I have some results.
First, the beam width that I described in my last is nonsense, I had not got it in the reflector correctly. The actual beam appears about 50% broader than a Q5 in a DX 18mm reflector such as I use.

Here are the pictures of some tests.

#1 Fenix TK11, very tight beam, incredibly good torch.

🔗Personal-Album-128-Image-46080[linkphoto]Personal-Album-128-Image-46080[/linkphoto][/link]

#2 Cree Q5 in 18mm reflector sch as I use in my lamps

🔗Personal-Album-128-Image-46081[linkphoto]Personal-Album-128-Image-46081[/linkphoto][/link]

#3 Cree MCE M BIN Quad die. The output current from a KD driver is a bit high at 3.1 amps, I may tweek this down a bit.

🔗Personal-Album-128-Image-46082[linkphoto]Personal-Album-128-Image-46082[/linkphoto][/link]

Note the slightly dark area in the centre of the MCE beam. This was using a DX 5 bore reflector, fitted to a 3 bore there was no shadow, beam about the same.

Visual impression is of a lot more forward illumination that a SSC P7 D BIN, although the total light produced could be slightly less. The MCE makes a better lamp, no doubt in my mind.

The shots all all straight off the camera, no messing with them except for turning upright, taken in part of my hall with shutter speed turned right down to darken the hall without the lamps.

The is a lot of food for thought here.

---

Good lord, that third one is bright! 😮

---

Not just me that goes through keyboards like that then :angel:

Wonderful definition of smithereen as well :thumbsup:

---

Thanks for your interest.
If you look at my right hand wall you will see the difference in spill between the different lamps.
Notice that the Fenix wastes nothing while the Roy lamp Q5 a little bit, but the quad a noticable amount.
The SSC P7 was worse, much worse.
I am very impressed with the clearly defined cut off, this did not exist with the P7.

I am looking forward to getting my lamp built with the MCE as a central emitter, I will bet now that it will be most impressive while catering for all tastes in output. But still want to build photo lamps with P7s.

EDIT
The dark centre spot will not be an issue with the lamp on full power as there will be 4 X Cree Qs as a beam in addition.

The quad on its own will still be OK as people will want to use this for large cave chambers.

---

The Cree R5 XPG

I am now looking at these, Kaidomain have them in stock both on 20mm bases suitable for the UniStar and 14mm bases suitable for the MagnumStar. I have just downloaded the data sheet from Cree, and here is my analysis.

Link:

http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampXP-G.pdf 


The Good News
As usual the Cree data sheets need careful studying to get your figures out but suggest 139 lumens at 350mA, the maximum at 1 amp is shown as 250%, so we have a figure of 347 lumens. So extrapolating this to the usual driver output of 1070 mA we have 371 lumens.
What they quote elsewhere is 132 lumens per watt, rather starting to sound like climate science.
The fall of as the temperature of the PN junction rises is about the same as a Q5, up to about 28% to the maximum of 150 degrees centigrade.

Another interesting thing is the forward voltage which suggests that maximum output at 1 amp has a forward voltage of about 3.3V compared to the Q5s 3.7V, the implication of this is that 2 could be run in series from X2 series arrays of Li Ions without loosing output until battery voltage drops to 6.6V, this figure is in the same ballpark as the quads. However, I can state as a fact that the Vf of the Q5 in practise is more like 4V or even more at 1 amp, so form your judgment.

The Bad News
As I suspected, the luminous intensity is much wider than the Q5 being seriously bad!
In fact it is worse than the quad die MCE

Look, these are the angles of luminous intensity measured as plus and minus either side of a vertical centre line.

R5 approximately 85 degrees
MCE Quad die 80 degrees
Q5 60 degrees

Being an open minded person I like to arrive at conclusions by experimentation to determine a result, (not tweak the experiment to produce a desired result), so I will be ordering one of these to try.
It will be necessary to do a direct comparison of an R5 with a Q5 in the same reflector with all other things equal.
The way it looks however, I would say that they are pointless, you would be better sticking MCE quads in your lamp, but I will not let this ‘prejudice’ influence my experiments.

