PDA

View Full Version : Luxeon Rebel discussion



acerocket
06-14-2007, 09:28 AM
Since this information may benefit others, I am starting this new thread to discuss the Luxeon Rebel LED.

I recently picked up a couple of green Luxeon Rebel LEDs pre-mounted to a pcb. These are the 95 lumen at 700 mA Rebel (LXML-PM01-0050). The pcb itself is a gold plated FR4 board that is barely .4" x .4" square with the LED set so the optical center of the die is at the center of the pcb. Cost was about 6.55 each plus shipping from Germany.

The store I purchased these from only sells the highest lumen LEDs available and they will eventually sell the 145 lumen greens when they become available. Currently, they only stock the pcb mounted Rebel in white, red, green, and royal blue (they have white, amber, red/orange, red, green, and royal blue Rebels unmounted - no cyan or blue). You can request the other colors, but would have to place an order for a couple hundred units. If they get enough requests for a color they do not stock yet, they will consider making a batch and offering them for sale also. You can also just order the pcb and reflow solder your own Rebel on, but you have to order a minimum of 100 pcbs (they cost about 1.25 each for the pcb).

In terms of their use in a saber, they look quite promising. The only problem would be using a non pcb mounted Rebel. The design of the Rebel has the solder pads for the wires on the bottom of the LED. This will make attaching wires and then mounting the Rebel to a good heatsink very difficult. It's not impossible, just very complicated. This is why the pcb mounted Rebel is a good choice. Optics are also a concern. I don't know what Luxeon has in the way of optics for the Rebel, but the company I get the Tri-Lux optic from has a holder that allows the small optic to sit on top of the pcb with a square cutout for the Rebel. Unfortunately, I can't get these holders yet unless I order them directly from th UK manufacturer. Hopefully soon, my US distributor will stock these.

Now for some pics:

5 mounted Rebels and an Honest Abe:
http://www.orbitalmachining.com/assets/images/100_0686.jpg

The bottom of the pcb:
http://www.orbitalmachining.com/assets/images/100_0705.jpg

On a heatsink for experimenting:
http://www.orbitalmachining.com/assets/images/100_0693.jpg

Minimum power (2V 0A):
http://www.orbitalmachining.com/assets/images/100_0700.jpg

2.3V .01A:
http://www.orbitalmachining.com/assets/images/100_0701.jpg

3.2V .69A:
http://www.orbitalmachining.com/assets/images/100_0703.jpg

And just for fun, 3.3V .99A:
http://www.orbitalmachining.com/assets/images/100_0704.jpg

I am truly impressed by the amount of light this little LED can put out. You can clearly see that run at 1 amp it is much brighter than 700 mA. But when driven at optimum (700 mA 3.2V) you are only generating 2.24 watts for 95 lumens. That means you will need a lot less heatsinking.

I encourage others to share their impressions of this LED and whether or not you think it will become accepted as a good choice for use in sabers.

Novastar
06-14-2007, 12:30 PM
I think these will certainly be a good future LED for all of our purposes.

Mainly, because of the added brightness, but also because of the lower fwd v required, AND better heatsinking options as you are noting.

I, for one, would like to try installing one (someday) into my Flange sabers to see how much brighter they'd end up being...

vortextwist
06-14-2007, 12:41 PM
man that is crazy bright. 8)

xwingband
06-14-2007, 01:18 PM
I encourage others to share their impressions of this LED and whether or not you think it will become accepted as a good choice for use in sabers.

If you get me some Rebel's I will! :P

Heck 100 PCB's and reflowing in my toaster oven doesn't sound bad. I'd throw on some of the generic reflectors I have and enjoy some greatness. Sound off if you'd buy! :D

DACOTA
06-14-2007, 01:44 PM
I'll sound off if its not too much,but really if you have to ask you probably cant afford it.Hey man this is getting great, imagine, rebels in sabers.

Marsupial
06-14-2007, 02:19 PM
I encourage others to share their impressions of this LED and whether or not you think it will become accepted as a good choice for use in sabers.

