so... where do you even BUY lattice bright LEDs if you wanted to?

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

with the recent talk about LB emitters? then with the TESTS where they were clearly not CREE standards, but… “reasonable”…

i got to thinking, this is BUDGET light forum. Surely there are situations where i might want to have a budget LED thats close to a cree, but, if its significantly cheaper it might be good.

all i could come up with? I have been TOYING with the idea of MAYBE attempting to make a work floodlight, that would run on 110. I already have some aluminum plate on hand, lets say i wanted “a bunch” of half decent emitters to run in “multiple mule” setup.

on a whim? i googled around… you know i cant FIND LB emitters for sale anywhere. I was curious if i could get ten or 20 of them for a buck a piece or something, i dont know, i was just checking around.

the other idea? was basically a budget off road light… 12v driver for my friends quad, piece of aluminum bar, and as many LB XML’s as i could reasonably put on the thing for “brute force” lights…

there COULD be situations where 10 or 10 lattice bright emitters might be the right thing in a budget way, But, i would expect a significant discount off of real CREE emitters, i aint cutting costs 10 cents an emitter I expect them much cheaper before i would think about trying them in a budget project where the number of emitter made it cost prohibitive to “play”

what do they COST and where do you BUY then? why cant i google them up for sale?

is it an industry secret, kinda like a “drug deal” made in a dark parking lot for shady flashlight manufacturers? lol…

2

Even if you could buy them, why would you help support Cree counterfeiters? :expressionless:

Have you searched mouser.com for inexpensive high output leds?

Yes. Because they are, counterfeit. Designed to look exactly the same a Cree. Cree does try to go after counterfeiters but when they operate out of china it is difficult to shut them down. The chinese government has no interest in discouraging counterfeiting.

3

You could probably buy a boat load of old cree XML emitters from a modder for cheap.

As stated above, please don’t support counterfeit LEDs.

4

I’ve had a couple of cheap budget lights that came with LatticeBrites. Honestly they’re trash. I literally wouldn’t take them if they were free. Yes they may physically resemble Cree emitters when you look at them, but turn them on and its not even close. They’re just pure angry blue tint with terrible discolorations and poor overall output. When Cree emitters can be had for what, 4-5 bucks (and the fantastic Nichia 219c’s are even less), how much would you really be saving anyway?

5

Humm. Theres “some elements” of this situation which are not completely criminal.

Right off the bat? Theres “CREE”, then theres “everything else”. CREE is the premium brand. The headliner. I am also sure CREE knows it makes more of a profit, being to many people “the only emitter out there”, I have non-flashaholic friends? They think “CREE” is a flashlight company, or, if they know its an emitter inside? They think a “CREE” is the name for all emitters.

Up until now? CREE was my only “real” choice in an emitter, and, the china-tastic emitters in the ultra budget lights i ever got? Were almost unusable. Th3e only other emitter i ever bought and used a lot, was the OSLON infrared, and thats probably just because CREE doesnt get into the IR market, OSLON has that cornered for my application right now.

but… BOY does Oslon know how to CHARGE for that best IR emitter, let me tell you. I cant afford a REEL, and by the time it goes thru a few suppliers and hands i get to buy a few? Its ridiculous… i am spending more on ONE emitter from OSLON than i would spend for a half decent visible whole flashlight with a cree emitter. But, like MAGIC? when oslon came out with the NEW and IMPROVED emitter? like a magic wand was waved, the last years model emitter suddenly costs a couple bucks a piece and they start showing up in chinese IR lights.

OSLON has no real COMPETITION

CREE has competition, but… they had such a huge share of the market? You get to wondering they arent just charging as much as they can get away with… hey, its a business. I respect that… but? i also respect competition. COMPETITION will keep prices down, if you can get ALMOST as good for half the price.

we wouldnt even be HAVING this conversation? except for the fact that shady flashlight manufacturers like getting the lattice brights and SCAMMING everyone.

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all. Lots of motorcycle companies make “obviously their version of harley cruisers” at a fraction of the COST… its CLEAR who they intend to buy their product… anyone who cant afford a real HARLEY DAVIDSON is interested in the other brand.

if you are going to set up a “budget emitter” company, what product are you GONNA try to make almost as good for significantly cheaper, to try to provide a bargain? CREE, obviously.

the ONLY thing i find shady or underhanded about it? is the fact they take great pains to imitate the LOOK of the cree emitter… and quite frankly the chinese flashlight factories? are demanding it of them. Its the flashlight companies that are greedy and criminal, at least more so than the lattice bright company. Looking back on it? The Lattice bright company was putting its LB logo on its factory aluminum stars, its the flashlight manufacturers who were lying.

if you wanted to make a TRUCK company and wanted to try to offer people a BARGAIN, you would imitate a FORD PICKUP as close as you could get away with… who ELSE was LB company going to go after? CREE is the industry leader.

this is some measure of COMPETITION for the CREE company… they have to finally watch how much they charge for their product, lest they push the same product too long, and the lattice bright factory can some too close to the ability of it. This is heavy pressure to keep CREE coming out with newer emitters, with a lot of emphasis on “raising the bar” on every new product they put out.

