The 'Evil Cluster' revisited

[blasterman]

No offense, but if somebody is getting better color with Aquastyle Bridgelux and their Chinese phosphors scraped off the floor -vs- a name brand Bridgelux array I choose to ignore the post.

 

All of the ~4000k Bridgelux arrays I've used, including new and old versions produced excellent color when combined with Cree royals and dimmed correctly. While you can obviously use even bigger Bridgelux arrays there's no way to park that many royals close enough to the big neutral get even color blending.

 

The difference in color rendering between actual Bridgelux Phosphors and Cree Phosphors is minimal until you get into the very warm range. If Cree made a competitive 1,000 lumen neutral I'd probably use it instead.

[jedimasterben]

No offense, but if somebody is getting better color with Aquastyle Bridgelux and their Chinese phosphors scraped off the floor -vs- a name brand Bridgelux array I choose to ignore the post.

 

All of the ~4000k Bridgelux arrays I've used, including new and old versions produced excellent color when combined with Cree royals and dimmed correctly. While you can obviously use even bigger Bridgelux arrays there's no way to park that many royals close enough to the big neutral get even color blending.

 

The difference in color rendering between actual Bridgelux Phosphors and Cree Phosphors is minimal until you get into the very warm range. If Cree made a competitive 1,000 lumen neutral I'd probably use it instead.

What are your preliminary thoughts of the Luxeon M? 4000K, 900+ lumens at 700ma (11.1v), 1200+ at 1A (11.4v).

[McJosh13]

How about doing an Evil Cluster with one of these bad boys:

CITIZEN CL-L233-HC13N1-C 13w 90CRI at 5000k!

 

Look at the spectrum on this, forget about adding cyan, deep red or anything else.. its all there already. Just add some royal blues and violets if you wish and you got the most full spectrum build on the market!

 

Unfortunately they are still expensive ($28) and don't put out as much light as the bridgelux (890lm at 13w), but damn I bet they look good. I'm tempted to buy one just to experiment with.

http://www.tme.eu/en/details/cl-l233-13n1-...l233-hc13n1-c/#

[jedimasterben]

How about doing an Evil Cluster with one of these bad boys:

CITIZEN CL-L233-HC13N1-C 13w 90CRI at 5000k!

 

Look at the spectrum on this, forget about adding cyan, deep red or anything else.. its all there already. Just add some royal blues and violets if you wish and you got the most full spectrum build on the market!

 

Unfortunately they are still expensive ($28) and don't put out as much light as the bridgelux (890lm at 13w), but damn I bet they look good. I'm tempted to buy one just to experiment with.

http://www.tme.eu/en/details/cl-l233-13n1-...l233-hc13n1-c/#

Sweet jeebus and a half. That would be pretty damn epic.

[McJosh13]

Sweet jeebus and a half. That would be pretty damn epic.

 

Hell yeah, they come in 4w and 6w versions too, just don't know if they're cost effective yet. I wonder how long until luxeon or cree starts using a phosphor like this

[torsten79]

Anyone out there who has already experience in using these CL-L233-HC13N1?

 

What are you other guys (beside jedimasterben) with "in deep LED knowledge" thinking about this LED? Does it looks more advantageously for reef lightning than the Luxeon NW for you?

 

What about the red and deep red part of the spectrum from the CL-L233-HC13N1? Isn't that maybe too much red there? (which cant be dimmed separately down...)

 

Well, it's by all means a very interesting LED, would be great to hear more thinkings about it and maybe even experiences!

[Wizzy]

Would one of these "cannons" work on a 12 Gallon Nanocube?

 

I hate "disco-effect" and since it would be my first LED fixture I don't have too much experience when it comes to blending colors.

 

-Wizzy

 

 

P.S. Here's a link to my thread where I'm asking for help on my LED fixture- Post #48

[torsten79]

Any news about the CL-L233-HC13N1 with its awesome looking spectrum (look some posts above)?

Does anyone have seen one of these LED live?

I just cant decide which one I will use: the CL-L233-HC13N1 or the LXW8-PW50...

[evilc66]

It does look pretty sweet, but they seem to be near impossible to find for sale, at least in North America. RS Electronics has them in the UK (~$37 after currency conversion), but I'm unsure where they will ship to.

[jedimasterben]

It does look pretty sweet, but they seem to be near impossible to find for sale, at least in North America. RS Electronics has them in the UK (~$37 after currency conversion), but I'm unsure where they will ship to.

A bit on the expensive side for a 13w LED.

[iball1804]

Hey, it sounds worth it.

[evilc66]

It might (it's a big 'might') be worth it if it does what we want it to do. The advantage to having discrete LED colors is that you can tune it if a particular wavelength is overly saturated. Don't get too excited about using it and forking over a lot of cash for an LED that no-one has used so far, unless you have deep pockets and are willing to be a guinea pig for us all

[topjimmy]

any of you ever look at the thread on "another" forum that are using 10 -20 50 even 100w leds?

 

Pretty damn slick.

