# Nice - Lumileds recalling TFFC Rebels/K2's



## Beastmaster

I just got this information from a Lumileds distributor.

I've redacted certain parts of the information to protect my source. I don't want my source getting in trouble for this.

The redacted PDF will be put on a web site once I edit it.

Editing note - I'm redacting more of this. This particular notice has embedded wording in it so that they are able to track it by distributor. And - the PDF has hidden watermarks. So, I'm not doing the PDF file. Sorry - I have to protect my sources. 

Also note - this notice has been very hush hush. 

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Philips Lumileds Lighting Company
370 W. Trimble Road, San Jose, California 95131 USA
Tel. +1 408 964 2900
Fax: +1 408 964 5349
www.philipslumileds.com

Dear Customer,
We have identified an issue with certain LUXEON Rebel (with TFFC) and LUXEON K2 with TFFC LEDs manufactured from WW0744 to WW0802. As a result, we are initiating this Return Request Action. This request does not impact production of all of the LUXEON Rebel and LUXEON K2 emitters; only the parts identified below are affected.

Situation:
We have identified a batch of non-conforming epoxy material used in the production of LUXEON Rebel (with TFFC) and LUXEON K2 with TFFC products manufactured from WW0744 to WW0802. This non-conforming epoxy material has the potential to cause the TFFC die to crack and fail during short-term operation. We have seen a failure rate that exceeds our specifications and, subject to the provisions of Philips Lumileds Standard Terms and Conditions of Sale or any executed sales agreement, are taking the necessary steps to resolve this issue.

Containment:
Philips Lumileds has temporarily suspended production of LUXEON Rebel (with TFFC) and LUXEON K2 with TFFC emitters. This production hold will remain in place until we have resolved the issue.

Date of production hold: WW0802.

Page: 2

Affected Parts and Date Codes:
In order to identify all affected emitters, we are providing a list of part numbers with
corresponding date codes to simplify this task.
Part Number Description Date Codes
LXML-PWC1-006 LUXEON Rebel Cool-White emitter (custom selection)
LXML-PWC1-007 LUXEON Rebel Cool-White emitter (custom selection)
LXML-PWC1-015 LUXEON Rebel Cool-White emitter (custom selection)
LXML-PWC1-016 LUXEON Rebel Cool-White emitter (custom selection)
LXML-PWC1-0070 70lm LUXEON Rebel Cool-White emitter
LXML-PWC1-0080 80lm LUXEON Rebel Cool-White emitter
LXML-PWC1-0090 90lm LUXEON Rebel Cool-White emitter
LXML-PWC1-0100 100lm LUXEON Rebel Cool-White emitter
LXML-PWN1-0070 70lm LUXEON Rebel Neutral-White emitter
LXML-PWN1-0080 80lm LUXEON Rebel Neutral-White emitter
LXML-PWN1-0100 100lm LUXEON Rebel Neutral-White emitter
LXML-PM01-010 LUXEON Rebel Green emitter (custom selection)
LXML-PM01-0070 70lm LUXEON Rebel Green emitter
LXML-PM01-0080 80lm LUXEON Rebel Green emitter
LXML-PE01-0060 60lm LUXEON Rebel Cyan emitter
LXML-PE01-0070 70lm LUXEON Rebel Cyan emitter
LXML-PB01-010 LUXEON Rebel Blue emitter (custom selection)
LXML-PB01-0013 13.9lm LUXEON Rebel Blue emitter
LXML-PB01-0018 18.1lm LUXEON Rebel Blue emitter
LXML-PB01-0023 23.5lm LUXEON Rebel Blue emitter
LXML-PR01-0275 275mW LUXEON Rebel Royal-Blue emitter
WW0744 to WW0802
inclusive
LXK2-PWC4-0160 160lm LUXEON K2 with TFFC Cool-White emitter
LXK2-PWC4-0180 180lm LUXEON K2 with TFFC Cool-White emitter
LXK2-PWC4-0200 200lm LUXEON K2 with TFFC Cool-White emitter
LXK2-PWC4-0220 220lm LUXEON K2 with TFFC Cool-White emitter
LXK2-PWN4-0140 140lm LUXEON K2 with TFFC Neutral-White emitter
LXK2-PWN4-0160 160lm LUXEON K2 with TFFC Neutral-White emitter
LXK2-PWN4-0180 180lm LUXEON K2 with TFFC Neutral-White emitter
LXK2-PWW4-0120 120lm LUXEON K2 with TFFC Warm-White emitter
LXK2-PWW4-0140 140lm LUXEON K2 with TFFC Warm-White emitter
LXK2-PWW4-0160 160lm LUXEON K2 with TFFC Warm-White emitter
WW0744 to WW0802
inclusive

Page: 3

Material disposition:
Philips Lumileds recommends all part numbers listed in the table above within the affected date codes are returned.

Unused inventory
Products should be returned to Philips Lumileds via the standard Return Materials Authorization (RMA) process.

Deployed material
In our internal testing, we have found that under normal operating conditions, the affected products experience infant mortality failure within the first 24 hours of operation. 

Preliminary failure rate data suggests failure rates of 10-30%. The reliability of the affected products that survive the first 24 hours is under investigation. A follow-up notification will be issued as results become available.

Timing for Replacement Material
The verification of exact root cause of this quality issue is under rigorous investigation. We anticipate that our production line will resume sometime in March 2008. Further communication updates will be provided as it becomes available. We are continuing to stage material before the TFFC production line, so that we can rapidly restart production once we have proven/qualified corrective action.

We will provide updates to you as additional information becomes available.

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Sincerely,
(Name Redacted)
Customer Quality Assurance
Philips Lumileds Lighting Company


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## evan9162

Dang.

I tried to order some parts the other day from Future, and got a call back from one of their sales reps.

They cancelled my order for the very same reason - a product recall on the parts I ordered (TFFC K2s)

Lumileds doesn't seem to be firing on all cylinders lately..


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## adamlau

Non-conforming epoxy material :duh2: ...


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## evan9162

the epoxy probably doesn't conform to standards set for the application (hence non-conforming). I wonder if the epoxy is part of the die construction - if so, failure would cause delamination of the die.

the TFFC K2s I have are all WW0744, so they would fall under the affected lots.

I wonder if I should try to do a lifetime test on them just to see if any of them fail.


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## Beastmaster

According to my sources, the epoxy will bust in about 24 hours of actual use. Whether that is 24 hours of continual actual use or 24 hours of accumulated intermittent actual use is unclear. The 24 hour number is one that I have gotten from multiple people.

-Steve



evan9162 said:


> the epoxy probably doesn't conform to standards set for the application (hence non-conforming). I wonder if the epoxy is part of the die construction - if so, failure would cause delamination of the die.
> 
> the TFFC K2s I have are all WW0744, so they would fall under the affected lots.
> 
> I wonder if I should try to do a lifetime test on them just to see if any of them fail.


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## Beastmaster

On a side note - I'd be buying stock in Cree right now and dumping any stock you have in Philips.

And another side note - anyone with a K2 or a Rebel in their flashlight, I'd be worried.....

These are the times where I'm glad everything I trust to work has either has a Cree, an SSC, or an earlier Luxeon.

-Steve


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## LED_Thrift

I wonder if these were made in one of the original Lumiled factories [pre-merger]. What production flashlights had these LEDs in them? Although it sounds like the ones that fail do so quickly, so it's not as bad as if it works for a few months and then .


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## adamlau

Beastmaster said:


> ...I'd be buying stock in Cree right now...


_...If you look specifically at the LED area, our biggest competition is a group of companies based in Asia. There's one in Japan called Nichia Chemical and then a group of LED companies in Taiwan that are all developing similar technology. We're in a race with them..._ - Chuck Swoboda, 2006

I would also look into investing in the "group of LED companies in Taiwan" as well. The ongoing SSC/Nichia legal battle makes investing in Nichia a bit of a risk these days.


