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

Can definitely see the smaller die & square bond-wire pads on that one. Also good you noticed the base substrate color differences. (will add it to the OP photo list.

anyone know who made the dice?
just how many mfrs of led dice are there that make high power blue dice?
if the dice are cree(yes they sell just the die)then its a half truth.that means the clone makers are using cheap phosphor.or getting c or d grade dice and using cheap phosphor.

an interesting topic on the Counterfeit issue with buying on (e)bay posted by Muto here: Interesting article about refunds due from Ebay for Fake Items
it can relate to the thousands of flashlights sold with the “Cree” brand name which arrives with the fake LB or other LED in it sold through them.

Latticebright is definitely at fault. I’m no lawyer, but if you sell a burger that smells like a McDonald’s, looks like a McDonald’s, packed like a McDonald’s and especially you make a lot of profit out of it without the acknowledgement from McDonald, then you have already infringed the patent/copyright of McDonald even though your brand isn’t exactly the word “McDonald”.

Unless Latticebright did actually get the green light from CREE to produce these low quality craps, then it is a whole different story. For examples, as somebody has mentioned earlier in this thread, maybe Latticebright resells the grade B products from CREE that has CREE’s acknowledgement with it, or CREE decided to cut cost and they outsourced the LED production to some Chinese companies with the agreement to produce lower quality LEDs…

Has anybody ever measured output on the LB?
I ask because over the weekend I was at my brothers for his birthday. He had an SK68 with the LB in it and it was actually brighter than my XR-E. It did get a lot hotter though. I think it would be good if we could quantify these things and also see if there are wide variances from chip to chip.

The brightness has more to do with the driver current rather than the LED itself. To compare the two flashlights’ brightness you have to make sure both have the same driver current.
As for comparing the LEDs, I would guess Cree will be more bright but no necessary by much.

They do put out decent but do not work well driven hard, what sucks is the tint more than anything else.

Besides LED flashlights, my passion is Vintage Mini Bikes and in that field the Chinese successfully cloned the Honda GX200 engine quite a few years back.
And just like here in this field, everyone pointed out the flaws and shortcomings. But as time went on and the Go Cart guys (who really run these engines at a very high Rpms) figured out what changes needed to be made, the Chinese listened and delivered.
Now the Clones Rule and there is a cottage industry of aftermarket parts for the clones, more so than the Honda even.

The China guys actually then produced their own improved larger displacement which did not have a Honda equivalent and it is now top dog in the bracket. Some of the models have Hemi Heads, stock. Models rated at 6.5 hp will do over 9 hp with simple header and Airfilter/Jetting mods. And they are reliable.

All of which makes me wonder if Lattice Bright may eventually make their own line of LED’s, after all Cree reportedly doesn’t really want our market, their stuff just happens to get used for the application.
Gotta admit, LatticeBright did a fine job of cloning these things, look at how long it took for them to get found out.
I now see their emitters in lights I bought at least 9 months if not a year ago.
I thought at the time they were just cheap lousy tint Cree’s and I knew they didn’t do much better when driven harder. Still never killed one.

SO, has anyone De-Doomed a LatticeBright yet and if so, what were the results?
Later,
Keith

Is it just this picture, or does it appear the emitter in the second photo doesn’t have the same dot pattern in the die/phosphor?

I was in a Walmart a week ago or so and they had some wacky brand light with a big CREE LED sticker on the front. I was intrigued, but upon further inspection, there was a burned spot in the phosphor. or a manufacturing defect. I don’t think that cree would let that throught QC if it were legitimate.

I guess I’m a little late to reply to this but those seemed like Cree XTE to me.
Are they not cree xte?

Looking back at this review I wrote in March, I see I included a photo of the emitter on the PCB. The board is clearly printed with “LB” indicating that what I thoughe were poor-bin xp-e emitters are actually the fakes. We just didn’t know about them at the time.

much the same here as i am discovering some lights i bought almost a year ago actually have these LB fakes in them, and they all have horrible tint and output.

is there any HJK who can do a thorogh testig on these fakes ?

Hi guys!
Here’s my video unboxing of the flashlight with a fake CREE XM-L2:

Both leds has the same size, but just on the photo it seems different.

That’s odd… According to the LB page and the pictures (posted also at #1 here) the counterfeit XM-L2 called “XM series” should have a silverish top, too. With the green base, it’s quite obvious to spot as a fake. I’m still waiting for pictures of confirmed counterfeits of XM-L2, XP-G2 and XP-G…
At least, many of these LEDs sit on MCPCBs with “LB”/Latticebright or the LB logo printed on. But I’ve checked all my cheaper lights and found only fake XP-E and XM-L. The ones with XM-L2/XP-G2 look ok. The question is: are they harder to distinguish or not that common in the wild (yet)?

Besides of the green base look at the direction of the dots and it’s quantity.

I think the pattern is the same, it’s just that the dome has a more textured finish on the bottom one which obscures the dots.

nice video. there are obvious differences on those LEDs, ( the ordered XM-L2 and what you actually received.

Can anyone confirm if this is real or fake?
!http://i59.tinypic.com/o59hj9.jpg!
Bought this from wholeup.
Thank you

judging by the smooth substrate coating, the square pads beneath the bond wires it looks like a LB LED. (fake LED) it the tint & output seems to be more blueish & harsher then its likely a fake.
EDIT: - I am noticing an unusual non-consistient edge to the phosphor coating over the die on that one too, adding to the lower quality control of the fake Crees.