Awesome!
Nichia looks on my crappy monitor more violet = blue and red, where as the XP-G2 4C more yellow-green and sort of ghostly.
In a way there is less clarity in all the XP-G2 shots and they seem to resemble as if somebody put a color filter over them, limited and steered the colors to one gradient of colors while leaving others limited/lowered.
Thanks again.
Nightcrawl,
I assembled my first 219 P60 with the Nanjg110 boost driver for use in a Match-mod 2AA Mini Mag, but now I use it in an L2M with lithium primaries, sometimes 1*18650 LiFePO4. It accepts 0.9-3.6V, but is well regulated with anything above 1.9V.
My 4*AMC/1*18650 219 drop-in, however, is not flicker free when the using momentary-on and clicking the switch. Treating the switch with CRC-2-26 alleviated some of that flickering, but the high Vf is the culprit; freshly charged 18650s perform fine.
Regarding the buck driver…even if Kumabear’s 900mAh 18350s are only 800mAh, an 85% efficient 1A buck driver will give well over an hour of regulated runtime if Vf at 1A is 3.48V and other resistances drop 0.12V at 1A. The driver draws less than 0.7A if Vbattery is 6V (nearly dead).
Yet, the above is made moot by Intl-Outdoor’s or Shiningbeam’s 1A buck-boost drivers (of which I just learned today). They would yield a looong runtime on a single 18650. The 219 produces 266L at 3.48W (max power @ 5.5W yields just 70 additional lumens).
Respectfully,
Drew
Thanks djozz, that sounds great!
Does the current drop alot when battery voltage goes down?
Nichia 219 render those colors much better or comfortable to view. I’ve driven it to 1amp and flood my bath room with ceiling bounce. Showering in warm lights are so nice.
Haven't done a test on that and I just topped up all my 14500's, I'll let you know soon.
(You do expect a certain current drop with this kind of boost driver, and I do not expect Trustfire's current regulation to be anything fancy).
Flickering is usually the result of bad contact in the switch, I have the same on my 6$ ebay lights I use to work and throw around.
If we need 3.6V @ 1A (Vf + losses), you would have a runtime of pretty much spot on 2 hours on an Intl Outdoor 2600mAh protected cell. Even more on unprotected..
These new buck/boost drivers are great for 4.35V cells or the Panasonic NCR line, but for regular LiIon cells and a 1A driver current.. you can also go with AMC based drivers. I think I even saw an AMC-based driver with a boost coil somewhere, thats also a nice idea.
If someone could build a 1.5A boost/buck driver.. or even better a 3A one.. or even cram three of the 1A chips together to make a 3A buck-boost driver, that would be really useful. ;)
The answer is simple; If you are interested in exploring tint quality, you need to have at least one Nichia 219 High CRI light. It is the reference and the spoiler. The pictures only give a vague clue. (more about cameras and monitors than LED tint)
You don’t use them for a mega thrower to light a spot in the next county, but they are great for closer in and interior. I run them .35-1A range, no boost for li-ion required. It’s very ‘comfortable’ light that becomes more important the longer it is on. It is the only one of the bunch I use for permanent interior lighting and long term power outage.
I have handled, cleaned. mounted and soldered almost a dozen and never had a problem with any dome damage. I recall reading that somewhere; perhaps they were overheated.
The wall shots agree with a tint measurement I made on a Nichia 219 from IS in an Akoray 106 at 1.4A. The result was 4225 K and the tint was on the border between tint 5A1 and 5R (rather magenta-ish).
All my Nichia are from IS, and are all very close to the same tint. They all have a slight magenta cast. The XPG2 3D has a bit more magenta.(XPG2 was mounted from IS)
Bugaboo here also is color separation; the tint straight out the top is different than the tint out to the edge of these dome emitters. This leaves the secondary optics to mix and/or separate these colors in the beam to spill. Some reflectors make a white spot, yellow corona, magenta spill. A bare emitter will show the color separation easy, XM-L has the most due to the larger die. (Too much for a mule light.) ‘DC fix’ diffuser will mix the colors almost to a uniform tint. OP reflectors tend to help the color separation problem too.