[jedimasterben]

any of you ever look at the thread on "another" forum that are using 10 -20 50 even 100w leds?

 

Pretty damn slick.

I've seen them. At first, they seem very impressive, but then if you consider their efficiency, even the cheap Aquastyle Bridgelux LEDs are better.

 

Plus, with those LEDs that are for "Aquariums", they use ultra-cool white LEDs, 10-20000K, and they look pretty bad over a tank (even compared to a cool white + royal blue setup) and wash out colors like nobody's business.

[rO.oster]

bump for an old thread but a great read. it really gives a good perpective on Cree vs Leuxeon, CRI, and color renderings for Nuetral White LEDS, and how they have replaced the CW for DIY applications.

[Trooper46]

I am thinking of building one of these for a 10g.

 

This was the cluster i was thinking of building.

 

1 950-B (is there a slightly smaller one that will work?)

4 RB

2 CB

 

Any thoughts on this?

 

Or should i scrap this plan?

[jedimasterben]

If you hold off a bit, there should be a new pair of contenders in the 10w range - both neutral white and royal blue.

[blasterman]

Sorry for bailing his thread awhile back......

 

 

 

1 950-B (is there a slightly smaller one that will work?)

 

BXRA-40E0600-A-00. That's about 700lumens, but you can always dial either emitter down. I would use 5 rb to one 1 cb (usually an XP-E). It is very easy to over power the tank with too many CB's, however, the improvement in color with just the right ratio of CB's is stunning.

This rig will work for a ten gallon, but you'll need to use optics on everything, and string it pendant style. In that orientation it will look really, really nice, but will have to be dimmed. If you want a lower hung light you'll need to look at other arrangements.

"Why not use a neutral XM-L instead?" says the peanut gallery. Well, the Bridgelux have way better color (I have large arrays of both), and that does matter. XM-L's are pointless unless driven beyond 2amps, have horrendous color problems off axis, and to fix this problem you need the proper matched optic.

 

Sweet jeebus and a half. That would be pretty damn epic.

 

The citizens chips have always had impressive color specs and spectrums. Just...aren't that efficient and rather expensive. At one time Citizen had a linear chip floating around, and for non-optic situations the thought of a rectangular neutral LED with a CRI of 90 makes me shudder at the possibilities for long tanks.

 

What are your preliminary thoughts of the Luxeon M?

 

I worked this summer reverse engineering some Philips Fortimo arrays, and right now Philips does not make any bad tech in my mind. The Fortimo's were amazing if anything because you had ~30watts of super efficient architecture on a PCB that did not require heat sinking. Color rendition was also perfectly uniform even 90 degrees off axis. If Philips could mix those in with royals, man, would this industry be flipped on it's head. Anyways, the problem with the M's are simply finding them mounted, and even if you do dealing with the price. Cree has the same issue with their arrays.

 

 

there should be a new pair of contenders in the 10w range

 

Do tell. I've tried in vain to get Bridgelux to make royals, which leaves triple-up stars which can be a nightmare to solder. There does exist a royal XM-L, but I'm pretty sure it's a quad package and almost impossible to find. I'm half tempted just to strip the phosphor off some large Bridgelux arrays, but that's voids the warranty and may cause other issues

[Trooper46]

I figured that the evil bridgelux cluster would be easily scalable to larger tank sizes, say 4 or so of those things over a 75g. Which just so happens that I just got the ok from the wifey to set up a 75 g in the wall in my basement man cave bar.

[jedimasterben]

Sorry for bailing his thread awhile back......

I'm just glad to see you back.

 

I worked this summer reverse engineering some Philips Fortimo arrays, and right now Philips does not make any bad tech in my mind. The Fortimo's were amazing if anything because you had ~30watts of super efficient architecture on a PCB that did not require heat sinking. Color rendition was also perfectly uniform even 90 degrees off axis. If Philips could mix those in with royals, man, would this industry be flipped on it's head. Anyways, the problem with the M's are simply finding them mounted, and even if you do dealing with the price. Cree has the same issue with their arrays.

The fortimo is basically a strip of Philips diodes? Pretty awesome.

 

Do tell. I've tried in vain to get Bridgelux to make royals, which leaves triple-up stars which can be a nightmare to solder. There does exist a royal XM-L, but I'm pretty sure it's a quad package and almost impossible to find. I'm half tempted just to strip the phosphor off some large Bridgelux arrays, but that's voids the warranty and may cause other issues

The XM-L color does seem to be a quad package, and the datasheet was last updated in November of 2012, so maybe they're still in development? http://www.cree.com/~/media/Files/Cree/LED%20Components%20and%20Modules/XLamp/Data%20and%20Binning/XLampXML_Color.pdf

 

It looks like they're just calling the emitters 'blue' and not specifically royal blue, thought he spectral graph appears to peak at 455nm-ish. It also lists the output in lumens and not milliwatts.