The secret is in the optics. If we can have suitable optics for our needs, I fail to see why it wouldn't be welcomed. I can't wait till we have a heatsink and optical solution for those.

Think about it, with a smaller led, you could have a smaller saber with the same brightness (OK, batteries might be a problem...)
I'm thinking 1:1 yoda-sized sabers, or half-scale, or padawan sabers...
Also, multiple leds for color variation, possibilities are endless.

Novastar
06-14-2007, 03:03 PM
Batteries would not be a problem. In fact, the Luxeon Rebel "light side colors" have a lower fwd voltage of most any of the other Luxeon IIIs (for example):

3.15v -- perfect for a Li-Ion setup with a driver board, sound and "greebly" LEDs as eye candy.

Granted, the Lux III "Darkside" colors have a 2.95 fwd v as well as the Luxeon Rebels of the same colors (ok, 2.9 vs. 2.95, whatever)... but still.

Besides, it should make it easier on doing any kind of Rebel Triad or whatever...

3v for Red
3v for Green
3v for Blue

This could EASILY be handled by 3 cells of the 18650 Li-Ions to create an (effective) 12v setup.

Driving it with a smart setup could utilize the "extra" volts as current... or simply provide the extra power for other devices (such as a fan, uber sound, the driver/s itself/themselves, etc.)

Still... I'd prefer a SINGLE "triad" color over an RGB any day... for the UBER brightness!! You know, like Green x 3.

pockets
06-14-2007, 04:12 PM
nova, 3 of those things in one blade would be like staring into heaven...


glorious

acerocket
06-14-2007, 04:31 PM
Oops. Just re-read the email from the guy in Germany. Minimum order for custom mounted Rebels is 250 pcs (at about 6.70 per pc). Minimum order on just the pcbs is a sheet of 250 (at about 332.80 per sheet). Then you would still need to pick up 250 Rebels (at about 4.00 each). If you did it the DIY way, you could probably get about 35 of each color for an investment of about 1350 bucks. Sell them for 7 bucks each and you could make a little money. That's assuming you could actually reflow solder the Rebels on tot he pcbs by yourself. I hope the Rebel will catch on and they will start offering them in the other colors.

As far as optics and heatsinks go, you can get an optic that will fit inside a 3/4" bore and sit on top of the Rebel. It would be fairly easy to make a small heatsink for the Rebel since it runs at much less wattage for similar brightness. If you wanted to go bear bones, you could probably get away with direct drive via resistor and a single li-ion battery. You could probably make a very bright saber about 1" in diamter (with a 3/4" blade) and about 7" long.

Novastar
06-14-2007, 06:19 PM
Ace... do you think Tim's current heatsink could handle the heat produced by three Rebels?

That is... this heatsink:

http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/popup.aspx?src=images/product/large/730_1_.jpg

Also... what do you think you'd have to do to drive them with only a single driver (to, for example, go all green or whatever--so, not RGB)?

3 pucks? Or one uber one???

acerocket
06-14-2007, 07:30 PM
No, I don't think it could. It's possible if was making good contact with the blade holding section then it might, but I don't know if you can get three Rebels on pcb on that heatsink. I took a look at putting three Rebels in the tri-lux and it won't work the way it currently is designed. With a small modification to the lense holder and a little dremel action to the pcb they would fit.

I forgot. To go with a single driver, you'd need a large voltage power pack. Three Rebels in series would require 9.6V at 700 mA (9.9V at a full amp). Corbin's driver won't handle a 3 Li-ion setup as we found out on the KP. I am not sure what the Ultra board or Plecter board could do. If you wanted to go with a Corbin driver, you would have to go Ni-MH and shoot for a 9 cell pack for 10.8V. You will probably have a very short life at full brightness as the cells drained. I would think three seperate cells (one for each LED) would be better. But this would have to be direct drive. I'm sure in time, someone will develop a driver to handle this.

