Craig at Illumination Supply ordered a bunch of Nichia 219 LED's. These are very similar to Cree XP-G's in size and performance. He has a pre-order for them going on now, to be ready to ship in a couple of weeks. Although they have a CRI value of 85-92, the tint is in the 4500 degree range, which is equivalent to a Cree 4A-4D tint, more neutral than warm. He also got the best brightness bin which is about equal to a Cree R2. I ordered a couple on 10mm boards to put into a light or a drop-in, just to play around with. $6.50 each and $2 shipping less a 10% pre-order discount (read the CPFMP post). He has some other neat stuff at his site as well.
These might be of interest to tint snobs (maybe, Nichia doesn't bin as tightly as Cree, so the exact tint of these isn't known yet) and people who just want to see what else is out there. They are nowhere close to XM-L's.
I once had a Lumens Factory dropin from him, and I can say the service was excellent. I also had a couple of HiCRI Nichia LEDs from ledrise but I wish Craig had them then. My LEDs couldn’t arrive in more than a month.
I can make P-60 drop ins with these if anyone is interested PM me the details of what you want. It's going to have to be the 10mm star ones. I am not filing down the 20mm ones to fit to much risk involved. They should be right around $28 with a custom 1, 3 or 5 mode no flashing program or you could pay $70 and get the Malkoff drop in with no mode options.
Ordered a couple of 219s today from Craig after seeing the beamshots of these emitters versus the others on CPF. CPF is dead for the moment and I can’t give a link but search for the Nichia shots there. These emitters are really natural and High CRI at the same time.
There were 20mm and 10mm stars available. Since I have only smaller P60 lights mostly, took the 10mm one.
After un-packaging, realized that soldering tabs are A Bit Close to the emitter. If used in a regular P60 reflector, solder blobs will "leave or lift" the reflector further from the emitter star.
What would you Mr. Pro do?
Just solder it and leave it as it is or what?
Try to de-solder bare emitter, then re-flow it to bigger star??
When you tin the wire ends, try to have it flattened instead of round (assuming stranded wire is used). Pre-tin the solder pads on the star as well. Then, with some flux on the solder pads, use a “dry” iron to solder the flattened wire onto the star. This will keep the contact as flush to the star as possible.
I just ordered two of these on 10mm stars, from IS. I'm going to make two more of the Solitaire 2AA mags and use these in them. I am going to try solid copper wire, so I can flatten it and shape it better and see how that goes with clearances.
