World's Brightest LED in a Flashlight! Cree CXB3590

[Homer J Simpson]

DigiKey

https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/c/cree/xlamp-cxb3590-led?utm_adgroup=xGeneral&slid=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6rOawIrX3QIVhmB-Ch2ZZAp0EAAYASAAEgIhKvD_BwE

[ebastler]

I watched most of it. Did he mention battery life? Heat management?
A bit more engineering content would have been nice... 

[stj]

20 times the power consumption of a chinese overdriven T6 lamp,
10 times the cost.

and you need 36v - not exactly a wise choice for a handheld!
maybe better for car/truck headlamps - obviously designed from the ground up - not a retrofit!!

[floobydust]

$38 USD each. How do you heatsink this? 87W typical and 137W max. for 2.4A typ. and 3.6A max. at 34-38V.
It has no mounting screws (like the CMA series) and flashlight guy used some glue... oh I found the silly holder pic below.

It looks like a great powerful LED with Cree's high quality.
I'd like to try one (dimmed) for task/bench lighting but it's an expensive solution, including holder, heatsink, power supply.
There are some light fixtures on eBay/Ali using this CXB3590 LED for grow lights.

I tried the high-power chinese 50-100W LED's and found the light quality was poor. Fringing, low efficiency, colour temp shifting all over the place, lens is like beer goggles.
It's hit or miss with vendors. I just didn't like the LED's enough to go further with them.

An option is Cree XLamp XHP70 array 6V 2.1A 12.6W and ~1,600 lm which almost 1/10 the flux of the CXB3590's ~13,000 lm. I guess you could use a bunch of these XHP70's on m-core PCB but kind of a narrow spot each.

[firehopper]

well i bought one from rapidleds, its here and i got the holder too. now to mount it and do some testing. need to get a light meter some time too

[firehopper]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/firehopper/43500527710/in/dateposted-public/
heres my led mounted on the heatsink for the flashlight build
I'll fix the link later

[james_s]

Several years ago I modified a 3-D Maglight to use a Phlatlight LED that was at the time the most powerful single LED available, 2200 lm driven at 11A. I turned a large block of aluminum that fits snugly in the Maglight body with a pocket for the driver and then used 3 LiFePO4 cells for power. It works well and can run for a couple of minutes at full power before it starts to get uncomfortably warm.

It's not the most practical flashlight in the world. I look at it more like a V8 powered lawnmower, complete overkill, built because it could be done.

[mzzj]

Most powerful led?

This one is 30 klumen https://www.bridgelux.com/sites/default/files/resource_media/Bridgelux%20DS93%20Vero%2029%20Gen%207%20Array%20Data%20Sheet%2020180910%20Rev%20N.pdf

One guy around here build bicycle light out of 4x Bridgelux Vero 29 led arrays..  120klumens and 1kW of electrical power 

[james_s]

Those are COB arrays though, which of course would work but that sort of thing was not really common when I built the light I have. The ~40W LED I used was the most powerful single LED I could get back then. Now I'm sure there are brighter options. I'm not sure those COB arrays would offer great optical performance though, a single small emitter allows an ordinary reflector to produce a very sharp beam with a lot of throw.

[amyk]

"Flashlight"? That's more like a "torch"

[firehopper]

"Flashlight"? That's more like a "torch"

well I consider it a light cannon my self, mines going to be housed in a 105 mm howitzer casing.

[firehopper]

well heres some photos of the flashlight so far.. needs a reflector yet.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/firehopper/albums/72157700957050681