In your oppinion, What is the "best" blue luxeon III?

[samurai_rob]

I just ordered the cyan, but was wondering between the 3, what you guys thought the pros and cons of each were. From the pics, I thought the cyan looked more EPIV luke than the other two, but pics can be misleading. So, go ahead and shout out for your favorite blue!

[Kant Lavar]

First, the colors you see on the site are not necessarily what you'll get out of the LED. Hate to say it, but its true.

Insofar as "best", well, define your terms. If you're talking sheer brightness, then probably a cyan, followed by regular blue, then royal blue. Though I do know some folks have gotten good results with the other two, so don't let simple lumens stop you from using them. (I've got a Royal Blue Lux V I want to drop into my next saber, just for kicks.)

[samurai_rob]

"Best" is a relative term. I just really wanted to know what you guys thought were the pros and cons of each of the three. Thanks for the response. Anyone else?

[Eco]

This may not be helpful, but the "best" LED may not be able to be defined statistically, but rather what you think of it when it's in your saber.

[Jedi-Loreen]

Yeah, it's really kind of a subjective thing.

For really blue, I'd go for the regular blue. I have a royal blue, which is not as bright as I wish it was, and it sometimes looks sort on the purplish side.

I also have a cyan, which the brightest of the 3. I have always thought that's what color Luke's blade looks in A New Hope. I plan on building my next saber to house my cyan. (in my first saber, I'd keep swapping out the LED, depending on my mood)

Next to a blue saber blade, the cyan will look kind of green, and next to a green blade it will look more blue.

[samurai_rob]

This may not be helpful, but the "best" LED may not be able to be defined statistically, but rather what you think of it when it's in your saber.

That's what I was meaning. I just want oppinions from people who have used them. To see what you guys think. Tkanks for the input. Keep it coming!:D

[xl97]

IMHO, cyan bin 1's look awesome... they are very 'light blue' and do NOT look green to me at all.. but the higher the cyan bin# the more green it will look.

I ordered a regular blue..but havent put it into a build yet.... so I guess I cant compare.

[ArkaiHalon]

Bin and such aside, I think it depends aloton whatyour going for.

In a graflex, I like Cyan. just looks more ANH to me.

Color wise, I LOVE teh Royal, the slight purplish that J-Lo referes to just really sets it off, especially in a black hilt.

The regular Blue, is a good solid color that looks good in pretty much everything I"ve used it for.

[Lord Maul]

I've got a blue Rebel and it is the best blue LED I've ever had.

If you're going for a specific movie saber color, take a peek at Nightwing's complete movie blade-LED color guide. All 5 of the films with blue sabers he's taken pictures of to demonstrate the different colors.

The link is in the index ;)

[samurai_rob]

Sweet! Thanks Maul! :D

[Novastar]

I know it's not a Lux III (duh), but the Royal Blue Lux V I have has got to be my most favorite blue ever. It's also the brightest saber I have, and is BLINDING + ridiculously evenly lit.

Come to think of it... I wish I had this saber during the time of my H-blade comparisons. It would have easily equaled or trumped the blue H-blade--in my opinion.

For those who haven't seen the Lux V I mean, you know where to look--on my Y-tube videos. It's not even anything special--it's just an over-driven Royal Blue Lux V (direct drive).

[Darth Morbius]

I have to agree with Novastar here. Lux V Royal Blue, Bin 5 or 6. Run one at 1A on a CF, or using a 1A buckpuck... You'll see what I mean!

Bin 1 looks neat because of the nearly purple shade it has.

K2 Royal Blue at full drive looks nice too.

For a Lux III, I like Bin 2 Cyan, Bin 1 Cyan, Bin 3 Blue, and Bin 5 Royal.

[samurai_rob]

Cool! Nova. What power setup do you use with the lux 5? What kind of battery life do you get?

[Lord Dottore Matto]

BIN 5 or 6 Lux V royal or BIN 1 lux III or BIN 2 Lux V Cyan are my faves! Overdrive th lux V's like DM says and you will be very happy (7.2V and 1 A):mrgreen:

[xwingband]

Color-wise I've always preferred the Royal Blue because of the almost purple look it can get.

