List of High Power LED lights & manufacturers - Luxeon, Cree etc



Jemsquash said:
Has anyone ever heard of ayup lights?

http://www.ayup.com.au/

I don't like there website much. Flashy and all but difficult to navigate & find your way around. Maybe I'm just a ludite.

Prices seem really good but no dimmable option. I don't know if one is needed though with 6 hours runtime.

Ayup say they are using Luxeon III leds. Woopee!!!!!!!!!

Luxeon III are old technology and only put out 80 lumens @1000ma.
A Cree XR-E Q2bin puts out 93 lumens @350ma and is supposed to put out 200 lumens @ 1000ma. The Seoul P-4's have an output of up to 240 lumens @ 1000ma.
The only bike lights being manufactured at the moment that I know of that is using the Seoul P4 LED's is http://www.nightlightning.co.nz/endurenz details.htm
Their batteries are ridiculously expensive though. Get them from either www.masterinstruments.com.au or www.batteryspace.com.au
If you aren't confident in swapping the connectors over, I'm sure you would have a mate that can wield a soldering iron.

Cheers

Geoff
 
geoffs said:
Ayup say they are using Luxeon III leds. Woopee!!!!!!!!!

Luxeon III are old technology and only put out 80 lumens @1000ma.
A Cree XR-E Q2bin puts out 93 lumens @350ma and is supposed to put out 200 lumens @ 1000ma. The Seoul P-4's have an output of up to 240 lumens @ 1000ma.
The only bike lights being manufactured at the moment that I know of that is using the Seoul P4 LED's is http://www.nightlightning.co.nz/endurenz%20details.htm
Their batteries are ridiculously expensive though. Get them from either www.masterinstruments.com.au or www.batteryspace.com.au
If you aren't confident in swapping the connectors over, I'm sure you would have a mate that can wield a soldering iron.

Cheers

Geoff
Thanks Geoff. That is useful information, I wasn't aware that the Seoul was more efficient than the Cree. nightlightning look like they make good lights and are not scared of putting full specs on their website.
 
Jemsquash said:
Has anyone ever heard of ayup lights?
http://www.ayup.com.au/ <snip>
Prices seem really good but no dimmable option. I don't know if one is needed though with 6 hours runtime.
I use a set of these for commuting - they're more than bright enough for that purpose. I've also tried a single set (as opposed to their standard two sets for MTB riding) on a half moonlit trail, with no problems in visibility.

They're good value compared to other complete lightsets out there (the road kit is 240-ish, delivered incl GST).

While Luxeon III is old news, the Ayups are equivalent to many retail systems out there (Knog and the Cateye doubleshot to name but two) - although the electronics are a bit more straightforward, that doesn't bother me at all. For flashers, I use knog frogs in addition to the AyUps as the main headlight.

I was tossing up various light systems a while ago, and the thing that swayed my decision in favour of these was:

1) Value for money - it's at least 60% cheaper than the cheapest legitimatley imported HID system I could find (Brightstar Levin).

2) Solid state reliability vs. relative fragility of HID

3) Long term durability - LEDs have a stated life of 100,000h. Even if they achieve only half of that, 50,000h is 91 YEARS of riding for 1.5 hours every night. HID, OTOH, will survive for about 500-1000h. At the same riding frequncy, expect to replace bulbs every 1-1.5 years.

4) HID is looking to be old news in the very near future, and I didn't want to have to replace expensive bulbs that would get harder to find.

5) LEDS are more power efficient - which means you can use a smaller, and lighter battery.

6) AyUps are locally made.

In short: If you're electronically minded and have the time, building your own lightset from parts is a really good cost-effective option, as GeoffS has alluded to.

If you're not, or time poor (like I am), than these IMHO, are a very good value for money alternative.

If you really want HID + brightness in a pre-made LED setup, then consider the new NightLightning headlight - I think its UGLY as, but they do claim 600+ lumens.

Cheers,

n
 
i would not trust either the lumen output figures or life if you paid me. duboius manufacturers can get a higher lumen output by over running the LED's although life suffers. Conversely, they can under run them and get a longer life.
The Luxeon Star had some outrageous figures when it was first released but it only lasted for 8 min before cooking itself to death.