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## matrixshaman

Beastmaster - thanks for posting this info and just let me say it SUCKS! Several of my lights have Rebels and I doubt I've got a total of 24 hours on any of them and no way I know of to tell if they are in those batches. The lists sound fairly inclusive though - just a guess that it may include most of the Rebels up through the 100 Lumen ones. Maybe this is why the supplies of them seem to have rather suddenly dried up. If mine fail from this I think I'll write Philips a nice letter requesting replacement. 50,000 hour life with a 24 hour runtime  on Philips :shakehead


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## Beastmaster

Well, don't call Philips. They will end up referring you to the distributor or the manufacturer of the flashlight. 



matrixshaman said:


> Beastmaster - thanks for posting this info and just let me say it SUCKS! Several of my lights have Rebels and I doubt I've got a total of 24 hours on any of them and no way I know of to tell if they are in those batches. The lists sound fairly inclusive though - just a guess that it may include most of the Rebels up through the 100 Lumen ones. Maybe this is why the supplies of them seem to have rather suddenly dried up. If mine fail from this I think I'll write Philips a nice letter requesting replacement. 50,000 hour life with a 24 hour runtime  on Philips :shakehead


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## Beastmaster

Well, not to sound mean, but I do personally think that some of these "bad" LED's will make it's way into some of the DealExtreme and other units going for cheap.

And - I'd rather have something go poof quick within the return period than it go poof after the return period ends.




LED_Thrift said:


> I wonder if these were made in one of the original Lumiled factories [pre-merger]. What production flashlights had these LEDs in them? Although it sounds like the ones that fail do so quickly, so it's not as bad as if it works for a few months and then .


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## Beastmaster

Also - what flashlights *are* using the K2 or Rebel TFFC LED?

-Steve


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## matrixshaman

There's not many K2's out there - short lived after it was realized how much current it used for the Lumens. Lets hope the Rebel batches listed are not as extensive as I'm thinking they may be.


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## evan9162

The bad batches start week 44 of 2007 - that's sometime in October. Anything made before that should be fine, including early 100 lumen rebels. If you got rebels made early on (from the initial July release), you're probably fine.

It sounds like they ramped up production in October for the TFFC K2 release and got ahold of some bad epoxy for that mass production run of the TFFC dies (both for the K2 and rebel).


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## Burgess

to *Beastmaster* --


Thank you for bringing this *valuable info* to our attention !

:goodjob: ___ :thanks:



Wonder how many flashlight manufacturers are gonna' be

"re-shuffling" their SHOTshow presentations ? 

_


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## koala

> We anticipate that our production line will resume sometime in March 2008


 Right... more wait.

 from - http://www.lumiledsfuture.com/products/luxeon.cfm


> LUXEON® power light sources contain no epoxy. Epoxy is prone to optical decay over time, resulting in poor lumen maintenance.





> Situation:
> We have identified a batch of non-conforming epoxy material used in the production of LUXEON Rebel (with TFFC) and LUXEON K2 with TFFC products manufactured from WW0744 to WW0802. This non-conforming epoxy material has the potential to cause the TFFC die to crack and fail during short-term operation.




*Contradicting?

I guess this is why Surefire doesn't jump on what's available on the table first. Good!
*


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## spoonrobot

Beastmaster said:


> Also - what flashlights *are* using the K2 or Rebel TFFC LED?
> 
> -Steve



Inova is one of the big ones with K2 lights. I hope they won't have to recall all the 2007 models, that would be a huge issue.


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## Gryloc

Hmmm. That is some sad news. I still have faith in Lumileds :duck:. I hope I do not get stoned for that. There are some loyal Cree fans out there that will rub this into the faces of Lumiled customers.

I do, however, have four TFFC K2 0180 in a rechargeable treble light that I made for my father for Christmas. I know he (and I ) have put over 12 hours on the light at from 100mA to 600mA, and it is still getting lots of use. I hope that none of his fail on me. 

So, I got the following emitters that fit in this recall, and none failed yet:
4 X K2 0180 12+ hours
1 X Rebel 0100 ~10 hours
1 X Rebel 0100 2+ hours
1 X K2 0160 1+ hours
3 X Rebel 0080 2+ hours
1 X Rebel 0080 Green 2+ hours
1 X Rebel 0275 Royal Blue 1+ hours

I can see that for some lights, 24 hours is a long time! Notice that the document says:


> ...We have seen a failure rate that exceeds our specifications...


That can mean many things. Their failure rate could have been right below the mark for years (and we were used to it or unaware of it), and these latest TFFC emitters just broke past. Of course, it is possible that this is very severe, too. Maybe the rate of failure isn't bad for us modders at CPF since we get small batches at a time. 

It is too bad that Lumileds will hurt from this. I was just hoping that their K2 0200 emitters would become available, too. I really like their products, especially the Rebel. Its so small, and useful! All of my Rebels, except one, went into very special, very small applications. Bummer... 

-Tony

EDIT:
Koala,

I think that statement (maybe outdated) was intended for the pre-TFFC emitters. I believe, according to pictures from Newbie, that the older LEDs had the die and SiC carrier (ESD diode, I believe) soldered to the package (very finely). I am not sure about how the new TFFC dies are bonded since the connective traces are beneath the die (connected by vias), and the ESD diodes are external instead of beneath the die. Finally, could this "epoxy" be a special bonding material used in the die-making process, which may be normal? Just a thought...


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## LightInTheWallet

IMO it is much better to recall potentially defective merch, than sell it knowing potential problems exist (even halting production if need be ) If this post is based on verifiable info than I give KUDOS to lumiled for they seem to have more scruples than some manufacturers/dealers/sources discussed here fairly regularly. Not trying to point fingers, just trying to acknoweledge an apparently HONEST company. :hairpull::twothumbs


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## Marlite

Lumileds will be checking their Non-Disclosure and Confidentiality Agreements
with a LED magnifying glass.

marlite


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## PhantomPhoton

Well, if ths is all supposedly so hush hush I don't have a favorable view of LumiLEDs actions thus far... but they are at least taking some steps to get things right instead of delivering a bad product.
I'd probably call myself a cree fanboy at the moment. But imho this isn't a good thing for anyone. Competition brings innovation and progress. I sincerely hope LumilLEDs can bring a competitive product to the market so that competition continues. (And I wish SSC and Nichia would just make LEDs instead of fighting with each other, I want my V bins :devil

Luckily I only have one light with a TFFC chip in it, the first run of Fenix Rebel 100 P3Ds, and if I do my math right I'm pretty safe. Week 44 is ~first week of November. Makes me want to run it for 24 hours though just to be sure. Sucks for Inova though who were going to finally get a decent line of products out. I bet this will delay them. Other than that I know Terralux has a couple Mag dropins using TFFC K2's including their tri-emitter dropin. There's been a few production lights using rebels, Tiablo, Lumapower, cheap Chinese stuff plus quite a few custom jobs. This could be painful. 
:eeksign:


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## Beastmaster

Well, note that nowhere does it say "Confidential" anywhere in the text that I cut/pasted.

And the original PDF doesn't say it either.



Marlite said:


> Lumileds will be checking their Non-Disclosure and Confidentiality Agreements
> with a LED magnifying glass.
> 
> marlite


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## evan9162

koala said:


> Right... more wait.
> 
> from - http://www.lumiledsfuture.com/products/luxeon.cfm
> 
> 
> *Contradicting?
> 
> I guess this is why Surefire doesn't jump on what's available on the table first. Good!
> *



No, not at all.

Luxeons contain no epoxy in the optical dome, like 5mm LEDs do. That's a main source of issues in those devices - the epoxy yellows and clouds over time due to heat. The "no epoxy" statement is in the context of the optical dome.

The silicon submounts have always been epoxied to the heat sink slug. 

Look at the diagram on page 10 of this document:

http://www.luxeon.com/pdfs/RD25.pdf

It clearly shows "electrically/thermally conductive epoxy" to attach the silicon submount to the heat sink slug.

