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

Which is this one? You have any link?

I found some more counterfeit Cree emitters in my lights:

First, everyone’s favorite “Super Light”:
Fake XP-E emitter: Note the off-center die surface. The die is square, the offset is just due to the angle. Sorry about the dust…

I was one of the few to receive the $4 “XM-L” dive light when one of the retailers accidentally (?) listed the item at the wrong price earlier this spring. The light was a poor performer with very CW emitters, but the low output was attributed to the low drive current. One of these lights suffered a catastrophic leakage failure ( :zipper_mouth_face: ) and was set aside for spare parts. I checked the emitters last night, and found that they were counterfeit XM-Ls.

Pictured here, the left hand emitter is the counterfeit. Notice the smaller die size, sharp, crisp edges, well defined lines, and lighter green smooth PCB:

Here is a closeup of each emitter; fake is on top, genuine Cree on the bottom. Here you can see the bond wires and junctions more clearly:

Goog comparison photos Keltex. it seems the biggest noticible differences are the smaller die, smoother dome/coating, and coloration of the fakes from the real Cree XM-L.

Nice side-by-side shot fo the XP-E and fake. Will add that one to the OP list. Thanks for the photos.

Bummer. Just checked my Super Light and yep, it’s fake.

Lousy photo but you can clearly see the square dot in the top left hand corner, which should be round.
The galling part is the huge ‘CREE’ engraving on the side of the light. |(

[quote=Lancman]

Cree engraving on the side does not count at all. :).

sadly but true, these sellers and manufacturers have no honor or care for slapping brand names, exaggerated false claims, and even slapping “CREE” on stars & lights with the cheap fake emitters that are dimmer, far less efficient, suck more amps, and give a zombie purple tint that are going backwards to the days of the horrible shower-head 5mm led lights of 10 years ago with the efficiency of an old incan light.
its a direction these fraudulent manufacturers & sellers are going, and will make it so much more difficult for us to buy a good budget light with a real brand name emitter and not something that is pure crap like these new latticebright fakes.

I find it strange that the grid lines on these are so crisp and clean. I wonder if they are 100% cosmetic to make the LB look like the Cree?

It wouldn’t be nearly as bad if they weren’t modeled/marketed as Cree: they aren’t great emitters, but they are still acceptable as a budget alternative to Cree. If not for the illicit/unethical business practices, I wouldn’t mind keeping these for some budget builds.

Another… Bought about a year ago http://www.everbuying.net/product550802.html


(Click on the image to enlarge)

In spanish: ¿Usted CREE que está centrado?
In english: Do you believe that is centered?

That one looks like a genuine Cree emitter. The die is larger, has round bond-wire pads, and a more stippled coating on the PCB like the Cree’s do.

The die is significantly decentered with respect to dome. If this is CREE, quality control void.

i did notice that the die is off center. its odd as the die is larger than the LB fakes and it does look like a Cree XM-L, but anything is possible i guess here.

It's definitely getting murky now. A few years ago you knew that you were probably getting factory seconds (ultra blue, maybe really low bin) Cree LEDs in the cheap budget lights, but at least they were Cree. Now, you never know what you're going to get.

We need to establish a list here for reliable suppliers & sellers of genuine Cree LEDs, so we know where to get real Cree emitters and not end up with receiving these crap fake LB ones when placing orders for “advertised” Cree products. I can add verified genuine sellers of Cree products list to the OP.

More pics of the LEDs on the 10 LED SRK…these are real, correct?

I can’t see then exactly, but it looks like there are square connection pads under the bond wires, and the die is smaller than Cree XM-Ls, meaning they look like the LB Fakes. (* See the OP with the first image comparison provided by RMM.)

Those look like the LatticeBrights.

I think gearbest lied to us all about this one:
http://www.gearbest.com/led-flashlights/pp_193536.html

Definetely NOT neutral.
Thinking about it now and watching the tint/ low brightness, I can see that this is a latticecrap led that we have been sold.

I also noticed that quite a few of the ultra-budget lights we bought lately have been with worse tints, lower outputs, and less efficient. We are discovering now that most of these are due to the fake Latticebright LEDs being sold to us falsely named as CREE LEDs. We all have have been “had” with this fake LED dilemma longer than we probably realize, and now were waking up to it… and it will likely get much, much worse until we make enough noise and claims back to force this mass-fraud to stop.

Is this their domeless copy of a Cree XHP? >> http://www.latticebright.com/En/hpxl1/2015-06/30/NewsView-214.html
Latticebright call it ” HP-M” , with a not-so-blinding maximum of 940 lumens.