I did calculate it for dedomed SST-40. It was good. This one is better thermally. And factory flat instead of hand-sliced. And much costlier which enables a variety of improvements.
Despite that - it’s much less efficient……
For the intended applications the efficiency isn’t really important. When replacing Xenon short-arcs the benefit lies in the much lower system- and maintanance costs.
SST40 is decent, CBT140 is worse than CFT.
Is there any LED in the pipeline that plans on taking the title from the CFT-90?
What is the “title” your refering to?
Also, most led companies do not talk about upcoming leds due to competition. They just spring it on us when it’s ready.
A quad 2mm white flat has more output and luminance than the CFT90. Not really a direct competitor to the CFT90, but a good alternative as long as you have the proper host and reflector.
Yes, it has been debated in this thread, but according to my understanding, the CFT-90 is currently the ultimate upgrade for the BLF GT. Yes, it doesn’t have the same lumens as the XHP70.2, but it has a tighter beam and further throw. Or am I wrong?
How would this look in a BLF GT? Would it create a cross like the old XHP70 did?
I should have specified you would need 4 separate reflectors.
I can’t remember anything in this thread, it’s too old. 
There is no one perfect led, it depends on what you want. Smaller led dies like xpg2 for instance can create longer throw distance, but have less lumens and a smaller hot spot. Bigger led dies like 70.2 can have a bigger hot spot and higher lumens, but less throw distance. So it depends on what you want.
The CFT90 in the GT requires a special driver which is expensive and then the led is expensive. Making everything fit and focused is extra work. So the cost may make some people think it’s a poor choice.
So all leds have their pros and cons.
I have a sliced BLF GT70, and make no mistake, I love it and I never get tired of impressing friends. But that to me is a much more general purpose and usable thrower, than a Giga-Thrower. And I feel that the GT70 is going to be replaced by the GT4, because that will have the same throw, but with more lumens. So I want to turn my GT70 into a Giga-Thrower. I don’t want to go pencil thin, but ideally what I want is something like the CFT-90, but without the ridiculous price, wattage and fine-tuning. Something like the XHP35.2 HI with higher cd/mm2 and higher lumens than XHP35 HI.
I don’t think anyone makes a kit to convert a GT70 into a GT. You would need a new driver and a new mcpcb. Maybe those parts can be scraped together?
I don’t think the xhp 35.2 has been released yet, but so far it looks like it’s not any kind of big improvement over the existing version.
A sliced xhp50.2 is about the same die size as the CFT 90. Maybe you could modify a GT driver to give a regulated 4A@12v to it? The luminance isn’t going to be as good as the CFT 90, though.
Just a thought.
Lexcl has a few 2s buck drivers, one could possibly work with the 3V XHP 50.2?
The thing about the GT4 though, and to a smaller extent the GT70, is that you get worse and worse battery life each time.
The XHP35HI could sustain 2h30 of continuous runtime with battery life left.
The GT70 could sustain about 1 hour of continuous runtime.
The GT4 will probably last less than 20 mins at full power if cooled well enough.
For that setup you’d need to convert the battery carriers from 4S to 2S. Maybe someone who has converted from a GT to GT70 kit would be willing to sell their old driver/emitter combo?
Couple dummy cells possibly… or just one wire. Seems like an easy, reversible mod.
I must be a bigger idiot than I knew, one Luminus CFT-90 will be delivered here in 2 days.
What will I do with it? Remains to be seen…
But now we have the Acebeam K75 with a SBT-90 GEN2 a cheaper/better alternative to having to makeshift a light to fit the CFT-90.
A cheaper and better alternative? At $321 for that light? The SBT-90 is still $73 and the die size is huge by comparison.
I won’t reconfigure a light to fit the CFT-90, I’ll reconfigure the substrate of the CFT.
Or I may just build a light from scratch to work with the smaller die CFT…
I thought both CFT90 and SBT90 were 9mm2 die sizes and similar outputs.