The "no epoxy" statement is in reference to the optical dome.


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## McGizmo

This is really unfortunate for the industry, IMHO. 2 months of product which may to a significant extent already be integrated in assemblies and items is bad news for many. 

I heard of this problem yesterday from someone who heard it from someone else. I was asked not to cite my source and that is really secondary anyway. I wonder how quickly Lumileds is getting the word out to all that need it. 

Certainly they can contact the big players who they sold directly but what about Future Electronics? Does Future have date codes in their database cross referenced to sales? I am concerned that they don't. :shrug: I do hope to find out though. I purchased a reel (250) of Rebels that I paid a premium for and to add insult to injury, I paid a further premium to have these all mounted on a custom MCPCB I designed and had made. There is a light design based on these and the host for these LED's is in the works as well. I purchased the LED's right at the end of the year so I am reasonably confident that I got effected units. Unless I am given specific information on my reel to the contrary, I will have to assume the worst and scrap the whole lot. With the uncertainty in time and resupply I will probably have to scrap the whole program as planed and identify a plan B.

There could be any number of new items that were slated for the "starting line" which now represent loss to the manufacturers. For some it could just be a set back. For others, the loss may be one more difficult to carry.

There are likely some unfortunate repercussions that will stem from this and of course new opportunities as well.

*EDIT: Well of course as soon as I post this I get a good news/ bad news e-mail from my friend and rep at Future. Good news is that they had the info on my reel. Bad news is that it was made in the first week of the bad epoxy range. I can submit a RMA on the parts. :sigh:
*


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## Sgt. LED

So thermal epoxy failure = a 24h death from heat damage.
Makes sense. Suck to hear this happening though.
Edit: Damn Gizmo how big a loss is this for you?
Though I am sure you will quickly reorganize the parts into something else quickly and as beautifully as always!


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## Beastmaster

Well, the way I understand it is that even the big boys (like Fortune 500 companies) still have to go through the distribution chain.

So - people like Fortune 500 companies still go through distributors like Future. In fact, Future is likely the biggest Lumileds distributor out there.

I can understand the pain - one person (friend of a friend type of thing) had an order of something like 50,000 TFFC units that were all hit with the recall. They now have no idea when they will get 50k replacement units. 

The other sad part is the vagracies of the March 2008 timeline. Will that date mean they are fully ramped up, or does that date mean that it's just when they will have the fix in place and there's ramp up time from there.

-Steve



McGizmo said:


> This is really unfortunate for the industry, IMHO. 2 months of product which may to a significant extent already be integrated in assemblies and items is bad news for many.
> 
> I heard of this problem yesterday from someone who heard it from someone else. I was asked not to cite my source and that is really secondary anyway. I wonder how quickly Lumileds is getting the word out to all that need it.
> 
> Certainly they can contact the big players who they sold directly but what about Future Electronics? Does Future have date codes in their database cross referenced to sales? I am concerned that they don't. :shrug: I do hope to find out though. I purchased a reel (250) of Rebels that I paid a premium for and to add insult to injury, I paid a further premium to have these all mounted on a custom MCPCB I designed and had made. There is a light design based on these and the host for these LED's is in the works as well. I purchased the LED's right at the end of the year so I am reasonably confident that I got effected units. Unless I am given specific information on my reel to the contrary, I will have to assume the worst and scrap the whole lot. With the uncertainty in time and resupply I will probably have to scrap the whole program as planed and identify a plan B.
> 
> There could be any number of new items that were slated for the "starting line" which now represent loss to the manufacturers. For some it could just be a set back. For others, the loss may be one more difficult to carry.
> 
> There are likely some unfortunate repercussions that will stem from this and of course new opportunities as well.
> 
> *EDIT: Well of course as soon as I post this I get a good news/ bad news e-mail from my friend and rep at Future. Good news is that they had the info on my reel. Bad news is that it was made in the first week of the bad epoxy range. I can submit a RMA on the parts. :sigh:
> *


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## SilverFox

:devil: So, does this mean that we will be able to find some "good deals" on eBay? :devil:

Tom


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## Fallingwater

What exactly is "TFFC"?


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## Beastmaster

TFFC stands for Thin Film Flip Chip.

High performance LED's of the recent past used to use either flip chip methods thin film laser methods to "grow" an LED.

The descriptions below are extremely simplified.

The Flip Chip method is basically where you have the LED turned upside down and bonded to some sort of circuit board.

Thin film methods had an LED "grown" from a silicon substrate, lasered to it's desired form, and then thin wires were attached to be the leads.

TFFC methods grows the LED, lasers it to the form it needs to be, then it's flipped upside down and then bonded to a substrate.

-Steve


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## NA8

evan9162 said:


> The bad batches start week 44 of 2007 - that's sometime in October. Anything made before that should be fine, including early 100 lumen rebels. If you got rebels made early on (from the initial July release), you're probably fine.



Ah.. my two fenix rebels shipped from fenixstore in late August. Hope that saves them. Those rebel LEDs would be a pain to rework too. Quess the Q5 will be a popular model now.


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## PhotonFanatic

I find it interesting that some are quick to criticize Lumileds for this unfortunate situation. First, it was a problem with an epoxy from one of Lumileds' suppliers, which may have been changed from its original specs by the epoxy vendor and that change was not conveyed to Lumileds.

Lumileds noted the problem in their ongoing follow-up tests that they routinely do for all their products. At that point a bulletin was sent out by Future Electronics, Lumileds' distributor, notifying every customer of the recall, whether that customer had ordered those specific LEDs or not.

I don't think there is anyhing hush-hush about that approach. And I do congratulate Lumileds for catching the error and taking back the product. Yes, there will be some collateral damage above and beyond the mere cost of the LEDs, but Lumileds has done the right thing, right now.

I would also like to point out that not each and every LED is failing, but certainly enough to worry about.  

If you've installed the LED in a light and not had problems, then most likely you won't have any problem at all. For uninstalled LEDs, your best bet, if you purchased them from me, would be to return them. 

If you have bought the K2 TFFC from me and have unused LEDs that you wish to return, please e-mail me. 

As for new K2s, since the problem does not lie with the dies, only the epoxy, Lumileds is continuing to churn out the dies and will resume full scale production, with the proper epoxy, in March. It shouldn't take them to long to catch back up with demand.


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## 98j30

I have a MiniS30 TLE-300M insert for the 4-6 cell Mag light would it be possible this falls under the FUBAR this column is referring to? Purchased from Battery Junction Dec 11, 2007
98j30


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## UnknownVT

evan9162 said:


> The bad batches start week 44 of 2007 - that's sometime in October. Anything made before that should be fine, including early 100 lumen rebels. If you got rebels made early on (from the initial July release), you're probably fine.


 
Week 44 is week starting October 28/29-2007 (Sun/Mon).

So it's probably a safe bet that if any Rebel light was bought before October/28/2007 that it is not in the Bad batch?


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## this_is_nascar

My concern is not so much of the recall. They did the right thing by identifying an issue and recalling the product. My fear is that of the vendors/makers who now have these in-stock, to the point where they're already installed into the product. I'd venture to guess those products will in fact, make it to the streets.


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## LukeA

Beastmaster said:


> On a side note - I'd be buying stock in Cree right now and dumping any stock you have in Philips.
> 
> And another side note - anyone with a K2 or a Rebel in their flashlight, I'd be worried.....
> 
> These are the times where I'm glad everything I trust to work has either has a Cree, an SSC, or an earlier Luxeon.
> 
> -Steve



Your hindsight is 20/10.


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## Beastmaster

You've hit on one of my concerns.

Now - in Lumileds' defense, their situation is one where the failure rate is higher than normal. I still would be unhappy if one cracked like that, however. There is a chance that a recalled K2 or Rebel will do fine for all 100,000 hours.

So - there's a likelihood of higher than normal failures, but not so that every single one did.