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if i want to put 20 emitters on a flood light, or a light bar?

MTN electronics sells XML2 on noctigon for almost 7 dollars a piece… under 5 dollars if i can live with aluminum PCB for my project…

i know i can get a WHOLE LIGHT with a lattice bright emitter on a crappy host for 7 dollars on EBAY…

thats 140 dollars for the real deal on noctigons… thats 100 dollars for the real deal on aluminum stars…

but? what if its 20 or 40 dollars for 20 “LB” xml2 emitters on aluminum pads…? for a budget floodlight or light bar project? thats significant. Tests have shown if you dont drive the snot out of them, they are “reasonable”.

tint and overdriving capability seem to be the only places CREE real product make a big noticeable gain that you otherwise have to know how to measure it like a bean counter.

we buy BUDGET flashlights, because we dont want to spend hundreds of dollars on a everyday who-cares flashlight. We like a BARGAIN. SO? we buy chinese flashlights. If we pick and choose wisely, we can get “almost” as good, for a huge discount in price.

Lattice bright, other than the “looks like a clone” aspect of it? is probably a heck of a bargain… i can buy a whole LIGHT cheaper with free shipping than i can buy ONE emitter for.

Now, i grant you, it doesnt make alot of sense to skimp on the LB emitter in a single flashlight… why save 2 bucks when i can have the cadillac emitter? but… for a project using 10 or 20 emitters, and its just essentially a big “mule” light? it really starts to make sense, when ijust want cheap light, and dont care about tint or top level heat performance.

6

everything we are buying is counterfeit in some way. the x6 is a copy of a 4sevens light

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i mean… when a chinese flashlight company comes out with a CHEAP CLONE thats almost as good as the real thing? we rave about it, and we like the BUDGET product here… we think its WONDERFUL that theres competition out there…

this is the budget product clone, thats ALMOST as good for general use.

we’re happy with the chinese flashlight companies, and we are getting ready to string the chinese emitter company up by its toes? the philosophy isnt making sense.

our only COMPLAINT thats philosophically legitimate? is that the chinese flashlight manufacturers are trying to scam everyone and raise profits.

8

emarkd… thats my point…

i dont KNOW what i can get LB for… i might be able to get cheap “mule” emitters for a floodlight or light bar project, for a dollar each instead of 4 or 5 dollars.

you will notice? you can buy a whole LIGHT on ebay cheaper than you can buy ONE emitter… the cost savings might be HUGE…

i cant find a price or a supplier anywhere by googling… they might be practically giving these things away, who knows? Products like “epileds” go for pennies a piece.

9

I do wish Lattice Bright tried to be a serious and reliable budget LED provider. I would like to see some design experiments with multiple cheap emitters, something like the Sunwayman C22C with its dual 90-degree facing LED emitters. I want to see some dirt cheap neutral and warm tinted flashlights, especially zoomie neutrals and warms. I wouldn’t care if these hypothetical good Lattice Bright LEDs weren’t as bright as Cree LEDs, because LEDs nowadays are already bright ENOUGH for me. Too bad I keep hearing bad things about Lattice Bright.

10

Why ? You’ll get 1/4 the quality for ( guesstimating ) 1/2 the price.
False economy.
Assuming this thread is a legit, and not a marketing push

http://www.latticebright.com/En/cpzs/index.html

Don’t do it ! You will be supporting the enemy.

11

heck… they have a LOT of stuff. Imitations of CREE are only a part of it. They actually have a lot of stuff.

some of it? even looks… “interesting” to play with… like this one…

http://www.latticebright.com/En/hpxl1/2016-01/20/NewsView-269.html

1080 lumens at 1400ma… but rated for up to 3000 ma… if the PRICE was right? it would be worth playing with one.

they have a LOT of different emitters. colored stuff, stage lighting, IR and UV…

=

I’m not a shill… i’m just curious. SOmeone here tested the “xml2” clones, and found they were not as good as the real CREE, no surprise there? but… the amazing thing was that the CREE emitters didnt blow them out of the water, they just edged them out consistently.

its not seeming like its “1/4 th as good” it looks to be more like… 80 or 90 percent. now, if the price was a fraction of it? half or less? one of these might be fun to play with, if only to make a gigantic “mule” light.

if all i want to do is “all flood, mule” light making? i dont want a 20 dollar emitter to do it… i’d rather spend 20 dollars on TWO emitter that each do 80% of the same thing.

