Christmas eve, a moment as great as any moment for posting an emitter test :-)
I do emitter tests every now and then, but which emitters I test has a bit of randomness in it: I try to find leds that seem promising for flashlight use, but there are many more leds than I am prepared to test, and some very interesting leds are just not available in small quantities. And sometimes leds are just not tested for no good reason, even though they were interesting enough when they became first available, like this V1 of the Nichia 219B. It comes in 90+CRI like the first 219B, and people have found that it has a lower Vf than the first 219B, comparable to the 219C. So here's, a bit late to the party, my test anyway, of the 4000K 93CRI (D200 bin) version obtained from Illumn.com because I like to use that one for a triple and want to know the full picture before the build. I hesitated buying them because of their high shipping costs, but then three leds were very kindly gifted to me by THE_dAY, thanks!
The test was done like I described in detail in my XP-L test. In summary: 1) just one led was tested, 2) I used my larger version II integrating sphere with much higher quality luxmeter, but that should not matter for results, 3) the output numbers and voltages were measured with the led close to 'steady state' for each current, so warmed up and settled, you should be able to get these numbers in a well heatsinked flashlight. Mind that these are output numbers of the bare led, in a flashlight there will be losses from light obstructions, lens and optic, 4) output is in 'djozz-lumen' defined as 1/550 of the output of my Sunwayman D40A on high setting, which I hope is close to the real lumen, but at least is consistent over all my emitter tests done in integrating spheres.
Here are the results. In the same graph are the results of three other emitter tests that I had done and posted about earlier and are nice for comparison: the first Nichia 219B 92CRI 4500K (close to 5000K actually), the Nichia 219C 83CRI 5000K (D280 bin), and the gen.2 Osram Oslon Square 4000K 92CRI (see my signature line link for the original tests).
What can be seen in the graph is:
*the current at which the maximum output of the V1 is reached is not much different than the first gen. 219B, indicating that the thermal resistance has not much changed.
*the output is also not clearly improved compared to the first 219B, although here a 4000K led is compared to an almost 5000K led, which is not 100% apples to apples.
*the voltage of the V1 has significantly lowered, as was found earlier by others as well, at 3A by 0.22V for the respective leds that were measured. This is very good for use in single li-ion flashlights, it allows good regulation of the output over the runtime of the battery.
*the Nichia 219C is in a different league than the 219B V1, perhaps not in output at lower currents (we will not know the output of a 4000K 93CRI 219C until it hits the market) but in thermal resistance, giving it a higher maximum at a much higher current.
*the gen.2 Oslon Square that is also 4000K and 92CRI, like the Nichia tested in this post, has a better output and lower thermal resistance, it performs better than the Nichia 219B V1. A concern for some may be that the tint of the Oslon is less rosy than the Nichia, but that is a matter of preference.
Conclusion.
I like the lower Vf of the V1, it will help the output in the triple that I'm going to build (direct drive with a 18350 battery). I hoped that the output and thermal resistance also had improved somewhat compared to the first gen. 219B, but that seems not so much the case. So the wait is still for the 219C in 90+CRI, for a new level of performance, although I do not expect it to be that much better than the tested high CRI Oslon Square.
Merry Christmas to you all!
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