A different reflector can make the same emitter appear a different tint.
All mine are that tint as well, exept one, that one does not have the magenta tint but is almost white but slightly greenish, it is doing the high CRI trick just as well as the others. For me it is the nicest of the bunch.
I don't understand the complaint about voltage. It's in the same range as XPE/XRE and people don't really complain about those. Besides, since most of these are being run on AMC drivers, the excess voltage gets burned off anyway so having a lower Vf doesn't really do much for you.
Also, I haven't found 219 to be especially fragile either. I've dropped one dome first on a reflow pan by accident and it was fine. I've cleaned the dome with cotton swabs and it was fine. I don't know if they are as tough as XPE/XPG - I've downright abused some of those with no ill effects - but I wouldn't say that 219 are especially fragile.
While I agree that they are not too fragile, the Vf is rather high. 3.7V @ 1.5A whereas the XPG is somewhere about 3.3V for that. So you get less time with maximum output.
Do people really burn these things at 1.5A for more than a few minutes at a time?
On longer burns, I mostly use it on medium which is around 500mA, and at that current, the higher Vf doesn't seem to matter. By the time I see any noticeable dimming, the low voltage protection on the driver kicks in just a couple minutes later.
I have a question. Has the 3.7A @ 1.5A figure been independently verified by anyone? Or is it just a figure taken from the datasheet?
If I found a matching driver I would drive 3 of them at 1.5A each. O.o
I dont know where you live.. but where I live its like that: if I need light, 100lm wont get me anywhere. :D
But honestly.. its not always a need.. its a want. When I'm outside with my lights, I usually use them on max unless the moon is pretty.
Its taken from here:
Thanks for the link.
Regarding my other question, I wasn't asking whether people need 1.5A/300+ lumens for extended periods in general, because obviously a lot of people indeed have such a need. But I was asking specifically whether people burn the Nichia at 1.5A for extended periods. It just seems to me that the Nichia really isn't suited for that purpose, and that people who need a high-output/long-run LED may be barking up the wrong tree.
People would, if it would. ;) And it is built for that actually. At just 1.5A you are having an easy game of keeping it cool. No problem there. But it will usually drop below that after <30min.
I think the intended industrial application for these things was to be run at 350 to 700 mA for hours/days/years at a time. But I really doubt that it was intended to be run at 1.5A for that long.
My first beamshot.
This was taken with a Samsung point and shoot camera.
Left: OL Mini-Mag with Nichia 219
Right: OL Mini-Mag with XP-G2
Actually Nichia rates it at 1.5A max. Just like Cree rates the XPG. 350mA is just typical and they use it because the LEDs are very efficient at that drive level.
And if you look at the measurements over at CPF you will see that the stated CRI of 92 is achieved from 1.4A upwards.
750-1000mA with XM-L T6 is usable for me indoors.
From DS: Around 3.0V/1A, ~380lm.
From DS: XP-G2 R5, 2.95V/1A, ~330lm.
From DS: Nichia 219 B10, 3.5V/1A, ~210lm.
@3.8V/1.5A it’s ~290lm.
An idea, with a single 4.2V Lion, switch the output (PVM) when the voltage/amps is too high for the Nichia, when it gets fine just direct drive it. = high mode. Other modes just PVM it. Though with a fresh cell the Nichia might get a little abuse 0:)
Sure buck boost would be nice but there are none (1.5A) and none are compact (low profile).
A nichia tripple looks nice, but on the other hand I start thinking about XM-L triple.
Since it’s a triple I could use warm, neutral and cold emitter at once, control each separately to adjust output tint. Since cool will over power the warm.
Anybody ever made a balanced XM-L triple? Or is everybody just putting in 3 XM-Ls of the same tint?