID bulbs—- the counterfeits have become increasingly difficult to identify except for a few clues. then just buy from reputable sellers and manufacturers
You can see on the ultafire q5 picture two that the reflector was crimped and dented. I wonder if the emitter was swapped? When I tryed to get it out I had to push it out from the back to keep from damaging it. Maybe they purchase the flashlights, swap out the cree’s and then sell them both?
Here are 2 SK68’s
The one on the left I got about a year ago and has a driver, no modes but it runs on AA or 14500
On the right is one of several my brother gave me 3 months ago. He got rid of them because they are DD and do not run on AA
On a 14500 the one on the left draws 1.6A and is twice as bright as the right one which draws 2.2A and is blueish
It looks like the discerning feature on the counterfeit XP-E emitter is the phosphor layer that extends beyond the edges of the die.
Also:
Open through-hole on corner of emitter base
Smooth surface of emitter base around dome, vs. rippled on genuine emitter
I’ve received several lights from recent eBay purchases that had “XP-E” emitters installed. Several of those were extremely blue-tinted, and performed poorly, even after being transplanted into a properly-driven P60 pill for testing vs. a known-good drop-in. I assume these are being shipped out in many of the sub-$5 lights we are seeing on eBay, and probably other sellers as well.
I’ll look at my salvaged emitters when I get some time to see if I can spot the fakes next to the good.
I’m surprised at how good these clones look, at least superficially. They don’t have the same level of cheapness I’ve come to expect from the budget fried-egg clones I’ve received in so many cheap lights.
DX replied. They said they will talk to the manufacture and let me know the results. Let’s see what they are going to say.
Looks like most Cree lights are actually not Cree even if the Cree is printed on the flashlight body. They are not that bad but shouldn’t mislead people.
It appears that the moral standard is going down for these Chinese manufactures, especially in the flashlight area. (Well, the record, I am Chinese also :-)). How can someone claim the 18650 Li-Ion batteries have capacity 4000mah or more, but knew them are maybe 1000 mah or less? The AA/14500 flashlight claimed to be 600lm is actually less than 100 lm and flashlights that are actually about 300 to 400 lm to be 2000 to 3000 lm? I have never seen such shameless and outrageous claim in other product area. Well, maybe I just don’t know the reality today anyway .