For brightness I'll throw out the Luxeon Rebel. It beats the V and is more manageable for electronics.

[samurai_rob]

Crap! I just realized I misspelled OPINION! Why didn't anyone tell me! I'm so embarrassed! :D Overlook my typo. I must have hit "p" twice and didn't notice. :D

Just had to make fun of myself.

Feel free to keep posting! My cyan led just shipped today, but after reading what you guys have been saying, I may order a lux 5 royal to play around with.

Thanks!:D

[Master Dru-Er]

I did a bunch of comparo picks for fx-sabers a lil while ago search through this thread.http://www.fx-sabers.com/forum/index.php?topic=14105.30

[Novastar]

Cool! Nova. What power setup do you use with the lux 5? What kind of battery life do you get?Since this one was direct drive (i.e. no board or sound/speaker to feed/draw power), a 7.2v or 7.4v Li-Ion setup is great.

To be just a LITTLE extra careful, I do have a resistor in there, but as I mention on the video (as well as the battery setup... HINT HINT)... I used a 0.75 ohm resistor. It's also quite capable of handling all the heat, so... nobody need worry.

The battery life is much easier to calculate on a direct-drive setup vs. a PWM'ed (read: CF, Ultrasound, Corbin, etc.) one since there is pretty much no fluctuation in the current draw. Let's see here... we have something like a 2400mAh setup... the thing starts by drawing around 1200 or so mAH... then averages more to 1000, then drops below that, so... I'm gonna say about 2 hours or whatever.

I've never seen it "run completely out" yet, since it's being used for "lightsaber b-day parties", and in general I recharge it after kids are done using it for the next party/usage. Most of the time--it's on for about 1 to 2 hours straight... and... well... no sign of dimming as near as I'VE been able to assess. :)

[Eandori]

My Luxeon V blue was the best blue I ever had by a large margin. When building a Luxeon V saber into a MHS setup with CF driving it, I really think the barrel roll of 7x AAA NiMH at 1000mAh is the BEST setup.

- Very small once glued/soldered together. A single-stack battery.
- About an hour of runtime at 1 amp.
- 8.4v rated is enough to drive the Lux V at full current for nearly the whole run time. (7.2v packs will not hit full current for long...)
- 8.4v rated is not too high voltage, to push the CF board to bad places (like 3x Li-Ion would be)
- NiMH is easy to work with, in terms of battery making and charging.
- It's easy to find 1000mAh NiMH cells.
- Less risk of battery explosion on short... that's a good thing.
- 8.4v rated battery will give you a louder speaker then 7.2v on Crystal Focus.

If you like Blue Luxeon with CF... I REALLY think the any Blue Luxeon V (blue, cyan, etc.) with an 8.4v battery I described is the sweet spot.

[Count Malik]

See I built a 8.4v pack just like that but it shorted out on the hilt (mhs) I may have to upgrade my saber to one of these packs though. BTW what typical charger works best for these packs- 7.2v, etc.?:confused:

My Luxeon V blue was the best blue I ever had by a large margin. When building a Luxeon V saber into a MHS setup with CF driving it, I really think the barrel roll of 7x AAA NiMH at 1000mAh is the BEST setup.

- Very small once glued/soldered together. A single-stack battery.
- About an hour of runtime at 1 amp.
- 8.4v rated is enough to drive the Lux V at full current for nearly the whole run time. (7.2v packs will not hit full current for long...)
- 8.4v rated is not too high voltage, to push the CF board to bad places (like 3x Li-Ion would be)
- NiMH is easy to work with, in terms of battery making and charging.
- It's easy to find 1000mAh NiMH cells.
- Less risk of battery explosion on short... that's a good thing.
- 8.4v rated battery will give you a louder speaker then 7.2v on Crystal Focus.

If you like Blue Luxeon with CF... I REALLY think the any Blue Luxeon V (blue, cyan, etc.) with an 8.4v battery I described is the sweet spot.

[Novastar]

Malik, this is another beauty of Li-Ion cells... if you short them out--they are protected by the PCB that "watches over" them. :) In other words... you don't destroy your pack nor endanger any driver boards with them.

Granted, as with all things... they have their advantages and disadvantages. :)