Onli-Won Kanomi
06-14-2007, 10:59 PM
I realize this is a bit outside the scope of the 'DIY' attitude preferred by this forum but in theory with the tiny physical footprint of the rebel LEDs itself and their exceptional efficiency if one were able to get a cluster of 7 rebels mounted in a ring similar in size to a luxeon star in a patern with a white one in the center surrounded by 6 coloured ones and use a dual tube blade [thanks Xwingband for explaining that when I brought this idea up on 'another forum'] could that perhaps make a 'daylight bright' movie-like saber with a bright white core lit by the full power of the central white Rebel surrounded by the coloured 'aura' of the six surrounding ones?

Which perhaps could be red-green-blue-red-green-blue around white for colour changing? Or perhaps red-green-blue-amber-cyan-royalblue around white for even more subtle colour mixes??

I realize this kind of 'cluster' would probably have to be factory-made custom mount with custom optics not something DIY but at least in theory would it be possible?

For the last couple months i've been thinking "what a shame that saber-fans are probably too small of a market niche for Luxeon to make such a saber-oriented rebel cluster-ring for us to buy..."

But then I heard that MR has lost the SW license and it occured to me...

Presumably somebody else will get the SW license eventually?

And since they wont have MR's patents they probably will have to make light-up saber replicas some other way than MR-style LED strings?

Now maybe you and I couldnt get Phillips Luxeon to make a saber-use-specific custom rebel-ring/cluster solution for DIY use...and maybe even Strydur and Ultra and Plecter and RY and Yoda and any and all the other custom sabersmiths together wouldnt represent enough sales for them to bother making such a cluster?...but what about whoever gets the saber-license that MR has let lapse?

I would guess a 'mass production' saber-maker like MR must buy LEDs by the 100,000s???

Maybe Luxeon would make such a cluster for them?

Sooooo maybe if we could only convince whoever gets the license to go in such a direction we could get super-bright white-cored movie-like sabers using such a cluster...and if that 'proved the market' maybe then Luxeon would market them to us to use to build our own sabers too?

Yeah hopelessly optimistic probably...but hey I can dream cant I??? :lol:

Ok y'all can tell me it's a dumb idea now... :wink:

Oh and yeah i realize that kind of 'super-saber-rebel-cluster' would need custom led drivers/soundboards and other solutions as well but presumably anyone building sabers on a MR scale could handle those requirements too?

Novastar
06-15-2007, 12:41 AM
Thanks on the heatsink info Ace... I figured as much, but never hurts to double-check/double confirm...


To go with a single driver, you'd need a large voltage power pack. Three Rebels in series would require 9.6V at 700 mA (9.9V at a full amp). Corbin's driver won't handle a 3 Li-ion setup as we found out on the KP. I am not sure what the Ultra board or Plecter board could do. If you wanted to go with a Corbin driver, you would have to go Ni-MH and shoot for a 9 cell pack for 10.8V. You will probably have a very short life at full brightness as the cells drained. I would think three seperate cells (one for each LED) would be better. But this would have to be direct drive. I'm sure in time, someone will develop a driver to handle this.

Ace... Erv's board (v2.x) can handle 11v and Alex's can handle 12v. It is possible. Albeit would need to be tested.

But I agree that powering them individually would probably be more efficient. Plus, it would allow for the RGB setup if you so chose... AND you could "tone it down" during times you didn't feel like showing the full brightness.

Novastar
06-15-2007, 12:50 AM
I realize this is a bit outside the scope of the 'DIY' attitude preferred by this forum but in theory with the tiny physical footprint of the rebel LEDs itself and their exceptional efficiency if one were able to get a cluster of 7 rebels mounted in a ring similar in size to a luxeon star in a pattern with a white one in the center surrounded by 6 coloured ones and use a dual tube blade [thanks Xwingband for explaining that when I brought this idea up on 'another forum'] could that perhaps make a 'daylight bright' movie-like saber with a bright white core lit by the full power of the central white Rebel surrounded by the coloured 'aura' of the six surrounding ones?

1 Rebel requires about 3.15v... sometimes less, but let's say 3.15v

7 x 3.15 = 22v

If you screw something up... you might kill yourself with all that voltage. Maybe. Something could catch fire or explode...

