dimbo it sounds like you need a hi cri as much as you need an even tint, have a look at illumination supplies stock, they list some 90cri xm-l2’s and xp-g2’s but they are bare and need flowing onto a board of choice. might be worth a look.
fwiw, I love my xintd x3 with xm-l2 6a1, maybe have a look at that emitter, I’m also keen on the xm-l2 5a1’s from intloutdoor now I’ve fit a few, their minimum 80cri with a nice cream tint.
sorry for the thread hijack racer86, carry on.
Ah you are right, mistyped, I meant T4 7C, not T5. Yes seeing in RL is better, not sure where to go do that though 
I don't think high CRI is the solution to avoiding any "rainbow" effect". The difference between hotspot/spill is still there.
When that is said, I think that several of the "3" tints are the worst when it comes to the effect. Because they give you a NW hotspot, but typically CW spill. This is just my personal opinion. I think the effect is clearly visible on all the typical emitters no matter CRI or tint. But for some reason I find it less disturbing when looking at most 4-8 tints.
Factors I believe helps getting rid of the "rainbow effect" as I like to name it (differenct colors between hotspot and spill).
-Pure flood, at similar intensity, the color seem to be similar.
-A beam with more smooth transition between flood/spill. Gradual change can be better than a sudden one.
-Several emitters, this seems to help a lot, even if they are all the same.
MT-G2 seem to have a more whiter beam (check Easywhite and Macadam). MT-G2 also have the beam style with the traits that helps XM-L2s getting rid of a colorful beam too (floody, and and sometimes a bit gradual transition between hotspot/corona/spill. On top of the beamshape, MT-G2 uses EasyWhite technology.
What is EasyWhite?
"The EasyWhite technology relies on mixing emitters with slightly different CCTs to consistently achieve narrower binning than LED manufacturers can deliver with individual emitters"
This is exaclty what Im doing with mixing various emitters with slightly different tints.
See the BBL (Black Body Lucus curve) in the picture above, Easywhite is closer to this. This is my goal with emitter mixing as well. This effect is already "built into the MT-G2" since it uses easy white technology, but by combining various different XM-L2s (or XP-G2s) on different sides of the BBL you kinda get the same effect it seems.
The advantage is also what I have said several times in this thread, you also get the possibilities to shape the beam more as you like depending on what tint or the amount of throw you like.
In true BLF spirit.. (just visit the LED database, and) buy a bit of everything... 0:)
Works for me.. :p lol..
I really don’t think you have to push this idea so hard. You had me — and a whole lot more of us I’d wager — “at ‘hello’”…
I especially like the way you combined color-design AND throw-modification.
Someone on here (gone to look) was building an awesome Automotive Light Bar which would also benefit from your idea…
As for me, I looked at Cree’s Spectral Distribution charts so long, my eyes crossed & superimposed them. The broadened Chromaticity curve haunts me still…
Not YOU, though! We all “own the night”, but you own the colors of the night!!
Dim
Some other lights... As you can see. The lights where I mixed emitters are pretty similar to the MT-G2 in terms of even colors.. Despite that 2 emitters are de-domed. :)
Its not a huge difference between 1 or 3x5B1, but in real life the 3x5B1 looks a bit more even in terms of colors (less "rainbow effect").
I’ve been trying to do something similar, but with light bulbs instead of individual LEDs. I find that I can get pretty good color rendition by mixing a couple cool white bulbs with a couple warm white bulbs in a single 4-bulb lamp. It may not be high-CRI exactly, but at least it’s wide-spectrum and makes a lot of different colors show up well.
It’d be nice if Cree sold bulbs which had a wide mixture of tints in a single bulb… like maybe… 1S, 4C, 6A, and 8D. Just repeat those over and over until the desired number of emitters is reached, and it’d make a nice wide-spectrum light.
That said, simply mixing their 2700K and 5000K bulbs seems to do a pretty good job. The combined output looks much nicer to me than either one alone. The combination also appears to show color better than my 4500K 92CRI Nichia 219 light, despite probably having a lower CRI.
Underexposed, on white paper, clockwise from top - 1A, 3D, 7A1:
The little XT-E can't keep up, but the light it puts out is nice (it makes an earlier version using 1A+2B+3D look like poo). I can't tell the pics of this thing from pics with MTG2 when the beam pattern isn't visible in the shot which is why I haven't posted any - I can't tell which is which. I now have a small pile of XPG2 7C4s to try in place of the XTE so the individual tints should be similar but with more output from the one at 2900-3000K.
Missed the post above.. (and I probably did not comment on some in another thread).
In general what is you view on tint mixing now comfychair?
I like it. I don't care much about the overall color temp, but what bugs me is when there's an obvious amount of some color other than white that's easily noticeable - blue, purple, green, yellow... These (specifically, that one combo above) doesn't have any stray colors in it anywhere, I guess the bad stuff in one LED cancels out bad stuff in the others.
