Hello all
As i have learned and experienced that the best tint to dedome is the 1A
So what about the 2A i have some XM-L2 2A and some XP-L 2A that i want to dedome, so is the result acceptable and there is no yellowish or greenish in the tint ?
While dedoming is always a lottery, and everyone’s got their own tint preferences… The dedomed tint of XP-L V5 2A’s has been consistently good for me. Hardly any green, nicely neutral white. I’ve gotten to where i use them in nearly every non-MT-G2 build I do. I’m no expert, but I have dedomed something like 30 of the V5 2A’s with fairly uniform results. My experience dedoming XM-L2’s has been sometimes awesome… And sometimes there’s been a significant green shift. Could be the result of not knowing exactly what tint I was starting with though (ie: some could have been 1C, 1D, 2C, etc.).
The method of dedoming makes something of a difference as well. The process I’ve settled on involves dunking the emitters in gas after flowing/reflowing for around 5-6 hours, rinsing them with alcohol, letting them dry over an hour or more, then applying LED Seal (the LED Seal does not seem to affect tint in any way, it’s just for protection of the dedomed LED.) and letting that cure before putting it into the light for good.
If you slice the dome with a razor or pry it off when it’s hot and pliable, in my experience the tint shift is much smaller. And it can be way different from one emitter to the next. It’s too much trouble for me, and for most folks I assume, to begin prying off LEDs at the exact same temp in the the exact same way… So sometimes they come off completely and sometimes they leave a little behind. Beam looks the same to me either way, but between two XM-L2 1A’s from the same batch, hot dedomed back to back, one stayed cool white and one ended up beautifully neutral. So your mileage may vary.
If you’re most worried about green (I kinda am… It’s pretty darn awful looking… But repeatability won out for me in the end.), I’d probably hot dedome the XM-L2 and gas dedome the XP-L. I haven’t seen any XP-L 2A’s go unbearably green, and I always use gas. I’ve had several XM-L2s get nasty green, but they were probably not 2A’s.
I should have bookmarked it, but there was a thread around a year ago testing tint shift of various color bins. The sample size wasn’t enormous, but there was a relatively observable trend. In general - tints with A & B in the code shifted more directly from towards the yellow end of the spectrum and tints with C & D shifted more unpredictably along the spectrum and some ended up being pretty green.
sma started this post that grantman is referring to.It was actually June this year,time flies. 
Remember that a specific tint ic not as specific as that,it could be anywhere in the 2A quadrangle see the ansi chart .A and D tints should keep you clear of greens,but XPL’s and XM-L’s ought to behave the same.
From what I read about the XP-L, hot dedoming is also an option, because the dome appears to form a bubble over the die and die wires, without actually touching them, so you have a lot less chance of breaking one.
I dedomed an XPL 2A in gasoline for a C8, and it’s the nicest tint I have. To my eyes it’s a perfect neutral white. Better than my XML 3C, XPG 4C, and I even like it better than my Nichia 219.
But as others have said, there’s no guarantee you’ll get the same tint as me with your dedome.
It took me three XP-L’s to master dedoming them. At first, I didn’t realize there was a white silicon like adhesive around the perimeter that separates cleanly from the dome if careful. ( I was used to hot dedoming XMLs where running a razor/x-acto blade around the perimeter of the substrate helped get a clean lift off. ) This white silicon actually protects the bond wires and gives the XPLs a unique look.
My 2 cents on de-doming the XPL.
I dedomed 3 by accident with a triple optic. They still worked perfectly, and the membrane surrounding the bond wires mentioned by JaredM was still in tact. Gives it nice clean look.
I tried doing this hot ( right out of the reflow skillet, and it worked too. However doing it hot did remove some of the shroud around the emitter. All 3 of these samples still worked.
At this point I think I will probly try just popping the dome off cold next time as it seemed to leave a cleaner look with the accidental ones.