I’m just CURIOUS is all… if the flashlight companies were HONEST and said they used LB when the actually DID, instead of lying and saying its CREE when its not, its LB ? we wouldnt even “hate” these things, we would just say “oh, if you wanna SKIMP on an emitter, these arent too terrible…”

if i DO buy one to play with it to make a worklight? just to be curious? i am no more of a traitor to CREE than a person who elects to buy a NICHIA LED and put it in something… as long as i dont PRETEND its a CREE? i have a clear conscience.

12

It just seems to me there is little point.
As for 1/4 of the quality - I stand by that. I didn’t say 1/4 performance.
I could spend less on {insert common everyday item} and it may perform 80%90% as good as a top brand but there is a reason they are cheaper……. reliability and workmanship are subpar.

Longevity is unknown, the tints are horrible and they look somewhat unrefined.

13

Inexpensive ≠ Cheap

I don’t think there is a need for a forum if one were to talk about super cheap low quality lights with counterfeit LEDs…

14

OK i have received about 30 lights with LB leds in them. This includes multiple with more then 1 LED.
Say that I have 50 LB emitters.
Some of them are having a really nice tint.
Maukka did test 1 of them

I have two identical of those that came in the same light.

Interestingly, this lght was not all that cheap, about $20,-

The a SK68 clone, bought 2 from same seller, 1 emits ugly blue, the other real nice warm white, these were dirt cheap.

All my SRKs came with LB, 1 of them with 3 emitters has a nice color, the rest blueish

To recap:
50 emitters
3 with an excellent tint
3 with a good tint.

The 2 are interesting, since that light was not so cheap, and they both have the same tint is almost seems like LB is capable of making same type of leds, and not just bad leds wth a chance of roughly 10% in geting a nice tint.

I would like to see them be proud, make better ones and the producers of the light that use them just be honest and stop printing CREE on the side and adding CREE to the specs.

Things are changing, long ago the USA was known for blatant and cbad quality copies, most of us remember Japan as a cheap copy machine, now it is China,
Made in the USA now means quality, made in Japan also.
And I bet n our lifetime we will see the rise of a new cheap copy country (maybe India or even an Afrian country) and China becoming more and more real quality.

And back ontopic, if I would see a flashlight for sale with interesting looks and could choose between Cree xml cold white or LB neutral white I would go for LB.
If only manufacterer would be honest about using them I see little to no problems they do. Maybe if they are being advertised with LB start to be proud and feels the need to atually up the prcess and produce better quality.

On a sidenote, we are aware of changes and that is why we probably are going to choose LEDs with the 3535 footprint for out Q8 project (link in my sig) because it is very popular and who knows what candy will come out in a year, from other brands then just Cree.

15

LB could become a major player in the game if they wanted to. They obviously have the manufacturing capacity. When you look back at some of the most highly respected Japanese manufacturers you will see they started by making ‘clones’, then once they were established they began making their own improved products. Whether this comes to pass with LB is yet to be seen. The issue of fakes is complicated so where do you put the blame? Every manufacturer would love to reduce manufacturing costs- that is a standard business principle we all agree with.And somebody is always going to supply cheaper components to help them do that. Then the average consumer will buy on price which also eeps the system rolling along. So I blame nobody or everybody, not just one part of the problem. And I have to wonder what we’d e saying if LB produced LED’s which gave 95% of what a Cree does at half the price? Would we still be complaining or would we then support LB as a viable budget emitter option?

I’m willing to pay a little more to get quality products and I don’t directly support thieves, which counterfeiting essentially is doing. When LB starts doing it’s own thing then I might be interested, but not until then. It’s a personal decision for me, and in that I don’t have the right to judge how others deal with it so YMMV.

Phil

16

LOL, that's like saying there is no need for BLF. Most of the "budget" lights out there are clones from some type of original light. Clone of a clone, of a clone. A lot of the lights we buy, even in group buys, are clones or take-offs of high priced lights. BLF promotes cloning, by always wanting the "lowest price" on a light, or in a GB, so we are at partially fault for some of the clones out there.

I think as long as there is a BLF, there will be counterfeit leds, lights, drivers, etc.

17

i spent 10 more minutes clicking and looking? using the “proper names” for the LB product line based on that big commercial website link someone posted? STILL cant find a single LB emitter for sale anywhere.

maybe they only bulk sale to mainly factories, i dont know. I thought that “50” LED looked interesting to play with as a “mule” work light…

18

I can’t read any of it but how about contacting them here for small orders? http://latticebright.1688.com/