Move over JLC! I got my own crees!

A

Arturius

Member
Location
Toronto, ON
Hey all,

So for those that don't know, one of the biggest group buys in iS history (arguably) fell through terribly. Find it here if you're not in the loop, ///12967.

Once all the dust settled and I came to the realization that this GB was an utter fail, I decided to take it upon myself to do my own R&D and get some proper crees for us.

I poked a few contacts I have in Shenzhen, China from a previous gig I had - they directed me to some other people who said they can help me out. This was 3 weeks ago.

Since then, I've been going back and forth with them not only explaining where our crees went wrong, but how to make them better. It helped a lot as these folks were already experienced in manufacturing the 2nd gen crees.

So I got them to whip me up a small batch (3 pairs) under a few conditions. Each pair would have to be tested for 48 hours constant-on and 2 hours of 5-sec on 5-sec off. I should be provided with webcam videos of this happening. The heat shields should be coated in a heat-dissipating paint/finish and we should have options for both a spot lens and a wide-angle lens.


Let me tell you how shocked I was when they agreed to all of this.

So, the bulbs came in today, and they also decided to throw in another type of bulb - sort of like a tower bulb on steriods, this thing looks mean - it also feels like it weighs enough to inflict damage if thrown at someone. It's a 4 x 1.5v and the crees are 3v (I think the JLC's were a 5V design but the folks in China said that these 3V are engineered to outperform those, while reducing heat).

So the pics are below, I'm going to throw these on tonight and see where it goes from there. If in a weeks time they're still alive - maybe I'll run a GB (and I'll be able to get a comparable or cheaper price than JLC guaranteed)

Cross your fingers for me everyone.

cree1.JPG


cree2.JPG


cree3.JPG


tower1.JPG


tower2.JPG
 
you are a pimp -- that is all.

Will these be tested in an enclosed housing too, to try to duplicate the extra heat in headlights?

Either way, great job and effort. Those just look cool, even without them on.
 
Chedman13 said:
you are a pimp -- that is all.

Will these be tested in an enclosed housing too, to try to duplicate the extra heat in headlights?

Either way, great job and effort. Those just look cool, even without them on.
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Already ahead of ya brother.

Believe it or not, they tested them in an empty water bottle! Thing didn't even melt after 48 hours.

But it was a thicker kind, not those 100% recycled material ones.
 
Nice initiative Arturius! I lost all hope on the Crees. Hopefully that heat dissipating finish will help. I'm just a bit skeptical, but hopeful. I think there is not enough ventilation in the housing for heat to dissipate. Unless we modify the actual housing and drill holes or some sort of release. Hmmmm....paging Handy Andy. :smile:
 
Does the second bulb have side output too or is it just me? It would be really cool if they add some leds on the sides to reflect in the housing. One of my main complaints is that the light output on crees is only straight ahead, it has no chance to reflect in our housings
 
sir21 said:
Does the second bulb have side output too or is it just me? It would be really cool if they add some leds on the sides to reflect in the housing. One of my main complaints is that the light output on crees is only straight ahead, it has no chance to reflect in our housings
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Yup, the second bulb is made up of 4 sections. 1 pointing forward, and 3 on the sides. But it's not a cree lens - just a regular tower bulb with a heavy duty metal housing. Should look nice nonetheless. I've ran the 20-smt tower leds before and those reflected like crazy. But they're nowhere near the build quality of these.
 
Good job on sourcing the new bulb. Like Aero said, a bit skeptical using cree bulbs there due to the heat. Even though it came with heat dissipating paint, there is no where for the heat to escape.
 
First off, thanks for all the kind words guys. I really decided to do this for iS more than anything. I had led bulbs in my dtrls already that I was fairly content with. But the JLC fiasco just got me worked up - had to do something proactive. It's almost an experiment - can the average Joe source/manufacture and deliver a product of a better quality and cheaper price than a company that specializes it said product? If I were still in university, this would make a great case study for globalization and the reduction of the worlds borders. aaaaaanyways

So, day 1 results:

1. CREES
Can't test the crees yet (I have my angel eye inverters mounted the side of the projector housing which is blocking clearance to my dtrls and the crees are literally maybe 1mm less in diameter than the actual socket. I can test-fit them in the hole no problem, but once I plug it into the socket, it becomes to long to maneuver around my ccfl inverter (or whatever it's called). I'll unscrew the inverters in the coming days and get them babies in. I did plug em in however just to see the output and it was pretty blinding.

2. TOWERS
I was able to get the towers in no problem. Boy are they bright! One thing I should mention is the first tower bulb I tried blew my dtrl fuse. Replaced the fuse, threw in a diff. one and all was fine. Don't know if it was the bulb or not but didn't want to risk it.

Pics of the tower bulbs below. I'll leave them in for the weekend - while examining daily for flickering/melting or anything else that I don't want to see. If all's good by then, I'll yank off my ccfl inverters and throw the crees in.

P.S. - the iphone camera shows them as a little brighter than they actually are. I'll get some pics snapped with a real camera this weekend. or video.

tower3.JPG


tower4.JPG


---------- Post added at 09:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:57 AM ----------

I'll also get some pics of light output on a wall - looks pretty cool.
 
Wow, wow.... these LED towers output some mighty bright light. Awesome. Color looks good too. Are your headlight 6000K?
 
Nice, work I'm not running any bulbs right now, just using my angel eyes. I would like to know how bright are these on a Kelvin scale close to 6000K?
 
la_fx35 said:
Wow, wow.... these LED towers output some mighty bright light. Awesome. Color looks good too. Are your headlight 6000K?
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Ya they're pretty bright. My projectors are off in that pic, it's just the light from the towers reflecting on them. I have the oems though but know exactly what 6000k looks like. I would say these towers emit as close to 6000k as you could probably want out of an LED.
 
Oh, that's right they're off. The color from LED towers looks good. They should be a good match for 6000K heads. I'll be waiting for the GB post. Good work!
 
la_fx35 said:
Oh, that's right they're off. The color from LED towers looks good. They should be a good match for 6000K heads. I'll be waiting for the GB post. Good work!
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GB will only happen if these things actually work. I'm not a store so if I set up a GB through the contacts I made and some of them end up breaking, I can't exactly provide a refund and I don't know what I'll be able to work out with the guys in china. You guys have all seen how hard it is for you to get your money back from someone who's in the states.. anyways, 1 step at a time for now. Let's make sure these babies work. I already have 1 blown fuse as a result of these towers - would really like to know what happened but am electrically stupid.
 
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