 

 

As for the new contenders, Philips' Luxeon M royal blue is out. Future has a buttload of them unmounted, but no displayed pricing, so they must have JUST gotten them in. I've been waiting on their release since last October or so, maybe before. Can't remember when they first updated the datasheet and mentioned them, but I've been ogling ever since. The 'base' bin should get 4200mW of output at 700ma, and can be run at 1000ma to snag 5500+. The top bin hits about 5000mW at 700ma, which trumps the top-binned Rebel ES royal at 700ma (~640mW/w vs 540mW/w).

 

http://www.philipslumileds.com/uploads/354/DS103.pdf

 

The LXR8-SW50 has a large amount of cyan without having the giant hump in green like the LXR8-SW40. I will imagine that in a 'full-spectrum' setup that the LXR8-SW50 paired with two RB Ms and a few cool/standard blue Rebels will need no supplementation, except violet if wanted.

 

I emailed Steve at StevesLEDs and let him know that future has them, and he said that Philips hadn't even notified him of the release. He called and is getting bin information and will have some soon, in both NW and RB. I predict they'll retail for about what the XM-L retails for (but no one hold me to it, I haven't been told any numbers yet, so don't shoot the messenger ), and with higher efficiency and more total output they'd be the better deal.

 

Luckily, this is happening at a time when I'm moving a tank and setting up another, so I was going to change up the lighting, anyway, and can't wait to get my hands on them.

[steve99999]

http://www.theledstore.com.au/product_p/ls0079.htm

 

These are around ........seem priced fair and i like the specs.

Really hate disco and dont mine a warmer white so im a going

to try some with some royals.

 

Heres a interesting thread with some pics on this light.....

 

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?336907-Post-your-Nichia-219-4500k-beamshots

[jedimasterben]

Also, blaster, are the 'Minnie' optics from Ledil kinda like the Brooke reflectors that you used? http://www.futurelightingsolutions.com/en/Technologies/Semiconductors/Lighting-Solutions/Optics/Single-LED-Optics/Pages/1021791-C12097_MINNIE-WWW.aspx?ManufacturerName=LEDIL&isFLS=true&IM=0

[steve99999]

http://www.nichia.co.jp/specification/en/product/led/NVSL219A-H1-E.pdf

 

92cri.......4500k......1up/3up/4up/7up for sale these look better to me then the large bridgelux

they look really crisp ......

[jedimasterben]

http://www.nichia.co.jp/specification/en/product/led/NVSL219A-H1-E.pdf

 

92cri.......4500k......1up/3up/4up/7up for sale these look better to me then the large bridgelux

they look really crisp ......

Maybe blaster has experience with these, but I will tell you that pretty much anything can be claimed in a datasheet, but whether it performs like that in real life is the question.

[blasterman]

The fortimo is basically a strip of Philips diodes? Pretty awesome.

Imagine 22 Rebel ES's at 5000k and 85CRI under driven on a 12" PCB to the point they don't require heat-sinking, and has it's own connector topology built in. I dropped three of the ten watters on a spare LPC 1050, attached them to some c-channel, and utterly destroyed a T8 shoplight running new GE fluorescents at like 1/3 the power an *no* optics. With the lack of royals reef aplications are dicey though. While CRI debates have a lot of asterisks in reef applications, the Fortimo's presented clear and obvious color advantages over tubes for mainstream applications. You can see colors (especially reds and purples) with the Fortimo's you can't see with 5000k tubes.

Future has a buttload of them unmounted, but no displayed pricing,

I like the potential of the M' because it fills a niche' that I've been screaming about for years. That is a quality, consistent, and reasonably priced >3watt royal blue package that can keep up with the big neutrals.

There's one potential pitfall with the M's, and it's likely the reason you aren't seeing them mounted by the big distributors. That's because tight LED dies like this require fairly well engineered stars/pcbs to remove the heat properly, so it's less hassle just to pass the problem onto the builder. This is why Bridgelux arrays have wider spacing on the PCB's. No, it's not to annoy flashlight geeks, but to better handle heat on the PCB. Plus, Bridgelux PCBs are the same across the line. No third party OEMs using stars stamped from used TV dinner trays in China. So, while I think it's a cool idea for Steve to jump on these, he needs to be careful about the PCB he uses. Smart LED buyers should be aware of the issue and be willing to fork over an extra buck or two for a preferably copper based PCB.

are the 'Minnie' optics from Ledil kinda like the Brooke reflectors that you used?

Look pretty similiar. Properly designed reflectors are smoother than acrylics. The Brooke's I used with the Evil Cluster combined with the royals are easily the most seamless mixed LED light source I've ever seen other than a closely fit bare arrangement. Again, Evil liked this for a lot of reasons.

1up/3up/4up/7up for sale these look better to me then the large bridgelux

Nothing against Nichia, but you have the same potential problems with 3ups and larger designs you do with other LED brands. XP-Gs and Rebel ESs are also offered in all kinds of third party clusters; 7,8 etc, and the you can have issues with PCB quality, getting optics to work, etc. I have half a dozen far red red triple Rebels not even a year old that took one solder and the PCB is wreaked. It's much better to have multiple dies designed to work together, although there are plenty of quality multi-PCBs from Cutter, LEDgroupBuy, etc.