I modded a small aspheric lens zoomie with this led today, and the tint came out completely different, almost as nice as the original Nichia 219A 92CRI ! Is it the different optic or is there an enormous tint variation among these leds?
For a description of the mod, see the ‘what did you mod today’ thread:
Let me be another to add my thanks. I really had high hopes for these emitters and despite mixed emotions from some I remain hopeful. Excellent work! :+1:
I think its the different coating and layer’s it has. In some light i made the hotspot is a different colour to the rest of the beam so its like different coloured rings not to noticeable but it is there.
Well, awesome information indeed . My only gripe with regards to all of this is the relative difficulty I've found (at least until now) to get particular beauties like these. Only a handful of led stores provide the kind of specific information (bin code, CRI specification) to sort this out easily (without having to make inquiries).
219B's are consistent and high quality products, you know you can't go wrong with any of them. Maybe Cree should, in a marketing effort, stick a suffix to the name of their leds in order for us consumers to be able to quickly understand the kind of CRI specification the led belongs to. Mmm, a handful of lustful adjectives would be so cool.
I totally agree, specific neutral/higher CRI leds are hardly anywhere for sale, and if they are it is a lottery what you get (i.e. Aliexpress, Fasttech). Cutter has very good stuff and have ok info on their leds but still incomplete (and shipping is killing buying there), intl-outdoor is very good and reliable but has a limited selection and has not listed new leds since the 219C. Lumitronics in Germany is a bit expensive but sometines has interesting Nichia’s, rs-online is good for the newest Osram leds, and I like their ProLight leds but the information is very incomplete, it takes some research to find out what exact leds they sell. For more mainstream leds I kind of trust Kaidomain for their information.
I bought a couple of those, they are very cuddly warm white with rosy tint. Most leds in this tint region are above 80CRI, but if it is 90+ I could not say.
If Fasttech is correct (I don’t trust any spec from any product from Fasttech) in that this is the nvsl219at-h1, than this must be the sw27 colour rank, so 2700K.
But frankly, it looks even warmer than that!
I made a S2+ triple today with these leds to see how the tint is in a TIR optic. and it is again different but closer to the reflector optic tint; the close to rosy tint with little yellow from the i3 aspheric lens zoomie was not achieved. Not a bad tint though.
Against my principles here’s a white wall shot that compares some lights (I do not show whitewall tint comparisons usually because they do not represent the reality very well, and people still will use the picture to discuss tint).
left the XP-G3 4000K 90CRI in a S8 (reflector light)
middle top the XP-G3 4000K 90CRI in a S2+ triple (TIR optic)
right the XP-G3 4000K 90CRI in a ‘on the road’ i3 (aspheric lens zoomie)
middle bottom Nichia 219A 4500K 92CRI in a solarstorm SC02 quad (TIR optic)
The Nichia shows brown-ish on pictures which is not true, the blue-ish hotspot of the S8 does not show well. But you can see how the i3 light is close to the 219A while the other two builds have a tint more to the yellow side.
What the sheesh? Now this may sound like a cheap joke but, does cutter gets the majority of high-CRI Cree leds, which may explain why it is so complicated to find them elsewhere?
Moreover, I've not taken an in depth look there but this can be read there:
“14mm Round DTP TPAD MCPCB with the U2 bin XML-2, 7D2, S6 min 90CRI”, which is bogus. That “the U2 bin” should be edited and replaced with an “an”, doesn't it?
These look very promising. I’m ready for a 2700 lumen High-CRI triple!
I’m disappointed about the tint, but I haven’t had the chance to try all mine yet, hopefully there’s a winner in there somewhere.
They’re an authorized Cree distributor and sell a TON of LED’s, so no conspiracy, I’d guess buying power.
The owner is a member here at BLF as well as most other hobbyist sites like MTBR, CPF, etc., been supportive of our “hobby” for more than a decade.
I’m sure that’s a typo on the XM-L2, it’s in one spot on the page header, not the description. Never saw anyone complain about getting stiffed by exaggerated claims.