High CRI does look better then lower CRI but horrible purple, blue or green tints is a separate issue.
Nichia’s can’t reach the lumens your looking for and only nichias are high CRI and neutral white. Cree has brighter high CRI leds but they are only available in warmer tints. See flashlightwiki.com/Nichia for lumens (before reflector & lens losses).
You could make a custom triple nichia light or buy one from a BLF member.
Not going to get anywhere close to 1k lumens with a single 90+ CRI LED to my knowledge. An XML2 S6 7D3 will give you the color rendition you seek, but even at 3a you’d be lucky to achieve >600otf lumens. Also the S6 is roughly 2900k. My personal favorite is a Nichia 219. You get the 90+ CRI as well as a stunningly beautiful ~4500k (last one I built seems closer to 5000k) but at the sacrifice of a few lumens. Not sure of output but at 1.8a I’d say 5-600 emitter lumens, I could be WAY OFF though, just going by what I have built.
The emitter edeekeos speaks of would do over 1000 lumens in a Sky Ray King. There's also the Eagletac MX25L3C that uses high CRI Nichia emitters that approaches 2000 lumens.
If the all your flashlights have horrible tints it suggests they might not be the best quality lights. Its common for those types of lights to advertise massively inflated “chinese lumens”. So if you have a 1000 chinese lumen light your looking to match, it might only be 500 real lumens (or less even).
High CRI + 1000 lumens + good tint = custom only as far as I know
The brightest high CRI LED light I know of is the Eagletac previously mentioned. I actually have one and think it is a fantastic light. My only complaint is that it wont work with large button tops like Keepower, Redilast, AW, and others use. It has to be a nipple top like a AA battery. I have to use magnets on top of my button tops to work in the light.
If you just right now have 1000lm Chinese light with purple colour than 400-500lm are bright enough for a replacement…
I have some XML s6, Illumination supply sells them for cheap and they have a really warm tint(much warmer than nichia219) and perfect cri…
But if you don’t want to mod and go budget try to order a convoy light with a warm white bin like 5b1 or so….or the sings c8 from intoutdoor ask for a warm white high cri led…
the problem is, nichias are fitted in precisely zero budget lights, they also struggle to top 300 lumen, you’d need at least four to top 1000 lumens.
you can get both higher cri xm-l2’s and xp-g2’s but again, there are precious few fitted to budget lights abd they are of a warmer tint. its not in the least unpleasant, looks like a really bright incan to me.
if your good with a soldering iron, your cheapest option would be a tr 3t6 then add 3 6a1 xm-l2’s from intloutdoor. to really push it, you could add a 3 xm-l 3amp driver, youd be looking at about 1800 emitter lumens so between 1300 - 1500 otf lumens, trust me, it’d be dammed bright and an awesome light to use. just make sure the 3t6 comes with the tube for 3 cells.
Another more expensive option would be a dry from cnqg and again, add the three higher cri emitters.
That can work. If anyome wants to build me something feel free to PM ! Mynonly requirements are that it use a minumin of 3-4 Nichia 219 emitters with 1000lumen min but 2000+ desired. Also must use button top protected 18650s.
It’s due to the physical reverse polarity protection devices attached to the ends of the springs. I am not able to find a picture of the springs on the light I am speaking of, but they are identical to these:
The large button top is too wide for these…annoyingly.
The T12 (OEM Convoy S3) from intl-outdoor is availible with Nichia219b and AR-Lens. I think that would be a good way to start. Link
It’s only 26$, that’s almost the price of the components neccesery to mod other lights.
