It seem lately i have been swapping a lot of emitters in my popular favorite lights. When my Solarforce SC set arrived, ( SC01, 02, & 03.) i turned on the SC01 for no more than 2 seconds and then turned it off and immediately swapped out the stock way-to-cool white XM-L2, and modded in a Nichia 219.
Now its one of my favourite used single AA EDC lights with that near perfect tint.
Also after trying various XM-L emitters of different tints in my greenish-tinted Olight S20, i swapped in a Neutral White XP-G2, and fixed the green hue problem the S20 had making it a much better tint with no green hue.
Top photo is a Olight S20 with a XP-G2 Neutral White 4500K, and bottom photo is the Solarforce SC01 with the high-CRI Nichia 219.
So I have a growing mountain pile of eye-searing over-cool icy white tinted emitters… what should i do with them ? maybe build a 4 foot x 8 foot wall off light using a 1/2” thick 4’ x 8’ sheet of aluminum.
I literally just today swapped the green XM-L2 out from my wife’s olight S15 to my new favorite, S6 7D1 warm white 90+ CRI (I originally got her the olight cause blue / purple tints give her headache’s). The light was her xmas gift, I stripped the body down and had it powder coated pink (along with the extension).
I’m the opposite. I prefer cool white. The only non super cool tint led I like is the nichia 219b. It’s cool yet doesn’t have the blueish tint.
I swap emitters for xml2 U2 1A or xpg2 r5 1A if it’s too warm for me.
I do appreciate the warmer tints but for the majority of my lights I use cool tints. I only have 1 light that has a warm tint, a dropin that I only use in a lantern light.
Thank God, I’m not the only one. On the Spark SF5 GB everyone and his dog were getting NW versions, so I thought “it must really be better than CW, maybe I should try it.”. Well, now I have an XM-L2 U2 1A on a Noctigon incoming for my first ever emitter swap :(. I guess some of you are having heart attacks right about now, but it’s just too warm and dim for me and consequently gets zero use.
I like the Cool Whites for throwers much better than the neutrals and warm whites.
The lower colors are better for flooders, lanterns, and close-up uses in my eyes, but for the big, powerful thrower lights i prefer that same tint as the 1A. the 24-Amp 4-DST/SRK Super Thrower build i’m working on is using dedomed versions of the XM-L2 U2 1A on fan-cooled Noctigons driven to 6 + amps each, powered by 8 Samsung 20r cells in parallel.
I can accept both tints but I always prefer NW or WW if they’re available. I just can’t stand the extreme bluish and greenish on some lights. My favourite right now is the tint on my SF5 NW.
I doubt anyone likes extreme bluish and greenish tints The thing about SF5 NW is it looks too yellow to me, I’d even call it a WW (of course it’s just my subjective opinion, plus I don’t have any WW lights to campare to), so I kinda put in in extreme bluish and greenish tint lineup. I recently got a Convoy S2+ with 3B, it’s much better. But when I compare it with 1A, the cold one looks too cold, the natural one too warm, so I’d like to try something in between (that never ending search for perfection…).
The warmer the tint, the lower the output, I get that, but the percepted brightness loss for my eyes is even greater. The SF5 feels really dim to my eyes, like an incandescent bulb on a drained battery or something. I bet it’s my eyes, really. The darker it is, the worse my eyesight gets, maybe that’s why I want my light to be really bright and white.
Now for ceiling bounce I much more prefer the warmer tints, I grew up on incandescent light bulbs, feels natural. CW really feels cold and dead.
You’re right, I also think it is actually warm white not neutral white. On another subject, why Nichia 219 is not widely used in flashlight? I never had one but from what I heard the tint is somewhat cold but still retain high CRI. I just ordered my first Nichia on noctigon from Hank intl-outdoor to see it with my own eyes. :party:
Per request here’s a few more shots of my wife’s S6 7D1 S15. Also I sanded down the centering ring so you could no longer see its reflection, that made the hot spot about 25% wider and brighter, it’s doing 1210cd now (didn’t measure before but it’s probably about the same and with a significant lumen loss from the warm white swap).
Here’s the shot where you can see the reflection of the die, no before shots but you couldn’t see it, only white centering ring.
Emitter (I love the color of the phosphor layer on the warm ones) still centered perfectly.
Med beamshot 24” from wall (again sorry no before) the hot spot is much more useful, I was going to put diffuser film on it to give it a little wider beam but just sanding down the ring widened it out plenty.
Body with some nice character after >6 months of EDC. I’m proud of her, I can clearly see she uses it quite a bit (she works in the office of a body shop so she’s always out getting VIN numbers and stuff).
I’m getting more and more into the neutrals myself, the nichia’s are the bomb for lower lumen lights. The tint is perfect to my eyes.
As for your cool whites. De-dome them and use them that way. I de-dome as ofter for a nicer tint as I do for extra throw. Mix and match them on multi-emitters and you get some really nice tints. Poor man’s high CRI.
any photos ?
The thing about SF5 NW is it looks too yellow to me, I’d even call it a WW (of course it’s just my subjective opinion, plus I don’t have any WW lights to campare to), so I kinda put in in extreme bluish and greenish tint lineup. I recently got a Convoy S2+ with 3B, it’s much better. But when I compare it with 1A, the cold one looks too cold, the natural one too warm, so I’d like to try something in between (that never ending search for perfection…).