I'm glad to see that the reputable vendors are stepping up. I am curious to see what guys like Fenix and Inova/Emissive Energy will do.

-Steve



this_is_nascar said:


> My concern is not so much of the recall. They did the right thing by identifying an issue and recalling the product. My fear is that of the vendors/makers who now have these in-stock, to the point where they're already installed into the product. I'd venture to guess those products will in fact, make it to the streets.


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## Beastmaster

Hey...what can I say. 

I am curious as to how this will affect Phillip's bottom line.

-Steve



LukeA said:


> Your hindsight is 20/10.


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## evan9162

McGizmo said:


> Does Future have date codes in their database cross referenced to sales? I am concerned that they don't. :shrug:



I realize you've already resolved this one, but every packing slip I've received from Future for a luxeon order contains date codes on each part. I dug up the order slip from my TFFC K2s and found that mine were in the first bad batch. I'll see about scanning some of my packing slips to show where the date code is recorded (for future reference)


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## McGizmo

Evan9162,
I had my reel drop shipped to the vendor who made and mounted them on the MCPCB's for me. I couldn't expect them to keep the packing slips or reel packaging and I know I would have tossed them myself at some point had I got the LED's directly. In the response I received from my Future Rep, he included the recall notice issued by Philips and indeed there is no confidential nature to this recall and it seems that all parties are stepping up to a bad situation where there are no winners among the principal parties.

Yeah, cool that Future had the records and could clear up any questions on my particular order for me. As mentioned above, this seems to fall back on a third party supplier who provided some epoxy that was not up to spec. This stuff happens and the ripples can carry a long way.

Personally, I feel very fortunate that this was caught for me before these LED's were installed in very expensive flashlights and spread around the planet! :green: Having lights fail and then not being able to remedy the problem in a timely fashion would really add insult to injury. 

Now from the recall notice, it seems that 70-90% of the effected LED's won't fail in the first 24 hours. I hope that further testing can determine whether those which survive are likely to have full life expectancy or what. I also hope that this information can be provided to those of us who would like to know. Future will be getting all of mine back and they are individually mounted on real nice MCPCB's.


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## Beastmaster

Yeah, but will Future (and subsequently Philips) give you back your PCB's, or are you out the cost/work of the PCB's themselves?

-Steve



McGizmo said:


> Evan9162,
> I had my reel drop shipped to the vendor who made and mounted them on the MCPCB's for me. I couldn't expect them to keep the packing slips or reel packaging and I know I would have tossed them myself at some point had I got the LED's directly. In the response I received from my Future Rep, he included the recall notice issued by Philips and indeed there is no confidential nature to this recall and it seems that all parties are stepping up to a bad situation where there are no winners among the principal parties.
> 
> Yeah, cool that Future had the records and could clear up any questions on my particular order for me. As mentioned above, this seems to fall back on a third party supplier who provided some epoxy that was not up to spec. This stuff happens and the ripples can carry a long way.
> 
> Personally, I feel very fortunate that this was caught for me before these LED's were installed in very expensive flashlights and spread around the planet! :green: Having lights fail and then not being able to remedy the problem in a timely fashion would really add insult to injury.
> 
> Now from the recall notice, it seems that 70-90% of the effected LED's won't fail in the first 24 hours. I hope that further testing can determine whether those which survive are likely to have full life expectancy or what. I also hope that this information can be provided to those of us who would like to know. Future will be getting all of mine back and they are individually mounted on real nice MCPCB's.


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## Gryloc

Hello all. I made a call late last night to future electronics and left a message with them. I asked if they could give me a call as soon as they could. I called because I wanted to see if there is still any chance that I could order the Rebel 0100 and TFFC K2 emitters, despite the recall. Well, I got a call this morning in response to my message. None of this may be new information, but I am just presenting everything that I had learned.

The info I have from Future Lighting Solutions:

First call (Jan 16, 2008 09:25):
- Production halted until March ’08.
- “Everything taken off of the shelves”; the parts are unavailable (nothing to buy).
- “The [TFFC] technology is just fine, but it is only the supply of epoxy used that is bad”. 

Second call (Jan 16, 2008 15:42):
- All parts have been taken off of the inventory, and the parts have been “quarantined”. 
- “Not even the design engineers can get their hands on them”.
- This is a decision made by employees of Lumileds (the employees in upper management).
- There is nothing wrong with the dies (the technology), just a bad batch of epoxy.
- Lumileds is still investigating the problem and they are still collecting information.
- For my specific inquiry, there is nothing that I can do. He confirmed that I could call back later (this week) for more information and to make additional inquiries. 

Please note that this was from two conversations with a saleman (and engineer?) from the Future Lighting Solutions. Their phone number is on the Lumileds web site. I cannot prove that this sales person was 100% correct, so please do not quote me when speaking with another source (like Future)! I am just an information sponge –absorbing anything said about the matter. I do invoke the conversation, but I am not at all prying. This information that was given on the sales person’s own will after asking him questions about the specific LEDs. I did mention that I do know about the recall from a certain source (the original poster from this thread, of couse). If I should not have used this thread as a source to bring up the recall, then tell me. I can refrain from bringing up the recall in the future. I think that Future is willing to disclose information about the recall if you just ask. I just wanted to be safe. The sales person was relaxed and we even shared our feelings and joked light-heartedly. I will call back (and hopefully speak with the same sales person) in a few days for an update.

That is my story. I am so glad that this has not turned to utter chaos (yet?). Everything seems relaxed. I think that Lumileds is taking this in stride, and working well with their distributors (at least Future Electronics).

I am feeling a little bit better for Lumileds (not as worried). They will still be around six months from now, like nothing had occurred. I think that it is a little rash to switch stocks to Cree right now (Wow  ). You might be hurting yourself by messing with selling at this time, especially since Lumileds may not at all suffer. I am not an investor, though. This just means that production will be behind (not necessarily the technology and development). 

I think that the RMAs will be the only nightmare conjured from this recall. There will be a large amount of paperwork to be done and probably legal work as well. It will be difficult to send in the unused emitters if they are strict about proof of manufacturing date and part number. I wish you luck, McGizmo and PhotonPhanatic, as well as all other re-sellers, modders, and manufacturers. 

I cannot wait until this is over with so we can resume with our hobbies and businesses. 

-Tony


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Super quick update:

I called the Lumileds US Corporate office to ask if I could somehow acquire the recalled LEDs (taking samples for testing or to take emitters that would normally be disposed of or destroyed), but the person told me that so far, that is not possible. If I wanted to pay for anything, then I would have to work with Future Electronics. She did, however, make a comment that the recalled emitters may be "re-worked" and possibly re-sold as value emitters. I am not sure about the details as that comment was not elaborated upon. I am guessing that if the problem can be easily fixed, it will, then they will be available for purchase. I also assume that some of the recall batch may be up for sale later (through whom I do not know) for a much cheaper price. Maybe Lumileds can do a burn in on LEDs to filter out the weak and defective units. I hope so...


----------



## koala

The news is not so widespread probably because they haven't figure out what to do yet or still under investigation.




evan9162 said:


> No, not at all.
> 
> Luxeons contain no epoxy in the optical dome, like 5mm LEDs do. That's a main source of issues in those devices - the epoxy yellows and clouds over time due to heat. The "no epoxy" statement is in the context of the optical dome.
> 
> The silicon submounts have always been epoxied to the heat sink slug.
> 
> Look at the diagram on page 10 of this document:
> 
> http://www.luxeon.com/pdfs/RD25.pdf
> 
> It clearly shows "electrically/thermally conductive epoxy" to attach the silicon submount to the heat sink slug.
> 
> The "no epoxy" statement is in reference to the optical dome.



I went back to Future website again and this


> LUXEON® power light sources contain no epoxy.


Then the RD25.pdf as you pointed out sure has thermal epoxy being used. You are right they meant the optics because from the start of the document there's a 5mm LED in epoxy diagram.

However, to :huh:dumb a person like me I would think that there's 100% no epoxy. What's worst is that the words "light sources" being used. Thanks for your guidance.


