Can't remember/find if this has been posted? 40W RGB LED's

[TroyO]

I think they are new?

40 watts of mad lumens.. LOL...
Not sure it is suitable for out needs, but who knows maybe someone will figure it out. (Where's those carbon nano-tube batteries already?)

http://www.ledengin.com/products/40wLZ/LZC-00MD40.pdf

That's the RGBW, there's also RGB and RGBA

[DJMoonbass]

yeah the 40 watt has been out for a while. as cool as it is. its just way to impractical. for starters its MCPCB is to wide, second it needs between 38 to 50 volts of electricity. good luck finding that kinda battery pack and fitting it into a hilt.

i did see they have new DEEP Red LEDs where the 5 watters put out like 540 lumens. thats not bad at all.

[TroyO]

These ones aren't just the white ones, they are RGB(somethings)

Actually 14V will do it... the RGB has each array of colors available seperatley, so the highest FV is 13.5 @ 1000MA for green... the drivers here will do it. (Item #: ALEDD ) although you'd probably need a heatsink for that too.

Still not exactly practical, but possible! You definitly might be into active cooling (IE a fan) and shortened "duty cycles" (IE.. off 5 minutes for every 15 it's on.) but it could be done.

12 cells of top end NIMH or 4 Lithiums... I'll have to look around and see if anything can handle 3500-4000 MAH discharge rates.

Ahhh well, the "New technology forum" is a good place to dream if nothing else, LOL.

(Edit.. the board also is 28.28MM ... or about 1 1/8".... you'd have to make your own blade holder/LED mount but it could be done too.)

[Sunrider]

HeHe I must admit it would be interesting to see what you would need to cool that thing. Ledengin leds get pretty hot when driven to the max spec. Too bad the board is so big.;)

[TroyO]

I never had too much trouble with mine overheating (Hot but not "Oww!"), but it was only at 700 MA. Even at 700 MA on these you'd still have some serious output.

The more I think about it, it would be a fun project. I even already have a little fan that can fit in a hilt.

Math wise....
@ 700 MA nominal rating....
Red 4.9W
Green 8.82W
Blue 7.35
Amber 4.9W

25.97 Watts

14.4V supply at 1800 MA= 25.92 Watts... plenty of batts out there that can hand out 1800 MA for an hour or more. (12 AA Batts or 4 Lithium Ion)

@1000 MA
Red 7.6w
Green 13.5W
Blue 10.9w
Amber 7.6w

39.6 Watts

14.4V supply at 2800 MA= 40.32 Watts

That's reaching the max possible batt output as as I know... I've seen some 2700MAH nimH cells, and discharging at 1xCapacity is usually safe. I think you could probably push it and be "Mostly safe" LOL.......

A little better would be Lithion Ion... some at Battery space, good for up to 14.8V packs and max 5.2A discharge rate, 2600MAH capacity.

Just some ballpark figures, not exact by any means. Add in the fact that an RGB configuration would rarely have all of the colors running full blast at the same time, I think it's doable... big honking hilt, but plausible.

The big advantage would be... having ~10 watts of power out there no matter what color or shade you have turned on at the moment. Similar in concept to using the 10 Watt RGBA from Ledengin. When making a "full color" saber, even just one "pure color" led on will still be comparable to a LuxIII in brightness. If you mix (IE Red and Blue for Purple) you can get brighter, but at minimum (IE, just Red) you still have a decently bright saber.

Hehe, of course the 40 Watt would make that a minimum 10-ish watts even in single color mode, which would be pretty sick. ;-)

[Sunrider]

The only reason it would be worth going to the trouble of making this led work would be to have a purple 10 plus watt blade.:cool:

[TroyO]

I'm working now on an RGB(A) LED system, using the 10W Ledengin line... 30-ish colors. Purple would be 7.36 watts if both colors (Red, Blue) are full blast. ("10W" is a misnomer... actual max output is ~15.4 watts @ 1000 MA per color)

So, not quite there..... but close, LOL.

You know we won't be happy until we can actually cut something with it... baby steps, one little baby step at a time... LOL.

[Novastar]

Thanks Troyo!! Awesome work... I'm soooo looking fwd to all of this!!