[tweak]link fixed for you[/tweak]

---

I have just assembled the upgraded MagnumStar and tested it in my hall.

Initial testing shows a draw of 33.5 watts on full power, it is extremely unlikely that any attempt will be taken to increase the power. Even with my blue 8V 12 ampere hour battery this light level would only be sustainable for just over 3 hours.
It would go into nonsense territory.

Having said this I have produced a more useful lamp.

I have dumped the multimode driver on the single Cree, it just does full power at 1.07 amps to give about 240 to 250 lumens, and this is the first switch setting.

The second is the quad die MCE which has low, medium and high settings, the low should be sufficient for smaller spaces such as thrutchy caves where the caver’s don’t like beams. The pattern is not a true flood, but more of a wide beam and should have enough spill and spread to suit the cavers. This new design should suit all tastes.

The third power beam position puts all 4 of the Cree Q5s on at full power, it’s a good beam and I doubt that there will be much discernable difference from the 5, but there will be the advantage of reduced power consumption.

Turning the switch back anticlockwise will put the MCE on as well, this full power. I don’t expect people to use for lamp for long periods on this setting but its there for when you want it.

The lamp is a lot more user friendly, its fully anticlockwise off, and fully clockwise for power beam. The single Cree is a good beam for mining and the battery will do this for over 24 hours. No messy strobes or SOS or the seldom if ever used low. The medium setting on the single Cree can save some power but on this lamp is pointless.

I have also dumped the series arrays of Crees. I figured that when the battery voltage dropped below 8 volts it could not be capable of delivering full power. All the LEDs are now individually wired to their own drivers so basically the full power of the lamp is sustainable from fresh charge all the down to the point where the Li Ions start shutting down. In effect we have lost a little efficiency but extended the duration on all settings.

I have used the same camera settings as the previous pictures so a direct comparison is possible, it is interesting to compare it with the Fenix TK11.

🔗Personal-Album-128-Image-46218[linkphoto]Personal-Album-128-Image-46218[/linkphoto][/link]

---

You're meant to turn the hall light off to make it a fair comparison 😉

---

:lol:

---

This is going to be interesting, on Friday I am having a visit from a sales rep for Luminus and he will be bringing some SST-90 LED dies for me. I have touched on these before, Roy will have heard of them, basically the specs are:

1000 - 1200 lm at 3.2A Vf =3.1V, 100lm/W

They can be ramped up to 9A to give 2250lm Vf=3.6V, 70lm/W

Running at the lower input, I think that for a single die 100/w is very good output, but it does drop off for the higher drive - you can't have everything.

The bonus on this is that you can get away with one LED, but the driver will be more complex due to the current.

Will be interesting to see how they pan out.

---

That's an awful lot of lumens 😮

Found a datasheet on the emitter here http://www.luminus.com/stuff/contentmgr/files/0/49fb13dd1ecd06ba454cc7714a96b032/misc/pds_001342_rev_03_sst_90_w_product_datasheet_illumination.pdf  if anybody is interested in a read of it.

---

That's an awful lot of lumens 😮

In fact, its lumen madness :lol:

---

From 10 x 11 x 5.3mm that's quite bonkers.

Look forward to seeing what you make of them!

---

The issue with the cap lamps is the old one, right back where I started, HEAT.

I built one with 3 X D BIN SSC P7s, my system handles it, just!

It is obvious that there is a limit to everything, and however efficient my system at getting rid of the heat, the effectiveness has to relate to the heatsink area.

I was using my X3 P7 lamp as a photo lamp, we all know that, well tucked into corners and without any movement it did overheat a couple of times after about 10 minutes, and started shutting down.

I would therefore say that I am on the limits of this.

There is also the matter of the light output, how much is too much?

Some would say that I am way past that point now.