----------



## Beastmaster

Tony - I've figured a way to sanitize the original PDF. Once I do it, I'll post it. Basically, I print and scan the PDF into a JPEG and bingo! No more digital watermark.

Now- there is nothing on the PDF that states it's proprietary. So - it's therefore technically public knowledge (especially now...heh). 

Feel free to reference that you know about the recall. People from Future (and some of Future's customers) are some of my sources, so that's not a bad thing. Future's not really liking things either because this will hurt their lineups too - they really don't have anything else to offer in their line card.

I too worry about those emitters that are already packaged into some sort of other thing. I also suspect it will get ugly...and I hope that this turns out well. I do know that there are some companies with a bunchaton (5 figure total units) of these Rebels and K2's that are now going to be set back a good year because they have to ship these things back.

-Steve


----------



## evan9162

Yeah, the statement is poorly worded and needs some context. They really need to emphasize that there is no epoxy in the optical path.


----------



## L.E.D.

Funny, I think I can remember someone scolding me about the "reliability" of Rebel LED's. hehe...


----------



## rockymtnway

Just trying to make sense of this for what I have on hand. From my reading, this does not affect the 7007-PWC-10-3 Endor Star, correct? I bought them since in or about October/November, but they're not listed. 

What degree of confidence would you have putting them in a project?


----------



## MSaxatilus

I think this thread is deserving of being designated a "sticky" up top. 



MSax


----------



## cmacclel

Beastmaster said:


> On a side note - I'd be buying stock in Cree right now and dumping any stock you have in Philips.
> 
> And another side note - anyone with a K2 or a Rebel in their flashlight, I'd be worried.....
> 
> These are the times where I'm glad everything I trust to work has either has a Cree, an SSC, or an earlier Luxeon.
> 
> -Steve



Nothing like blowing it out of proportion Ehh? The world is not perfect.


Mac


----------



## cmacclel

rockymtnway said:


> Just trying to make sense of this for what I have on hand. From my reading, this does not affect the 7007-PWC-10-3 Endor Star, correct? I bought them since in or about October/November, but they're not listed.
> 
> What degree of confidence would you have putting them in a project?



The Endor star is aftermarket and not made be lumileds so it would not be on the list.


Mac


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## Kiessling

Moved to correct forum and made sticky.
bernie


----------



## 1wrx7

I build adhesive dispensing equipment for a living. Sometimes when we can't get a system to work properly we have tested material properties and found that the actual batch may not be what's specified by the material manufacturer. Sometimes this kind of thing happens.

I feel bad for anyone who is affected by this. Thankfully Lumileds seems to be acting professionally about the situation. BTW I have nothing to do with this problem. I don't know what material they are using, and I can't remember building a machine for Phillips Lumileds, but now I am curious. I'll check tomorrow.


----------



## McGizmo

Beastmaster said:


> Yeah, but will Future (and subsequently Philips) give you back your PCB's, or are you out the cost/work of the PCB's themselves?
> 
> -Steve



The way I figure it, I am out the MCPCB's, any prototypes I have made with these LED's and some opportunity losses that I can't put a figure on. 

I see no malice involved here and have no intention on trying to stick my loss in someone else's pocket. I suspect that there is already some fine print at many levels limiting exposures, liabilities and holding parties harmless for just such events. _WE_ have already paid for the services rendered in those sets of fine print and much of the losses (and gains) in business should be more realistic, IMHO, and limited to goods and services of _real_ value. As a consumer, I subsidize a lot of fine print. I refuse to buy any of it directly or do my hobby/ business in a realm where it is needed and part of the landscape. The golden rule dictates that I don't hold others to requirements and conditions I don't recognize myself bound to as well. Don't know if that makes sense or not.

At this point, I need to focus on a solution to my problem that has come up as a result of these faulty LED's. Unfortunately I don't think I can count on replenishment of these LED's in a time frame that would work for my program. (Anybody know where I could turn for alternates? Seen any ambulance chasers around this accident? :nana: )


----------



## Kiessling

Two posts have been deleted from this very useful thread. One was an advertising message taking advantage of this situation. It had no place in this important thread and was deleted.
The other (by Gryloc) was commenting on this fact and got removed as it would not make any sense without the other message, and not because some rules were broken.

Please carry on.

bernie


----------



## evan9162

Interesting

There was a message on my machine today from a Future rep. He's calling about the 6 TFFC K2s I ordered back in November.

Lumileds seriously wants to get all of these back if they're having Future call up customers about onesy-twosey orders such as mine.

I'll have to return the call tomorrow to see what the plan is.


----------



## Beastmaster

Wow. That is interesting. 

I'm thinking that Lumileds wants everything back. Why? That's a good question to ponder.

-Steve


----------



## SemiMan

"In fact, Future is likely the biggest Lumileds distributor out there." .... in fact I believe they are the ONLY authorized distributor. All the other small ones that service the hobbyist market likely buy from them.

Semiman


----------



## PhotonFanatic

Beastmaster said:


> Wow. That is interesting.
> 
> I'm thinking that Lumileds wants everything back. Why? That's a good question to ponder.
> 
> -Steve



Why are you turning this into high theater? The answer is obvious--the end user can't tell the good from the bad just by looking at them.

Recalling the entire production run puts an end to the whole matter, does it not?


----------



## SemiMan

Exact point PhotonFanatic....when you can not tell if it is good or not, you have no choice really but to recall everything out there. Part of that is just legal realities....since they recalled everything, at this point if you put it in an end product, it is a case of buyer beware. This would limit Lumileds liability. I am sure a big concern is also having products make it to the end user that may fail. Manufacturers are much more forgiving than end customers. Most manufacturers have had their own problems some where along the way and understand as much as you try to avoid these things, they happen. The farther you go down the chain, the less understanding people are.

Just one thing to say ..... "domes falling off"....  ...... ahh another few long nights at the office. This is definately going to cost someone a lunch or two.

Semiman


----------



## Beastmaster

Here's the reason why for my curiosity.

1) Every recall is different. Some are motivated by government restrictions (like automotive recalls) or other external factors. If this was an auto recall, it wouldn't even be a recall - a Technical Service Bulletin would be released and that would be it - every failure would be treated as a warranty item. That's because the failure rate isn't determined to be high enough to require a recall.

2) The TFFC LED's are relatively new. So - what happens when one DOES fail? Is it spectacular enough to where it causes other issues?

3) Has anyone actually had one fail? Technically, someone would have had one fail by now.

And I'm not trying to make this into high theater. Getting pissed off at me because I'm the messenger and I'm asking valid questions isn't the issue here. Would the people here rather NOT know? If that's the case then I regret even posting the recall notice.

I'm sure there are other external factors here. I'd love to know what those external factors are. I'm sorry that it's causing problems for people....but despite the fact that it's a higher than normal failure rate, is it really necessary to pull everything back? 

The large order people that I deal with and know haven't been told anything other than ship everything back. They are just as curious and have been asking similar questions that I have. So if I'm asking the same questions as those who are ordering 50 to 100k units of these things, are you going to get ticked at them too? 

Their investment of time and materials is in the same proportion as other's here...just on a larger scale. It in no way demeans what the small industry people do - but sometimes the small industry people can get more information than the big boys.


----------



## milkyspit

This whole situation stinks if you ask me...  and at the same time, I think we all need to keep things in perspective. I purchased a full reel of Rebel-100 emitters from Future that are clearly included in the affected parts list, Future has a record of the purchase (obviously)... but oddly, nobody has tried to reach me yet by phone OR email about the matter. That's not exactly what I would call good customer service. I cannot express strong enough disappointment in these folks' and/or Lumileds' seeming lack of concern to inform an obvious party (purchaser on record of known recalled product)... it's simply unacceptable. :thumbsdow

Meanwhile, I can only speak to my own situation, but as McGizmo hinted in his post (or so I read it that way) the choice for a custom builder is to build with emitters that may or may not fail prematurely down the road, or build nothing at all AND scrap any in-progress plans until Lumileds resumes manufacturing, with no guarantee of when that might be... and given their history, I'd guess the timeframe would be later not sooner. Then there's the wildcard that the emitters may no longer be competitive or even viable at that point, making said plans and any preordered supplies, time allocation, etc., totally worthless.

