Hey guys,
Asking the experts before I melt some plastic to my shiny new LED…
Are the plastic lenses okay to run in a 8000 lumen light? I am modifying a cheap light and throwing a boost driver in. As it sits, should put out right around 8000 lumen off a single led. Wondering if I’m going to forget to take the wrapper off the cheese to to speak and nuke this thing.
What single LED puts out 8000 lumens?
What sort of plastic is this?
How much heat will be generated?
As it is currently framed, it’s impossible to answer this question.
Cxb3590, plastic from a generic “1000 lumen” 4 c cell light. Probably a shit ton of heat is my guess.
If it’s a no brainer anyone know a good source for lenses in various sizes?
Depends on the plastic, but cheap acrylic/PMMA is significantly more transparent than glass. Being mostly transparent means very little of the light energy will be lost/converted to heat in the lens; the only heating it experiences will be from conduction in the head, and at that point the lens should be able to survive more than the LED itself can. Think of all the lights currently running 50+ watts through TIR lenses placed immediately over the LED; none of those are melting the optics.
Melting lenses, and swapping in borosilicate glass, was much more a concern with hot-rodded incandescent lights, where the rest of the head would be perfectly happy running at absurdly high temperatures. LED lights can handle similar levels of power, but they’re sending more of it out the front, and the LED itself is a limiting factor. Glass is mainly for scratch-resistance now.
Thank you guys! Really appreciate it… you’re the man CR