But most importantly, that would be an EXTRAORDINARY amount of batteries.

Even "morely mostly" importantly (heheh)... would be the heatsinking, which would literally be an inferno in there. Beelzebub would be at home, and in the spirit of the new F4 movie... uh... flame on!

So... major problems = A THRONG OF HEAT... A LEGION OF BATTERIES.

Finally, if you could somehow avoid the above issues, you'd probably ALSO need to use about 4 drivers to distribute the battery power... and... zounds that would be a wiring mess.

Not to mention the optics. Ouch. OUCH!!!!

It would still be pretty cool. Or... pretty hot. Looking. Visually. Whatever. :D

xwingband
06-15-2007, 06:19 AM
Optic are still going to be a pain for clustering all these LEDs.

You wouldn't need 22V necessarily. You could parallel them to a degree. If you want to max them though they;ll still be battery hogs.

Single LEDs are what I'm looking for now. For "daylight bright"... bah, I can go out at twilight and my blades are fine.

Hasid Lafre
06-15-2007, 06:34 AM
What would you consider twilight hours?

xwingband
06-15-2007, 06:51 AM
Well, it changes with the seasons and I wasn't looking at a clock when I last went out...

About 10-15 degrees above the ground. Just enough for the sun to hit the treeline. I have no problem seeing my blades outside then.

Sure during noon time the blades get killed, but I don't even want to be outside then much less trying to twirl a saber.

Hasid Lafre
06-15-2007, 06:53 AM
Yeah Iam not much of a fan of daylight.

Makes everything to bright and blinding. winter sucks cause the sun glayers off the snow.

feels like Iam putting a magnyfying glass to my eye and looking at the sun.

Hasid Lafre
06-17-2007, 11:35 AM
Hay ace check this out.

http://www.ledsmagazine.com/press/15056

They look like we can use them for a single led application.

http://www.polymer-optics.co.uk/products%20LED%20optics%20custom.html

It looks like in the pdf they got for the led optics they got something that looks like a refracter optics for 3 of them.

Heres the pdf.

http://www.polymer-optics.co.uk/Luxeon%20Rebel%20Range.pdf They got optics that filter color so a red green blade would be intresting to have and varyious other colors.

I think that is if they do a rgb setup but I thought I read something to where the optics filter color.

acerocket
06-17-2007, 12:33 PM
Yeah, those single optics are the ones I use in the tri-lux (without the holder). The optic is the same for the Lux I, Lux III, K2 and Rebel but the holder is different depending on the LED and mounting application. The triple unit they sell is larger than the tri-lux setup. I can get three optics without holders inside a 1.22" diameter where the triple optic would need about 1.41" of diamter.

The optics do not filter color. The RGB works by giving different current (brightness) to each seperate LED to achieve the desired color. What they offer is caps that snap on to the top of the optic to help diffuse the beam to a different shape.

Hasid Lafre
06-17-2007, 10:35 PM
Ah I see. I musta read into it to far....again.

But its cool, Whats your thoughts on how soon we can use these for single led saber applications?

How hard would it be to maybe mount the rebel on a pcb and thermal glue it to a star blank? would there be enought room on the starblank for the nylon screws with the pcb glued to it?

xwingband
07-10-2007, 08:54 AM
I just got my order of them...

Dang! Even the penny comparison doesn't tell how small these buggers are. The diode itself isn't too much smaller to my eye, but the whole package is incredible.

I can't wait to put these in my sabers. :D

EDIT: I don't yet have an easy way of comparing them, but in an eye test the 3/4" blades benefit from these optics nicely. I really won't miss the 1" blade on my EL conversions.

I don't have a good 1" setup to try these optics yet, but I think once I can get these up the blade it should work better.

Dregan
07-10-2007, 09:33 AM
Alternative Rebel on board source (13mm board - I kind of prefer this one)

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.4622

xwingband
07-10-2007, 09:46 AM
Nice, but being a flashlight place I bet they're only carrying the white. What bin is it specifically? Same as their emitter stock?