Some of my emitters are clearly on the affected list, and some of my emitters predate problems, so in theory should be fine. Therefore I intend to continue building with the Rebel-100 emitters, but with some additional steps to weed out the bad parts to the extent humanly possible.

First, for my own purposes I'm going to treat ALL my Rebels as if they're potentially defective to err on the side of caution.

Second, I will be running a burn-in test on the lights built with these emitters... the plan right now is to log 24 hours runtime on all the lights... since Lumileds states that affected parts will fail in the first 24 hours, this ought to eliminate the bad apples from the bunch. If I see failures I'll replace the failed emitter(s) and repeat the process, until the light survives the burn-in test. I'm running such a test on a light as I write this.

Third, should my customer experience a problem, they need only contact me ASAP directly and I'll do my best to resolve the issue... if that means I need to replace a Rebel or two, so be it. Stinks to be me but my customer will not suffer. This is the way I've always handled the builds anyway, nothing new here.

*The end user of my builds won't be hurt by the recall, I will.* Admittedly it's easy for me to feel bitter about being placed in this position, but IMHO the above is the most constructive path to take given the information at hand. No sense putting one's head down over it, just gotta pick up the pieces (literally?) and move forward from here.

I do agree with Fred and Mac that we do ourselves all a disservice by allowing paranoia to rule the day. Far more constructive to take stock of the situation, share experiences, and take it from there. These aren't the first components to have been recalled... it's unfortunately an inevitable part of working with technology... I can feel upset with the poor communication of the problem on Lumileds' part, but it's irrational to be upset that a bad batch of parts may or may not have been manufactured in the first place.

Incidentally, so far I've had several Rebel emitters fail in-house... thought it was indicative of my poor skills in working with the product, and that may still be the case... but it would seem at least some of the failures have been due to the parts themselves. I can say that the failure has occurred virtually every time within the first MINUTE or two of use... sometimes in only a few seconds. In all cases to date, I've replaced the failed parts and retested. I'm aware of only one Rebel in any of my builds having failed in the hands of a customer, and that build is in my hands right now having the failed part replaced.

Sorry if I've rambled on and on... wanted to offer whatever thoughts came to mind even if they streamed out in jumbled fashion! oo:


----------



## Bogus1

Beastmaster said:


> ....but despite the fact that it's a higher than normal failure rate, is it really necessary to pull everything back?


 
I'm not trying to jump on you and thank you for posting the thread. 

However when you think about what LEDs represent to the market, how they are used, and how Lumileds already gets slammed (and what would happen if LEDs started failing in the field), then it is very necessary to pull everything back (or at least offer to and give notificaton of the recall). I don't know what the normal premature failure rate is on LEDs, but I imagine it is very, very low. Customers count on this fact and use the LEDs in critical applications. So let's pretend the projected failure rate for Lumileds is only 1%, which still could be 1000 x higher than their acceptable failure rate (totally unsubstantiated assumptions). That is a big deal even in flashlights. Sure these fail for other reasons, but due to defects in manufacturing the lights or overdriving the LEDs, etc. If we have to add the reasonable concern of LEDs failing of their own accord then something important is lost. Sometimes that something could be very serious in the use of LEDs in critical applications. 

I'm bummed too. We were building parts for the K2 at the time of the recall, lucky for us it's just an inconvenience however.


----------



## gottawearshades

FYI, folks,

I emailed the fenix-store.com, trying to figure out when my Rebel lights left the factory, and here's the response I got:

"If you purchased it from us you have nothing to worry about. We stopped carrying them before the recalled batch and the lights we have now are from afterwards. Either way we cover all lights from us."

That's a good answer to what I thought might be an unreasonable question. Great customer service. I hate to think about what their inbox looks like right now.


----------



## cmacclel

How can the lights they carry now be after the recall when the recall is up to the 2nd week of 08 which was only 4 days ago? Am I missing something here? I understand it as all LED's manufactured from Week 44 of 2007 to Week 02 of 2008 are included in the recall.

I think I'm safe as the supplier I purchased my rebel 0100's them from already had these in stock in the beginning of November and is located in Germany. The recalled leds start date is 10/28/07 someone please correct me if I'm wrong.


Mac


----------



## this_is_nascar

gottawearshades said:


> FYI, folks,
> 
> I emailed the fenix-store.com, trying to figure out when my Rebel lights left the factory, and here's the response I got:
> 
> "If you purchased it from us you have nothing to worry about. We stopped carrying them before the recalled batch and the lights we have now are from afterwards. Either way we cover all lights from us."
> 
> That's a good answer to what I thought might be an unreasonable question. Great customer service. I hate to think about what their inbox looks like right now.



:thinking:


----------



## gottawearshades

I'm glad I could clear things up.

I was only worried about a light I had purchased in October. I hadn't really processed the second half of that sentence.

So, now, I am a little confused also, and uncertain again. Frack.



gottawearshades said:


> "If you purchased it from us you have nothing to worry about. We stopped carrying them before the recalled batch and the lights we have now are from afterwards. Either way we cover all lights from us."


----------



## McGizmo

The only thing I find strange here is the comment that Lumileds will be up and running again in March?!? Maybe I am misunderstanding this.

1) Lumileds had the manufacturing down on these LED's and used materials compliant for proper construction.
2) Lumileds discovered that there was an epoxy they used which was non compliant and in fact caused mortality early on and in numbers unacceptable so they shut down production and have issued a recall.
3) Does it take until March for them to put the proper epoxy back in place and start production again? Is it that it requires these couple months for them to grow the chips and then start on the construction of the LED's?

I can understand and certainly expect a lead time and lag between the restart of production and the pipeline getting refilled but if production is not to start until March then I am certainly confused.

It sounds like the epoxy is a thermal failure and if that is the case then I would guess that the reflow in mounting the LED itself could have some real impact on the life expectancy of the part. Certainly the epoxy is taken to a limit during reflow that is well in excess of operating temperatures. :thinking: :shrug:

In my case, I have more invested in the MCPCB and the mounting of the LED than I do in the LED itself. Getting a credit back from Future will bring me less than $.50 on the dollar of out of pocket cost. If I could weed out 10-30% failures and expect those that survived to provide viable service then I would be ahead of the game to hang on to my inventory and burn the LED's in for 24 hours like Milky is planning on. The big question mark for me is what can be anticipated of those LED's which would survive the first day of operation?!? Are they good to go or will they too have a shorter than optimal life cycle? 

The notification from Lumileds states that this is being looked into. Maybe I should hold off and find out what they determine?


----------



## Beastmaster

And therein lies more questions. One could interpret the March statement in multiple ways. I see it as either ramping up will occur in March (meaning an engineering change control is going to happen) or full ramp up will be complete by March (meaning an engineering change control has occurred and will take this long to go to full speed).

This also is why recalling everything is a bit interesting too. Like:

- Does this mean that every Rebel and K2 in the list will have higher than normal failures in the 24 hour period, then it evens out statistically?

- Does this mean that every Rebel/K2 in the list will fail sooner than the Mean Failure rate?

- How does it fail? Is it a simple or a catastrophic failure? (Catastrophic meaning that stuff literally melts/burns/etc.) 

If the failure percentage rate is what they say, then wouldn't it be an acceptable risk to utilize existing inventories and go through a slightly higher than normal RMA count?

If more questions could be answered, then recouping a greater proportion of the costs involved for the CPF'ers here is doable. 