And yes... god, I'd love to *KILL* the morons who somehow plugged the term "10w" and "5w" and whatever-watt as to describing LEDs. It's just stupid, it makes no sense.

For any n00bz... for the LAST TIME... a Luxeon III--is NOT a "3-watt" LED. There is no such thing. A Luxeon V--is NOT a "5-watt" LED.

My guess is... a long time ago, when LEDs started becoming popular--the industry sort of "compared" them to lightbulbs(?)... and thus, we've heard of 40watt, 60watt, 100watt bulbs??? I don't know. It's friggin' stupid though.

BTW, Troyo... I'm willing to bet that you COULD attempt to pump out even more heat from the LEDEngin... by feeding maybe 1100mA or... even possibly 1200mA into each LED. True, it wouldn't be WISE on an expensive LED, but... the point is--wattage is relational to voltage & current output, heheh!

[DJMoonbass]

well said nova. i will admit that i did not know about the watt thing untill now. lol. just shows is till have TONS to learn. interesting troyo. im anxious to see as well. i still have that 10 watt (using watt as the name lol) green and i still have no idea what im gunna do with it. i dunno make a stunt or somethin. just the voltage is so steep. luckilly i stocked up on 14500s and heres somethin cool i found out. its probably been addressed here somewhere. but a 4 AA pack (the two on top of two) from radioshack fits absolutley perfect in the TCSS sinktubes. like they were made for each other.

woah quite a thread hijack sorry about that troyo.

[TroyO]

You can probably use that greenie now. If it's the one where you can get to each die seperatley the fwd voltage is between about 4 and 5V for each die by itself.

2x Lithion Ion batts, or a 6 cell nIMH pack and you are all set. You could probably even direct drive it and bypass the driver all together with a 4 cell pack. (Check the math before attemption though.. LOL.)

Or, the safer and probably better (but spendy) approach would be 2x Lithion Ion batts and 4 of the new TCSS drivers.. one for each LED die. (or 2 drivers if you are willing to step up to 3 batteries). They have the output and can take the volts!

I like the layout of those round drivers.. stacked sideways in a hilt you could probably get about 4 in an inch of hilt space.

[Zero Unit]

I can't help but chuckle at all this. Those LedEngin's I found three years ago (http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showpost.php?p=71002&postcount=41) have really taken off more than I expected them to. Back then, 10W was a helluva lot to consider, and now we're here contemplating a 40W LED. :D

[Novastar]

hehehe, Zero... that was about 2 years ago actually! :D

But you're right... at the time, it was a lot... mainly because there wasn't a good way to "make use of all the dies". With the flash on clash concept (put into actuality with Crystal Focus)... the possibilities to now use the LED in a PRACTICAL manner... are there!

As it is though... I wouldn't imagine anyone lighting all three or all four of the dies all at once in a "permanent" way (as in for a white blade, all LEDs on all the time)... simply because of the current requirements.

But yeah! I could see someone making a direct drive "40w"... it'd be interesting for sure. :)

[TroyO]

Hehe.. yeah, I see the same pattern coming up as when the 10W ones were brought up... a few folks will do the math and announce it as plausible, a few folks will naysay and claim it can't be done. (Too hot, too much power, why bother, etc.)

Then some upstart sucker with no common sense (http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?t=4637) will actually do it. It will then be seen as a real option and happen more and more often. I bet the same cycle happened when the Lux III came out, then the Lux V... etc and so on.

Just imagine it in about 10 years when we are using "Plasma ignitors with magnetic focusing arrays" or whetever the heck the cool stuff is by then, LOL.

For me... I like the technology as much as actually making lightsabers. The stuff I've learned (and have yet to learn) is the key to me... every time I dive in to a new saber (Usually a couple years between projects.) to me it's all about hitting the next level and pushing the limits on my abilities and on whatever the current state of the art is,

Mostly, my "sabers" pretty much suck, LOL... the tech is the thing! ;-P I am thinking my next one I may actually break out some genuine effort on the construction part.

It will be done, it will be cool..... it will be put on a shelf and hardly touched until the next idea pops up and I strip it for parts for the next one... LOL.