The LED-tech.de ones certainly look nicer to me. They have optics also so as long as you can get their lowest shipping rate it is a good deal. Plus they have other colors if they get some nicer bins I'll be all over it too.

Dregan
07-10-2007, 09:51 AM
I'm not sure, Kyle didn't answer his phone when I called a half hour ago. That's probably because it's like 3 AM there or some such.

When I do talk to him, I'm going to ask about getting those in color. Also about the new Seoul 1000mAh in royal(dental) blue.

xwingband
07-30-2007, 02:17 PM
Well, I'm going to be working with someone to outfit a saber with Erv's board and I will be using Rebels.

As a demo I set up the 90 lumen version up. I maxed it with a buckpuck so it's probably closer to 130 lumens.

Honestly, I'm SOLD! I'm reflow soldering them in the meantime, but I'm not going to use anything but them from know if I can. If the better bin delivers I won't look back (I have the 145 lumen greens on the way).

Here's a pic in a dark room. I used beach settings with flash. As you can tell it's still bright.

http://www.incomsabers.com/images/100_0637.JPG

Novastar
07-30-2007, 07:19 PM
Copy that, X!

Let us know what you find! I'm sure it will be a step up, as the beauty of saber technology... is that it changes every few months!

I myself am surprised to see where it's gone from June 2006 to the present. Astounding. :idea:

xwingband
07-30-2007, 07:33 PM
I'm really psyched. I can't wait to get my 145 lumen green and push it to the 1A level.

Only issue I encountered was that little bugger put out more heat than expected, but it's allowable junction temperature is MUCH higher than the norm.

Output was good and consumption is good. If the high bin is putting out as claimed I'm going to ditch my III's. :D

Marsupial
07-31-2007, 11:45 AM
mmmm... that's interesting. do you have pics in dark room condition? maybe comparative pics with something else?

xwingband
07-31-2007, 01:10 PM
It was just a test so I took it apart. It was in a dark room though, just with flash.

supertrogdor
07-31-2007, 01:14 PM
Looking good X, i think many of us will be following in your footsteps on the changeout

LeMoel
07-05-2008, 12:59 AM
theres pictures of both the highest blue rebel,and highest green rebel from led tech on my pictures /albums if anyones interested

xl97
07-05-2008, 08:40 AM
no links?.....

TD-2272
07-05-2008, 04:53 PM
How about some darkside stuff ?

xwingband
07-05-2008, 07:40 PM
How about some darkside stuff ?

Unless you needed it for the small size, stick with the III's like normal.

TD-2272
07-05-2008, 07:58 PM
O-tay X :)

LeMoel
07-07-2008, 07:26 PM
all you have to do is click on my name and then look in my albums but i will gfive you a link http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/album.php?u=3474


and theres no point in using the luxeon red rebel, its rated lower than the 3 watt, however rebels seem to have sxome ooof to them s o i would love to try a red rebel but not willing to risk the money 4 the test

Novastar
07-07-2008, 09:05 PM
In terms of sabers, I believe the point of the Rebels will be to (eventually) go for "three of a kind" (as in Red, Red, Red on one star, so technically 3 rebels), pray that you can magically cook up a DECENT minimum 10v solution (I guess 11.1v Li-Ion for a better example)... AND throw the correct optics at them.

But in the meantime... it really doesn't mean squat with a single Rebel unless you're just screamin' to have a 3.15 fwd voltage over 3.8v or 3.9 or whatever. And... let's be honest: if you REALLY have a project where the battery solution will be made or broken over 0.7 volts... you have some serious problems, lol.

And in the case of the red ones, yeah--no real voltage difference, huh?

So... I don't know... whatever. :D

xwingband
07-07-2008, 09:11 PM
But in the meantime... it really doesn't mean squat with a single Rebel unless you're just screamin' to have a 3.15 fwd voltage over 3.8v or 3.9 or whatever. And... let's be honest: if you REALLY have a project where the battery solution will be made or broken over 0.7 volts... you have some serious problems, lol.


4.8V on a regulating setup will irk out more under that .7V difference. Also they plain put out more. ;) A green Rebel is pretty kick butt.