-Steve


----------



## 3rd_shift

oo:
I think I'll just avoid these for a while until things get cleared up. 
That's a serious goof to discover a bad epoxy this late in production, and then wait a long time to start using the right epoxy again.
Has anyone here had these isssues with thier newer K2's and Rebel leds?
This is the 1st I have heard of this. :shrug:

I sure hope Lumileds gets thier act back together again soon on these. :candle:


Wierd.


----------



## russthetoolman

Yes, I have issues with my K2 TFFC emitters that I build with.
It was very frustrating trying to determine which product in the building of the light was the culprit. I was working with an engineer from Future before the recall. I am wanting a refund on my 19 leds and will attempt that starting Friday 1-19-08. I think they should refund the used ones also. Why only the unused? I have to use them to determine there is an issue, how silly....


----------



## Bogus1

McGizmo said:


> The notification from Lumileds states that this is being looked into. Maybe I should hold off and find out what they determine?


 
Hey Don, 15,000 posts! Well that's either not bad or not good, I'm not quite sure.:nana:

I'd sit and wait in your shoes just in case they can pin things down a little. I suspect there is no such thing as a safe window when using a faulty epoxy however. It just doesn't make sense, unless they used the wrong epoxy on only some of the production lines. Then getting past a 24 hour window might indicate the right epoxy was used on the surviving LEDs. It seems to me a weak epoxy would always be weak, that is unless it became age or heat cured somehow past the 24 hours.

Mac, thanks for posting what probably more than a few of us were thinking. I think they call that plausible deniability.


----------



## Brlux

This is purely speculation on my part but it sounds like the epoxy used to attach the die breaks or fails due to thermal expansion. I experienced this problem with the very first batch of TFFC rebels that shipped. My problem happened when trying to hand solder the device which resulted in them going above the recommended maximum temperature. The die and ceramic substrate must expand at different rates and at a certain point the epoxy cant take it. Again my problem was only with hand soldering, I have a few of them which went through a proper reflow cycle and have since logged over 500 hours at 600mA and they still work great. I had a 100% failure when hand soldering and it usually was evident within an hour of operation. This defective epoxy must fail at a lower amount of thermal expansion like that found in the reflow process or perhaps even under the LED's own heat.


----------



## jtr1962

The likely failure mechanism for these is differential thermal expansion. The die and slug both have different coefficients of expansion. The epoxy interface must be flexible enough to allow the die and slug to expand at different rates. Ironically, the problem is probably manifested when the LED is powered, not when it is reflow soldered. While being soldered, the LED does indeed get very hot, but the die and slug are at roughly the same temperature. They may expand differently, but the epoxy can probably take up the slack. Now when you power up the die, especially at high power, the die may be a good 30°C or more hotter than the slug. It expands a lot while the slug hardly expands at all. The epoxy detaches from either the die or the slug. The die suddenly has no thermal path, and experiences catastrophic failure within microseconds. Not all of the die may detach, either. The part that does will generally crack, electrically isolating itself from the part that doesn't. As a result, these may fail in an apparent short circuit, or in a condition where there's still a Vf, but very little light. I've heard of both failure modes observed so far. This is from a batch which was hand-soldered to PCBs, and tested 100% OK at 100 mA.

My recommendation if you have some from a bad batch, but must keep the assembly line moving, is to burn-in test for 24 hours or more at 1 amp. If the LED surivives this long then it's likely not a candidate for infant mortality. It still may not survive 60,000 hours, but chances are it will last long enough for at least flashlight duty.


----------



## ValhallaPrime

Beastmaster said:


> On a side note - I'd be buying stock in Cree right now and dumping any stock you have in Philips.
> 
> -Steve


 
Not to bust your bubble or anything, but LumiLeds in its entirety is about a 00.001% of Philips' global business. If that. That's like dumping Unilever Corporation because of a recall on Bertolli Rigatoni dried pasta in 3 small towns located in Rhode Island only. Doesn't even register on their annual report. Seriously man, it's like the Floor Mat Fastener division of General Motors. Barely a blip on their radar.


----------



## saabluster

Seems like he may have been right after all back in Oct.. Taken from here post #15.


mds82 said:


> I heard that the Rebel's were being pulled from the market due to a 15% failure rating


----------



## Lightingguy321

strange.... how has fenix gotten a hold of new rebels AFTER the recall, considering lumileds halted production and sales during WW022008


----------



## suby360

Let's face it guys. Lumileds is not firing on all cylinders, and they have not been for a couple of years now. Remember the K2 introduction that took 2 years to finally come true, and when it did, it was behind in lumens output vs. Cree? Remember the promise of 100 lm Rebels in volume, but they also never made it out into the market? Now they say that they anticipate production to resume in March 2008. If history proves anything, you may want to add about 12-18 months onto that! You can only believe their hype for so long and only so many times before you realize they are unable to deliver on their promises. I blame Philips for this, because clearly they are now cutting corners, and that is the Philips way of doing business ("Sense & Simplicity" = CHEAP!). Put the nail in the coffin already. Lumileds is a has-been. 

Cree and Nichia are the two remaining players in the game, and Nichia does not have a true high-power chip in its LEDs. So, I guess that Cree is now the top dog. I don't know about you all, but I have had it with Lumileds, and I am moving on to Cree. C-ya!


----------



## cmacclel

Wow that was some 1st post!

Mac


----------



## Gryloc

Could Fenix be trying to sell lights with the "recalled" emitters, while covering it up by saying that every emitter sold was produced right before the 44th week of 2007 and after th 2nd week of 2008? Something does not seem right how none of the LEDs that were in the lights that were sold in the past months were covered in the recall, unless Fenix refuses to sell any of their lights with Rebels manufactured in the recall period. If Fenix did sort of "quarantined" flashlights with recalled emitters, then good for them! However, the number of emitters available now from before the 44th week of '07 and after the 2nd week of '08 have to be pretty scarce (not many lights will be sold from now).

Oh, and another possibility could simply be a language barrier in the communications (emails with gottawearshades). They could mean many things, even though what they said was probably communicated properly. I dunno...

I have nothing against Fenix, so please do not think I do by my ideas. I am just stating what could be possibly done by a good sized Asian company like theirs (whose goals are just to sell their lights). Nothing against Asian flashlight manufacturers, either. 

All I go are a bunch of ????'s :thinking:

I wish Lumileds would come up with some sort of report. I hope they explain all the details on emitter life over that 24hr span. I hope that the time to identify faulty emitters would drop to 6hrs, or they give information like lumen maintenance or total life span of the emitters that do make it past the burn in period.

BTW, I did recently spot a Rebel 0100 manufactured before the 44th month of '07, and a TFFC K2 0160 that was manufactured in the recall period that are acting strange during operation. I will have time to explain this later (The Rebel's problem was my fault, but not the K2's).


-Tony


----------



## Gryloc

suby360,

I just wanted to add that you made a pretty powerful first post. Welcome. Although Lumileds has a severe limp right now, they are still there and will always be. It is strange to say that you are going to leave Lumileds altogether. They produce good quality parts with certain characteristics that Cree still lacks! Even though they are behind in technology by a bit, and behind in delivering their latest technology, does not mean that their products are unusable or even viable to use in high-performance lighting.

Their production will still be down, but it does not mean they are out of the game. They will never tag out (hopefully). We still need more companies producing high performance power LEDs to increase the competition, lower prices, and further stimulate R & D. Now all of this has been said before, but I wanted to say it again because it is still valid! There is no reason to overreact. 6 months from now, everything will be smooth sailing and who knows who may produce the top performing LED....

-Tony


----------



## dat2zip

I interpret part of the statement differently.

It seems to me that if the epoxy was a defective batch it would be easy to correct and get back on track in a reasonable time frame (say 1-4 weeks). Given the fact that as I have read the statement it's unclear even in March if they will have production back up and running. 

Coming from the electronics industry with over 20+ years of experience I see this as a possible serious technical flaw and they are now scrambling to resolve it. That's completely different than just getting the epoxy batch situation cleared up.