I still haven't built another one with 1A+3D+7C4 yet. But I have a pretty good idea now what it will be like.
In XML2s I've always been a little annoyed by the 3C tint, not sure why, it just looks 'wrong' somehow. The 3B, though really not much different, seems much much nicer. That's what I used in the 'Securitying' SRK clone thing, it just looks like a whole lot of very bright light, the tint somehow just seems invisible. The 3C isn't.
I like the 1/3/7 tint mixing idea. I think I might like 1/4/8 better, though I’d have to see it to be able to really know. I think it would provide something like 38% 6500K light, 33% 4500K light, and 29% 2700K light… for an overall average around 4700K with a nice wide spectrum overall.
It wouldn’t be high-CRI, but in my experience my eyes prefer wide-spectrum over high-CRI. When I’ve mixed bulbs of 2700K and 6500K (or 2700K and 5000K), the result looked better to me than my Nichia 219 light (4500K 92CRI).
One advantage to this kind of set up is that 3 x XML - 3 x 18650 is more suitable to a nanjg with an input voltage mod than 1 x MT-G2 - 3 x 18650. Note I said input voltage not Zener. I like the way you guys are thinking. Anybody consider sending a light to Texaspyro to see if he can measure actual output wavelengths of these combinations?
I was initially rather tempted to do a triple S3 with Nichia 219 emitters, but apparently the output on that is a bit … lacking. Max output of ~500 lm, even with three emitters driven to max spec. Sigh. It would be an awful lot of extra mass for something not much better than a 1xAA light like L3 L10-219 or D25A-219.
However, 3 x XP-G2 with a wide range of tints… that could be fun.
It could probably burst up to 1400lm, and the output probably looks even better than a Nichia 219. I’m glad I didn’t go with my first thought; it would have been quite a missed opportunity.
Great idea RaceR86 to mix different tint led’s in the SRK or any multi-emitter light for that matter.
Great thread, Thanks RaceR86. I will try mixing some up in my Supfire M6 I have 3 de-domed t6’s stuck in there and its greenish, but it’s good for 400m of throw after resistor mod/coated lens. I tend to prefer nw on the rosie side like the 219 or xp-g2 4c,but I don’t want to give up much throw and get plenty of spill from the m6. So I’m thinking 2 5B1’s and a 2B all de-domed.
As long as you de-dome you always have the risk of getting greenish tint, its quite common. Based on what I have seen, I would say the the emitters that ends on A and D are better candidates for avoiding green tint. If you would like to avoid/minimize greenish tint, I would also suggest to keep one domed emitter that ends on A or D because these emitters should have less green/yellow in them.
Im not sure what type of temperature you want to end up with, but here are some examples for a NW with tint around 4500K or a bit higher. They also show how you can mix different emitters and end up with pretty much the temperature you desire.
2x XM-L2 U2 1A dedomed + XM-L2 T6 4D - should roughly give you around 4800K
2x XM-L2 U2 1D dedomed + XM-L2 T6 4D - should roughly give you around 4650K
2x XM-L2 T6 3A dedomed + XM-L2 U2 1D - should roughly give you around 4400K
I think the two first examples are better combinations to mix, or safer choices then the last one. Not because of temperature (which is a matter of taste), but simply because the tint of the two dedomed emitters are closer to the third emitter. The larger the tint spread is, the larger tint difference can be seen on the outer spill edge in a light like the SRK.
You might want to see post 29 for a more visual example.
I went with 2- 2C’s and 1- 4D on noctigon’s, I’ll chime in once I’m done. Thanks again.
Cool. Please share.
Personally I don't really recommend the 2C for de-doming. I have two single emitter and one tripe emitter throwers with it. Just built them and have not been able to use them much yet. First impression are that I prefer their temperature over the 1A, but I also found them to be a bit on the yellow side, considering that its a CW emitter. Im not sure sure they will de-dome that nicely. But with tint mixing there is hope for everything. Mixed with a 4D, they could become nice. Or use an even more rosy emitter like a 6A1 if you are not happy with the combo.
I’ll likely de-dome the 2c’s and leave the dome on the 4D.
FWIW, I’ve got parts sitting in front of me to make a mixed-tint Blackshadow Terminator. I just need to make time to put it together.
I think the default BST XM-L2 tint is a 2-something. It looks warmer than my 1A light and cooler than a 3C, and fairly close to a 2B. But I want to give it wide-spectrum output instead.
The emitters I’m using were chosen primarily because they were the widest spread I could get from RMM and/or IS:
I was hoping for 1/3/6/8 instead, but nobody carries 8* tints. And generally there isn’t much choice about specific shades in the 5*/6*/7* tints, so I went with what was easy to get.
The BST tends to have somewhat ringy beams thanks to its deep stainless steel bezels, so I added DC-Fix to the lenses to smooth out brightness and tint. With wide-spectrum output, I think it’ll be a great flooder… as soon as I get the emitters swapped.