Rebels Ready?

[Clockwork]

Rebels aren't ready for general use.

Hi everyone, I think I have spent a total of 6 or so hours searching the forums to check if this topic has been covered. If I have missed where it is being discussed Sorry. What are peoples' opinions on the Luxeon Rebels being ready? I am referring to the single rebels here, not the Tri-lux rebels. Led-tech has several optics for a single rebel, and stars and LEDs for people who want to solder stars up themselves. and Leds.de has pre-soldered rebel stars.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding, and because of the tri-rebel, when people say rebel, they are actually referring to a tri-rebel. If not, when is an LED considered "ready" for general use?

[Lord Maul]

Xwing has used Rebels before. He does Parks conversions using them, and did a MHS Luke ROTJ V2 for Killphil using one.

[Clockwork]

Yeh, I saw some of Xwing's pics on the "[p]4 green?? Brighter than the REBEL?" thread, that is why I was so confused with his statement on the "store wish list" thread saying that the rebel wasn't ready for general use yet.

[Lord Maul]

Xwing is a little bit more talented than your average joe, to say the least. General use refers to an average joe.

[Malaki Skywalker]

Well your best bet is a Seoul, they already come on stars and they are brighter, brighter then rebels, rebels are good for small spaces as Xwing said, rebels are a lot of hard work even for someone as skilled as Xwing. Shoot him a PM and he should tell you what to do

The Seoul and the Rebel both only need round about a 3 Watt set up, they don't need much to power them, Lux Rebel green = 145 lumen's, brighter then the K2 and brighter then the 5 watt green it has 120 Lumen's but its not its max rating, but then comes the Seoul = 240 lumen's max the green for the Seoul has 182 lumen's max

So IMO the Rebel is a good choice if you want to get bright for minimum power needs and small spaces, but the downfall, you must be very skilled at soldering to get them on the pads or you would have to by them on the PCB, so if you want brighter then the V with minimum power needs the Seoul is the best choice

[Clockwork]

So is the main problem with the rebels the fact that they the don't come pre-soldered on stars? I agree when I was looking into soldering them, anyone armed with only a soldering iron would have their hands full. They do however come pre-soldered on stars from leds.de (and afew other shops).

As for the Seoul, does that take a standard 3w luxeon optics? Also, are they actually brighter? The ratings say they are, Seoul at 182 and Rebel at 145, but that is data on a rebel running at 700mA, and the data sheet says they can be run at 1000mA, same as the Seoul. I think Xwing actually says they are pretty much on par Lm wise.

[Malaki Skywalker]

So is the main problem with the rebels the fact that they the don't come pre-soldered on stars? I agree when I was looking into soldering them, anyone armed with only a soldering iron would have their hands full. They do however come pre-soldered on stars from leds.de (and afew other shops).

As for the Seoul, does that take a standard 3w luxeon optics? Also, are they actually brighter? The ratings say they are, Seoul at 182 and Rebel at 145, but that is data on a rebel running at 700mA, and the data sheet says they can be run at 1000mA, same as the Seoul. I think Xwing actually says they are pretty much on par Lm wise.

I can certainly say that they need very professional soldering skill by just looking at them, as far as i know they use the 3 watt optics, Xwing can clear this one up

They are very equal to each other, but just think, if you run a Seoul at 1000 Ma?

[xwingband]

So is the main problem with the rebels the fact that they the don't come pre-soldered on stars?

That's mainly it. When I have used them I used the ones on PCB's already like the LED-tech ones. Normal emitters though are awful I tried getting some on blank stars but it really was awful... I'd like to try again, but that's why I generally said Rebel aren't ready. There are optics, but emitters are a pain to mount and even ones on PCB's are usually not on stars so they need to be epoxied or taped.

For the Tri-rebel stuff it's the optics... Tim showed normal optics give decent results. I'm going to use single Rebel optics and mod them. I think even though it's still less than ideal the height change (which does make a difference) should give a bit more.

[Clockwork]

Thanks for finding this thread Xwing. what do you use to solder the LEDs to the stars? Are you using a soldering iron? or are you using some form of reflow?

I think the rebel has a promising future, 3v, takes less power than the K2, brighter, and due to it's size it makes tri-lux projects slightly more plausable. I think Tim said in the Tri rebel thread that if several people wanted a rebel star with 2 red and 1 green LEDs on it, that he is able to get them made. I wonder if enough people wanted single "insert colour here" stars if he could bring them in.

[xwingband]

I tried reflowing and it didn't work well. I tried with a hot plate but I could get the sweet point to melt and not burn it. I'd like to try the toaster oven method, but really the Blues I have are already good and basically I'm only looking at Greens to do this for, which I haven't had to much of a demand for.