The one you really need to look at is the lumen depreciation curve. It's no use having a lamp which gives 100 lumen when new but it has dropped to 50% after 100 hours when it'sd rated life is 50,000 hrs!

Also, you need to know if the lumen output is lamp lumens or from the actual lumenaire. (in lighting the lamp is the source, be it globe, LED module, fluorescent tube or whatever.) The actual luminaire, (light fitting) may put out considerably less.
 
Hillman 531 said:
i would not trust either the lumen output figures or life if you paid me. duboius manufacturers can get a higher lumen output by over running the LED's although life suffers. Conversely, they can under run them and get a longer life.
The Luxeon Star had some outrageous figures when it was first released but it only lasted for 8 min before cooking itself to death.

The one you really need to look at is the lumen depreciation curve. It's no use having a lamp which gives 100 lumen when new but it has dropped to 50% after 100 hours when it'sd rated life is 50,000 hrs!

Also, you need to know if the lumen output is lamp lumens or from the actual lumenaire. (in lighting the lamp is the source, be it globe, LED module, fluorescent tube or whatever.) The actual luminaire, (light fitting) may put out considerably less.

I see what you are saying, but as far as I can tell the main contenders are the newer Luxeon K2(maybe not even this), Seoul P4, and the Cree XRE for DIY and maybe the Luxeon Rebel at some stage once someone has created pcbs together with lenses. Time will tell for the Rebel. As far as I can tell from forums the Seoul P4 is the most efficient, and are significantly more efficient than the older Luxeons. Not that this is an issue, its just progress.

I however want to get something significantlly better than what I've got, either in efficiency or brightness. Preferably both. My light is after all over a year old.

Manufacturers often seem reluctant to give out information on which LEDs they are using, which I find a bit frustrating. I guess it comes down to comparison reviews like the one posted on gearreview and like mtbr.com. The mtbr comparison review is getting a bit outdated now, and their general reviews are painfull since there is no indication of when the lights were released.

Oh well, enough of my ramblings. I'm off to bed.
 
you will find that most of the good LED's come out of the same few factories and manufactrers fit their own boards to them for different applications.

from my experience the most trusted ones are Lumileds (Luxeon, owned by Philips) TridonicATCO, essentially the bigger names in lighting. i haven't seen any really good LED's from Osram, who are owned by Siemens so you would expect them to have some which are reasonable. Nichia and HP used to be there as well but have dropped off due to technological gains of the other players.
 
Jemsquash said:
A few more that I stumbled across - some of these are relatively cheap I guess since they are more like a torch:

BLT Ozone 21ne -

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=13351

BLT Firewire 4.0

http://www.bikepedlar.co.uk/acatalog/Lights_Front.html

BLT Triton 4W

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=13349

It seems that most manufacturers have now cottoned on to these high power LEDs and are producing products using them.
Not so cheap when you convert to AUD and add freight.

BLT Ozone 21NE features a 4W Super White LED and runs on 2 CR123 batteries. Costs $230 plus freight which I think is a bit to much for what it is.
For a bike light the Dinotte seems better.
I made my own crude clone of the Dinotte 5 Ultra for about $75 which has a 200lumen output.

A Fenix PD3-CE will run on 2 CR123 rechargeable batteries and costs $76 from www.torchwold.com.au. Weighs 50g ex batteries. output is a bit more than the Dinotte 5 before the upgrade option that Dinotte are now doing.

Cheers

Geoff
 
geoffs said:
Not so cheap when you convert to AUD and add freight.

BLT Ozone 21NE features a 4W Super White LED and runs on 2 CR123 batteries. Costs $230 plus freight which I think is a bit to much for what it is.
For a bike light the Dinotte seems better.
I made my own crude clone of the Dinotte 5 Ultra for about $75 which has a 200lumen output.

A Fenix PD3-CE will run on 2 CR123 rechargeable batteries and costs $76 from www.torchwold.com.au. Weighs 50g ex batteries. output is a bit more than the Dinotte 5 before the upgrade option that Dinotte are now doing.

Cheers

Geoff
eh? Am I missing something? The 21NE is 51.06GBP - http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=13351- according to ozforex:
51.06 GBP = 119.907AUD
+ 10 GBP for shipping - roughly 15 AUD which is 135AUD roughly.
A local mag - Bicycling Australia also mentioned that it would retail for around 130AUD.

