I’m a newbie here and in LED’s in general. I need your help!
I have a Nichia E21A (datasheet ) and I need to collimate it. After collimation It still needs to output 100 lumens.
I need the beam to be 5’’ or (13 cm) in diameter from about 20’’ (51 cm) away. With minimal spill and even lighting throughout the hotspot like this.
This is for a surgical headlight, so I need the package to be as small as possible and as light as possible, As it will be mounted on surgical loupes.
So far what I think I know is that It needs to be a TIR collimator lens thats clear and at an angle of around 20 degrees. All of the available Carlco lensesI have access to.
What type of setup do I need?
Also, will this LED heat up too much if it’s running at 100 lumens? It will be on for hours.
No, it should not heat up too much, 100lm will be about 1W, you still need to mount it on some heat-sink.
I think to keep it small and still have a good sharp spot you should look at ~20mm TIR. (bigger TIR usually will give better defined spot)
Carclo 10193 (available at Cutter) seems to be close with about 20 degree beam.
I don’t see a holder for it there though.
Wherever you want to use Carclo optics you should check which holder to use with which LED
E.g., this one for E21A Optic 10193 Led Nichia NVSW CSP E21A White | Carclo Optics
They tested it with 10734 holder.
If you look into holder spec you will see that there is a whole bunch of them they look identical but have one dimension different (except length of legs). It is basically a distance between TIR bottom and LED. E21A is a flat no dome LED so this distance should be short as with 10734 which is one of the shortest in the bunch.
You can also look at Ledil LEILA, ROSE but it looks like they don’t have anything specifically for E21A, so it may be hard to find which one exectly.
For about few dollars a piece you could buy some and try how they work. This, this, or this.
Thank you for your reply. I still need help, so allow me to clarify what it is exactly that I’m trying to do. Essentially, I am trying to replicate this .
Currently I’m developing the LED portion.
I picked the E21A for several reasons:
High quality LED
High CRI
5700k
High lumen output
I have questions about the heatsink. Here are images of a different headlight I partially tore down. How did they achieve the same illumination requirements and deal with the heat generation? And what type of lens is that?
The final headlight I am going to be building will have a 3D printed enclosure, then injection moulded if all goes well. As for the holder, it doesn’t matter too much as the features of the case will hold it into place.
One small aspheric lens as close as possible above the LED. Then stacked another larger one on top if it. Adjust the distance between the 1st and 2nd to desired focus.
Get high quality small aspheric cheaper from Optolife.com
I live in Australia, so Im not sure where to get aspheric lenses. Ebay is limited and expensive, and aliexpress will have me waiting 2+ months. Ive had a look at optolife and found that 2 lenses push my cart over $15 easily. Im a little hesitant about this because I’m unsure about what im purchasing. I’m a student so my budget is a little tight.
If im stacking 2 lenses, does one have to be larger than the other? The enclosure of the LED and Lenses will be seperate from the PCB, injection moulded, and resemble a telescope.
I’ve spent the past 2 months learning about PCB design, and whenever I approach optics I pull away because I get confused.
Also, Im about to place an order from virence but Im waiting on the MCPCB’s for the E17A and E21A to be restocked, any idea on when that would be?
Good luck
