XT-E Remote Phosphor Light - A New Hope?

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I’m doing. Seriously. I’m figuring stuff out as I go, I’m doing the best I can to research thrice, act once. This might turn out as a failed project and $70 down the drain. But I thought this could be a very unique, fun project that would give me a decent exposure to the world of flashlight modding. This forum has been an awesome wealth of knowledge and information, and I wouldn’t be able to do this without your help. So, to anyone reading who has ever posted anything: thank you. Questions/Comments/Critiques are encouraged!

Without further ado, let me introduce my project.

I’ve found countless projects where people end up modding white LED flashlights to be the most powerfully-driven, retina-searing, lumen-pumping hand-cannons available. That’s cool. And I definitely want to try that. But I’m intrigued by color LEDs. I think this started with my Philips EnduraLED remote phosphor bulb. Popping off the yellow phosphor panels gave me a glimpse at some blindingly bright royal blue LEDs.

So I decided I would try to create a royal blue lumen cannon of my own.

I have purchased
10x Royal Blue XT-E LEDs on 16mm aluminum stars. I’m not ready to start buying raw LEDs and soldering them onto stars. My research indicates that these have similar voltage specifications to the XM-L’s. If that is wrong, then I will just modify the driver to make magic happen.

This fairly cheap 9x XM-L T6 Light. I actually chose this light for some very specific reasons. First off, the budgeting department liked this. Secondly, it’s cheap—and the connotations behind that are what’s most important. The XT-E’s are rated for a maximum of 1.5A per LED, and I imagine a cheap driver will likely be able to meet or fall below that number. This must be the first time any BLF’r has been exciting to have an underperforming driver!

I believe my initial plan will be as follows:

  • Pull out the pill/whatever surface the emitters rest on, and replace the XM-L’s with the XT-E’s.
  • Use my little DC-DC step down driver module to test one LED on an old PC heatsink to find out what my current ceiling is
  • Seal it all up, and hope it doesn’t blow my LEDs to bits
  • Possibly dedome some or all of the LEDs for maximum throwiocity

I will of course update this thread as things start to arrive. I predict I will have all the parts I need in shortly—maybe with ten days.

If this project goes well, I’m looking into building some color LED flashlights with Philips Luxeon LEDs b/c they offer a wider range of colors—from Deep Red (I imagine hunters will like this) to Green to Royal Blue. I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, but a very popular light that is frequently copied could be an excellent host :wink:

I’ve learnt quite a bit since I started this project.

I didn’t realize how small these LEDs would be…they’re REALLY small. But not unmanageable. I ordered 10mm rounds from FastTech, and those have yet to arrive. I may pick up some 12mm SinkPads from VoB, but we shall see. I used oven cleaner to strip the anodizing from the emitter shelf—I thought that would offer a better thermal path. That theory shall be tested. I also need to grind it down a little bit as there is a bit of a “ledge” on part of the shelf that will definitely interfere w/ heat transfer.

I’m finally starting to get the hang of soldering, so this is getting much more fun and exciting now :slight_smile:

I’ve often been annoyed at how BRIGHT blue LEDs seem. On anything bluetooth capable, or car chargers etc, I often cover them with tape or disassemble and swap them out.

So….“why not?”

Good luck with the mod.

So you are going with a straight “BLUE” beam thrower?

Interesting…do you know what size the driver is and are the LED’s in series or parallel?

Any idea what a true blue beam will look like (color washout and whatnot?)

I have seen people push XM-L’s up to 5-6A, as long as you have the emitters flowed on good copper stars and have good heatsinking, you probably could push those teeny XT-E’s over 1.5A…but they will get HOT! (and heat is the enemy of CREE emitters)

Oh it’s completely a “why not” sort of thing! Just thought I’d do something a little different!

It is seriously blue. Almost UV-esque. Very disorienting. The best way to demo it would be to pull the remote phosphor panels off of one of the Philips LED bulbs.

the light will run in a 3x3 setup, the same way it shipped from the factory, and I’m not sure how much current it was pushing to each emitter before, but I can tell you it wasn’t much! I’m going to keep the same setup, and take advantage of the fact that this is a pretty whimpy driver! Seriously thinking about dropping some $ on 10mm sinkPads…

This is nuts. But I love nuts! I played with one of the XR-E royal blue emitters some years ago and that blue light is insane. It is kind of mesmerising/disorientating all by it self. This light in strobe mode could seriously mess with people's mind!

Oh, and I love the host you picked for it. How do you like that host btw? It looks quite nice for the price in the pics I've seen.

Check into that; remember a point source focused on the retina is a whopping high dose of high energy photons.
The people I know working on building commercial LED lighting take precautions quite seriously.

e.g.