This is still twice the price of a torch though like you said, and it looks like a torch, just with a mounting bracket.
 
I have now got my upgrade back - I also decided to go for the li-ion upgrade on the battery. Unfortunately I've had gastric flue so I haven't been able to ride :(.

The light is significantly brighter than before I sent it in and it also has a narrower beam. It looks ideal from what I can tell. Hopefully I'll ride this coming week and get a good feel for how well it works now.

On a related note I see Cree are selling LEDs at 94Lumens/watt if their marketing is to be believed - http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/4/6/37. If my rough sums are correct then at 6 watts (which may need 6 leds as I think the efficiency goes down at higher power output, I guess that's why Lupine have 4 LEDS in their Wilma) would give you 600 lumens which would be the equivalent of a 11-13 watt HID e.g. light and motion http://www.bikelights.com/Products/Arc.htm#

Is this correct or am I missing something??
 
Jemsquash said:
I have now got my upgrade back - I also decided to go for the li-ion upgrade on the battery. Unfortunately I've had gastric flue so I haven't been able to ride :(.

The light is significantly brighter than before I sent it in and it also has a narrower beam. It looks ideal from what I can tell. Hopefully I'll ride this coming week and get a good feel for how well it works now.

On a related note I see Cree are selling LEDs at 94Lumens/watt if their marketing is to be believed - http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/4/6/37. If my rough sums are correct then at 6 watts (which may need 6 leds as I think the efficiency goes down at higher power output, I guess that's why Lupine have 4 LEDS in their Wilma) would give you 600 lumens which would be the equivalent of a 11-13 watt HID e.g. light and motion http://www.bikelights.com/Products/Arc.htm#

Is this correct or am I missing something??

Cutter have just received a 1000 of Cree's Q5 binned LED's. these have a min flux of 107 lumens@350mA and a max of 114. I've just ordered some so I'll let you know how bright they are.
the Q5's at 1A should put out about 240 lumens each so with 3 i should be able to see where i'm going just fine :eek:)
The SSC leds that I had bought don't fit into the lenses that i have so I'll use them for another light.

Cheers

Geoff
 
geoffs said:
Cutter have just received a 1000 of Cree's Q5 binned LED's. these have a min flux of 107 lumens@350mA and a max of 114. I've just ordered some so I'll let you know how bright they are.
the Q5's at 1A should put out about 240 lumens each so with 3 i should be able to see where i'm going just fine :eek:)
The SSC leds that I had bought don't fit into the lenses that i have so I'll use them for another light.

Cheers

Geoff
If my calculations are correct then at just under 10 watts you will get 720 lumens. That's quite impressive. An HID will get that using an extra 4 watts.
 
Jemsquash, you are correct that the efficacy (lumen per watt) decreases when you start to put more power into them, as well as the heat increasing. As you increase the power, you need to increase the cooling area as this will affect the ultimate life of the LED's.

i was given a board the other day which 12 x 700mA LED's on it. If run at 700mA they estimated the life as is to be about 10 seconds. for reliability i was told that they need ~10cm sq of heat sink per LED, or 120 cm sq for the board. it's not too bad at 1200 lumen from 28.8W
http://www.tridonicatco.com/kms/media/uploads/led_p216_uk.pdf

i believe that Philips are getting on with making LumiLED's better as well.
 
I finally rode this evening with my upgraded lights. The new LED is a huge improvement on the old LED. I met up with a friend who has the same light that I had before the upgrade. It totally swamped his light and made it look insignificant.
I use to think that my light was bright (and it was, as some people use to shield their eyes as I rode past). I guess things are always relative. I'll have to make sure I don't ride with anyone with a 600 lumen light and then I'll remain happy.

They've also changed the blinking pattern which is much better when riding in pitch dark, since the old strobing was a bit much. The new strobe is not as quick and is also evenly spaced. The only drawback is that it might not be as noticible to traffic. I found the old strobe really good during the day for visibility to cars.
 
More and more led lights supplier information on the topledsuppier.
Visit: http://www.topledsupplier.com/

http://www.ledlightsliving.com/led-grow-lights-c-105.html
 
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The perfect holder for the Cree light on helmet
 

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