If there is a way forward, it has to relate to more efficiency from the emitters, in other words less heat.
And of course there is the matter of beam patterns and the minimum reflector size capable of producing a good beam pattern.
Read what I have said on this in reference to P7s, MCE, and new R5s which Cree have rolled out with a fanfare but produces a beam pattern (according to the data sheet) inferior to their MCE quad die, as is the SST-90 according to the data sheet.

Without having seen one these, I would say it’s probably the mother of all floods and could well compete with P7s depending on price, the attraction of course being the potential in a single emitter.

But back to the heat issue, there is a bit of chat on Candlepower Forums on these, someone put one in a Maglite and melted the solder so his LED fell off.

Having said all this, I look at all new developments with interest.

---

I must admit Roy, that the P7 I use in my flood has no optics and it works wonderfully for lighting my photos up, so I don't think the SST-90 angle is that much of an issue in terms of how I want to use it.

Will be interesting to see how it fairs.

Heat is the big thing as you say and in terms of heat v light output it is the single 1W emitters that fair best, but then you have multiple things to wire up etc... v one single mother of an emitter.

---

That's a fair beam in the last pic. 🙂

Thanks for your comment, I have tried to get the right balance between throw and spill on the full power setting.

Next, its photo lamps!
I already have an emitter and driver solution from the lamp experiments.

---

Hi gang

I have just been outside testing the new MagnumStar in the dark, because there is melting snow about it quite misty and one can discern the beam patterns.

At the risk of upsetting some people I have to say provisionally that the Cree quad die MCE M BIN totally buries any SSC P7 in a lamp. It is most certainly throwing a proper forward beam, albeit a very wide one. Light from a P7 goes just about everywhere, but is still my favourite for photography and will form the basis of my photo lamps.

Although I built it myself, I just have to say that this lamp totally rocks, you put everything on and it is unbelievable.

The interesting thing about the Cree MCE is that on even the low setting there is a useful forward beam and it only draws 0.1 amps which on my battery would give you over 5 days.

Subject to some serious kicking about I shall build some for sale, expected price will be £225 which is small change for the worlds most powerful cap lamp that actually looks it when you turn it on.
I struggle to anyone disagreeing with the above statement when they see the lamp.

As this lamp is now done and dusted, my final experimentation will be an intermediate model between this and the UniStar for about £150 or less, that would possibly beat the Viper and give a Scurion K serious competition.

I am looking to produce something without the forward extension using an MCE with a larger 30mm reflector together with a “walk mode” Cree Q5.
To do this I would like to stick with the parallel batteries so that it could be recharged of any old Oldham charger, but use a boost circuit for the MCE.
I shall try to develop a simple boost circuit working in conjunction with 8 X AMC 7135 chips to do this. If is doesn’t work out I will drop it and rest on my laurels.
I think I have done well as it is.
I basically need to get the voltage up by only about 1.5 V, so I need to design a simple boost circuit that will fit inside the headset.

I will get some picture of the Maggie up as soon as I can get underground, but may be housebound again this weekend. We shall see.

---

have you tried the new sst50 leds roy ?
They have similar efficiency / output to a p7 /MCE but are a single die so easier to turn to a spot.
http://www.luminus.com/content1518 
or
http://www.thrunite.com/ 
for a light with it in

have you tried the new sst50 leds roy ?
They have similar efficiency / output to a p7 /MCE but are a single die so easier to turn to a spot.
http://www.luminus.com/content1518 
or
http://www.thrunite.com/ 
for a light with it in

This afternoon I will be getting my hands on the SST90

---

have you tried the new sst50 leds roy ?
They have similar efficiency / output to a p7 /MCE but are a single die so easier to turn to a spot.
http://www.luminus.com/content1518 
or
http://www.thrunite.com/ 
for a light with it in

This afternoon I will be getting my hands on the SST90

Look forward to hearing what you make of it :thumbsup:

That Thrunite looks quite a nice torch as well.

---