The Effects of Blue Light on Ocular Health
www.cclvi.org/contributions/effects1.htm‎
Since melanin, a common pigment component present in the RPE, strongly absorbs blue light, there is reason to be concerned that the retina is subject to actinic …

LED lights ruin retinas, researchers say - UPI.com
www.upi.com › Science News‎
United Press International
May 11, 2013 - A study by Spanish researchers found that eco-friendly LED lights can be … The lights produce high levels of radiation in the “blue band” of the …

High-energy visible light - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikipedia
Blue-light hazard is defined as the potential for a photochemical induced retinal injury resulting from … “[Retinal hazard from blue light emitting diode]”. Nippon …

If you de-dome a blue XP-E, will it still be blue?

yes, no such thing as a phosfor layer that can get re-exited by internally reflected photons, so photons that do not get out of the led surface by internal reflection either make it out after some more reflections or are just absorbed and lost as heat.

Oh I’m sure you do :wink:

They’re pretty cool/unique emitters. Seriously disorienting color though, paired with red and green LEDs the strobe would be incapacitating (there are actually crowd control devices based off of R,G,B LEDs that flash randomly cause your brain just wasn’t built to process that kind of shenanigan)

The host is pretty nice. Not a real TrustFire light (and it shows) but for just under $50 to my door, I’m pleased. And most importantly, the reflector is good. I’ll probably run it without the extension tube all the time. I just don’t see a need for it with a light like this.

Like I said above, I do not underestimate the power of these LEDs, I think this might be my most “dangerous” light, and I plan to treat it as such.

Yes. See djozz’s comment above.

It will definitely mess up your eyes, maybe not permanently, but you will certainly notice some weirdness for a few hours after using it if you don't use some eye protection. Even from just looking at things the light is aimed at, you don't need to aim the thing right into your face for it to happen.

Oh definitely, I learnt that pretty quickly after accidentally turning on the 75w equivalent Phillips remote phosphor bulb (sans remote phosphor panels) while it was still pointed at me. Not a pleasant experience.

Depending on when things come in, I’ll either be using polarized sunglasses or blue-filtering safety lenses to test this puppy.

Well, I woke up early and I have a surprising amount of energy even though I have a terrible cold…

Anyway, I thought I would give you guys some quick photos of the host. I decided to go for a nice polished aluminum look for this light, as I thought that the royal blue light output will have kind of a “Space-y” feel to it…so what could be more spacey than shiny silver?!

Anyway, I separated the light and disassembled the switch and put it in a bath of diluted commercial grade oven cleaner and warm water, being sure to monitor constantly while agitating the parts with a high-tech 4-pronged human interface device, called a fork.

I think it looks pretty solid. I can’t wait to start working on it!

That looks sweet!

So while I’m waiting on my new SinkPAD emitters and my solder paste stencil to arrive from OshStencils, I thought I’d lay out my emitters to see what it would look like!

As you can see from the photos, the 16mm’s required a whole lot of trimming, so I’m very glad that I’ve decided to migrate over to 10mm SinkPads. It’s also evident that I will need to do a lot of trimming of the LED spacers/centering rings.

I also was thinking that this could make a “heavy duty” version of the mule light, where pulsing LEDs charge a phosphorous glow stick so you get a long-life gentle glow of light! Maybe I’ll make a little diffuser top.

Well, good news and bad.

Good news, my SinkPAD II’s arrived. They’re tiny.

All was going well. I had shorted only one of my 10 LEDs, only due to a dumb placement mistake. Oh well, such is life. Then I make the horrifying mistake of dropping a bare emitter after I tweezed it off of the old aluminum star. It bounced on my carpet, and I literally cannot find it |(

Not so thrilled about that to be honest. But at least the reflows I did worked perfectly, and all 8 of the LEDs light up as planned.

See below for my emitter conundrum:

Sorry to hear about the emitter loss Rollingstone. I lost one like that. Usually, I can find them with a UV light. I'm guessing your blue emitters won't fluoresce.

The picture up above with the emitters in the reflector looks bad ass.

I think you’re correct. The UV light will make the phosphor in a white LED fluoresce; however, royal blue LEDs of course lack the phosphor for a UV light to pick up.

It looks like I will just have to order one. Oh well!

But thanks for the words of encouragement—once the replacement emitter arrives and I can finally finish this project, I’ll certainly put up the pics so you guys can see my handiwork!

Aw man. I had that happen once too! Dang!

I can’t wait to see this. I have one of the same emitters in a little 3xAAA zoomie I run direct drive on a 18650 (~2.2A) its intense to say the least. Makes orange nerf darts super easy to find.