Luxeon Rebel discussion

[acerocket]

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:


The bottom of the pcb:


On a heatsink for experimenting:


Minimum power (2V 0A):


2.3V .01A:


3.2V .69A:


And just for fun, 3.3V .99A:


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]

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]

man that is crazy bright.

[xwingband]

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!

[DACOTA]

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]

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]

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]

nova, 3 of those things in one blade would be like staring into heaven...


glorious

[acerocket]

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]

Ace... do you think Tim's current heatsink could handle the heat produced by three Rebels?

That is... this heatsink:

http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/po...rge/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???