The Fabled Nichia 219B - still relevant?

Hi All,

So with certain bins of SST20’s CRI being close to that of the 219B, I was wondering if the 219B is still the bees knees for CRI. Is there still a place for this and widespread use in 2019?

That being said, the nomenclature has me very confused. Is this it?

MPN: NVSL219BT-V1
FPN: H3535W2-945B-FD
Bin Conditions: sw45k5,sw45k6,sw45k7,sw45k8/D180,D200,D220/L1,L2,M1/R9080

I see 9080, and SW45k, but I was wondering what’s the other number following the k - anyone care to enlighten me? Thank you in advance!

I haven’t got a SST20 yet, but the 219B is a very nice tint with a slight magenta tinge. I hear the SST20 tends to be on the green side of the BBL. Tough to beat the 219B (or 219A).

Can’t help you with the number after the K.

Concerning CRI the sst20’s easily match the 219b’s.

For best tint above 3500k I think 219b’s are still much better. Below 3500k I’ll take the sst-20 over the 219 for sure.

I still use 219B in my favorite lights. It’s not just the CRI, it’s also the tint… especially at low modes, since SST-20 green-shifts when it’s not running at high power.

Currently, for rosy tints, and if you don’t care about efficiency or throw, the 219B is your best bet.

Otherwise, the SST-20 is more efficient, can throw much farther, and is easily available from 2700k-4000k in 95CRI variants with 80 R9 minimum, meaning its color rendition of about everything is superb.

The 4000k, until recently, hasn’t been available with great tint bins like the XP-L HI and the 219B, but that will change with the new FA3 and FD2 tint bins.

On the SST-20 it is very important to pick a tint bin below BBL, but the one a löot below BBL is hard to get

If you dont care much for max lumens and efficiency the 219B driven at 2.5A is very nice

I have modified a HDS rotary with it it is a bit less efficient than the original XPG, but tint and CRI is wondergul

The 219B is nice and consistent in tint, across current levels and spatially.

Iirr, the SST20 starts out greenish at low currents and gradually goes rosy with higher currents.

Not sure if it also “tint-shifts” in a reflector to cause a fried-egg beam (ie, yellower off to the sides but bluer straight-on. (G3s were hideous in that regard.)

Unno. How many macadams (ie, how close to the bullseye in specced ct/tint)?

For the 4000K varient, yes, but the 3500K, 3000K, and 2700K have shown to have very good tint. I really see this clinging onto the 219B as being a bit odd. You can always install a Lee Minus Green filter and improve R9 and substantially improve the tint of these green tilted 4000K emitters. There’s more flexibility to the filters to as you can go as little or as “rosy” as you want, you don’t have that same degree of quick inexpensive control relying on reflow soldering emitters or buying whole new lights.

That being said, the 219B has most certainly been over taken several times over in the LED industry. It’s just that this is the emitter everyone into flashlights talks about. You don’t get much talk about optical filters. It’s also a familiar 3535 form factor that plays well with allot of circuit boards, MCPCB’s, commonly used in flashlights. It’s not that it’s so specially great; it’s in large part for the reasons above.

It’s easy to get a more rosy tint using a Lee Zircon filter— have your SST20 on BBL at lower outputs and rosy at higher outputs. I don’t see much use for the famous 219B SW45 R9080 these days.

Wellp, the 219B is consistent. No major color-shifting with increasing current, no fried-egginess in reflector-based beams, etc. About the only major competition it’d have is the LH351.

And filters? Who wants to keep slapping on filters? Bad enough I need to slather on the diffusion film to fix the horrible horrible beam from G3s or other flip-chips.

I mean, I’d try it if I absolutely had to, but then you’d need a light filter for minor degreening, deeper to depukify a Jetbeam or Quark, etc.

Ay-yi-yi…

Gimme a MT-G2.

i still untouch my lumintop iyp365 219B, because i love its tint so much.

uh what? it very quickly goes from white to magenta with more current.

Do you have links to the tests that shows the 219B’s color consistency over its full current range? The TexasAce tests I have are not as extensive as the SST-20 tests from Maukka. The 219B also can’t be pushed nearly as hard as newer emitters. It taps out at only 4 amps while a newer emitter such as the SST-20 goes until 7 amps, a much farther extreme.

I agree the flip chips are aren’t pretty in certain optics types, SMO’s are particularly bad. However, even lightly diffused TIR can substantially improve beam quality. We also have the XP-G2 HE, so there is still some development going on in the better quality emitter types.

I like 219A's or 219B's better than anything else I own. I've decided I really don't care if anyone else does or doesn't like cw /ww nw or varying tints that I like ..God bless them one and all .

I'm really just done with what I consider bad tints and bad cri ..

I'm also NEVER expecting a NW tint from a group buy to be anything other than just a huge POS .Every one except the nichia 219 in the blf AAA stainless steel light has been a disappointment

At least you recognize your opinion is unreasonable :slight_smile:

I’ll take your word for it, but I never pushed my 219Bs too hard, so don’t quite know at what point they transition like that.

Exactly. I never pushed any 219s harder than about 2A.

I still have some nice warm-white 219As, too. :laughing:

Those were 219Cs, I think. Too yellow-green for me…

the BLF 348 changed mid run at some point but early on it did have 219b

My experience has been the complete opposite with both with the 219B. In some smooth reflectors there is definitely tint shift in the beam and at higher currents they get much rosier (not a bad thing per se but like most emitters it happens).