In fact unless there is a supply issue they should have already corrected the formula, dumped all bad epoxy and moved on. This hiccup shouldn't last more than a couple weeks if it was just a bad batch.

I truly hope it is the simpler of the two and that Lumileds comes back online soon. I would love to buy the Rebels with TFFC to see how the TFFC color control actually is.

Wayne


----------



## SemiMan

ValhallaPrime said:


> Not to bust your bubble or anything, but LumiLeds in its entirety is about a 00.001% of Philips' global business. If that. That's like dumping Unilever Corporation because of a recall on Bertolli Rigatoni dried pasta in 3 small towns located in Rhode Island only. Doesn't even register on their annual report. Seriously man, it's like the Floor Mat Fastener division of General Motors. Barely a blip on their radar.



I would say that Lumileds is closer to 0.5%, but your point is completely accurate. That said, it is probably at a much higher growth level than most of the rest of their businesses and better margins as well.

Semiman


----------



## Gryloc

With a big corporation like Phillips, is there any chance that this recall had something to do with a decision or problem at the corporate level? Things can go well with research and development for a company, but if something leads to a conflict of interest with the corporate leaders or investors, then I am sure that they would have no trouble with halting production of main products. This sometimes happens in the fast paced automotive world and big electronics companies, so why not with Phillips and/or Lumileds?

I ask this because of the funky behavior of Lumileds and how the production of the TFFC LEDs and this recall played out. Something smells funny, like of magic smoke. I guess that things could have happened for a legitimate reason, but what about the feelings of the big managers, the presidents, and the investors?

-Tony


----------



## McGizmo

dat2zip said:


> I interpret part of the statement differently.
> 
> It seems to me that if the epoxy was a defective batch it would be easy to correct and get back on track in a reasonable time frame (say 1-4 weeks). Given the fact that as I have read the statement it's unclear even in March if they will have production back up and running.
> 
> Coming from the electronics industry with over 20+ years of experience I see this as a possible serious technical flaw and they are now scrambling to resolve it. That's completely different than just getting the epoxy batch situation cleared up.
> 
> In fact unless there is a supply issue they should have already corrected the formula, dumped all bad epoxy and moved on. This hiccup shouldn't last more than a couple weeks if it was just a bad batch.
> 
> I truly hope it is the simpler of the two and that Lumileds comes back online soon. I would love to buy the Rebels with TFFC to see how the TFFC color control actually is.
> 
> Wayne



To add to this, and others have wondered the same thing, when was the TFFC implemented? Is its timeline commensurate with this bad epoxy?

Does anyone have TFFC parts that were manufactured prior to the 44th week? Do we have a sense on when production shifted _completely_ over to the TFFC?

I think Lumileds's has the ability to make some good parts and I have also seen tall stories come from them as mentioned above on delivery dates; projected and actual. I also still smart from a certain joker issue they slipped to us with no notification. Most companies have to deal with some fire and damage control. poop happens. However, it seems that some companies are much better at avoiding the fires and damage to begin with.

I don't expect Lumileds to bother giving me the time of day but I certainly do hope they have some means of identifying what time it is and how to tell time! Hey, when you are in the peanut gallery, you get to throw peanuts! With rank comes privilege.


Yeah, I realize I am kind of pissed about this problem as the reality sets in. 

Unfortunately, I doubt we will get much beyond our own speculation on this but I hope I am wrong.


----------



## Brlux

McGizmo said:


> Does anyone have TFFC parts that were manufactured prior to the 44th week?


The parts I referenced in my previous post were some of the very first TFFC put out to the public. I believe it was mid July of 07 when thet they were recieved. 

I was planing on using them in a grand Solar Based LED Home Lighting project which I was hoping to turn into a comercial project. I noticed failures with the devices after an extreem temperature cycle which was beyone their specifications. While it was beyond specification it still left me with an uncomfortable feeling about the durability of the devices. I contacted Future and some other CPF members to discuss my problems and everyone basicaly told me I was crazy and there was nothing wrong with the LED's. Once I started soldering them within specifications they worked fine. I guess this epoxy conection is the week link, If everyting goes properly it should work but unfortunatly everything doesn't allways meet specifications. I finished the R&D for my project but never took it to market for whatever reason, now it apears a fortunate event because I likely would have lost my shirt or atleast my sleves in the deal.


----------



## SemiMan

I must say the conspiracy theories are quite amusing.... ;-)

Semiman


----------



## Burgess

how about:


Where there's smoke, there's fire

:devil:
_


----------



## McGizmo

SemiMan said:


> I must say the conspiracy theories are quite amusing.... ;-)
> 
> Semiman



Cool! I could use a laugh out of this one. Beyond curiosity and speculation, could you point me to the conspiracy content? (They rarely get past the theory state)


----------



## evan9162

TFFC dies debuted with the Rebel-100 in July of 07. So all the TFFC rebel production from July to October was supposedly "good".

In addition, I received a pre-production TFFC K2 sample in early August or so.


----------



## McGizmo

Thanks Evan and Brlux. I thought they had been established prior to November but hadn't been paying attention. (obviously)


----------



## WeLight

While I am bias as I live truly in the shade of the Cree product, I also have 30 + years in semiconductor sales, I must say I have NEVER seen a recall on leds before and the fact that there were several threads about pulling rebel REDS and then some whites only a few weeks ago, also with March recovery dates seems remarkably close to this issue, is there a more serious issue at play here that the spin doctors keep massaging


----------



## russthetoolman

russthetoolman said:


> Yes, I have issues with my K2 TFFC emitters that I build with.
> It was very frustrating trying to determine which product in the building of the light was the culprit. I was working with an engineer from Future before the recall. I am wanting a refund on my 19 leds and will attempt that starting Friday 1-19-08. I think they should refund the used ones also. Why only the unused? I have to use them to determine there is an issue, how silly....


 
I had a positive experience with Future and wanted to publicly thank them for superior service in this matter for me.


----------



## 3rd_shift

suby360 said:


> Let's face it guys. Lumileds is not firing on all cylinders, and they have not been for a couple of years now. Remember the K2 introduction that took 2 years to finally come true, and when it did, it was behind in lumens output vs. Cree? Remember the promise of 100 lm Rebels in volume, but they also never made it out into the market? Now they say that they anticipate production to resume in March 2008. If history proves anything, you may want to add about 12-18 months onto that! You can only believe their hype for so long and only so many times before you realize they are unable to deliver on their promises. I blame Philips for this, because clearly they are now cutting corners, and that is the Philips way of doing business ("Sense & Simplicity" = CHEAP!). Put the nail in the coffin already. Lumileds is a has-been.
> 
> Cree and Nichia are the two remaining players in the game, and Nichia does not have a true high-power chip in its LEDs. So, I guess that Cree is now the top dog. I don't know about you all, but I have had it with Lumileds, and I am moving on to Cree. C-ya!



Quite a strong 1st post. 
Welcome aboard. :grouphug:

I can understand where a large corporation might see fit to spend thier resources on more profitable products than leds.
Still, let's not forget the impression that X binned 200+ lumen Luxeon 5's made five years ago. :wow:

What a shame it's come down to this mess. :mecry:


----------



## ValhallaPrime

SemiMan said:


> I would say that Lumileds is closer to 0.5%, but your point is completely accurate. That said, it is probably at a much higher growth level than most of the rest of their businesses and better margins as well.
> 
> Semiman


 
$11,686,000,000 Philips 2006 Sales
$40,300,000 LumiLeds 2007 estimated sales

My bad, you're much closer to the actual number. Looks like about 0.34% of their total sales, if you disregard the fiscal-year mismatch. 

That's what makes them a safer long-term bet, even though they're having a few mis-steps. Without an insanely huge corporate backing, something like this could really cripple a company like Cree. Thankfully it hasn't. 

I really hope Cree gets snapped up by someone big....the 2 great things that could come out of it are huge financial shock absorbers when things like this happen, and theoretical access to millions of dollars in corporate coffers for R & D. The R&D part of this business is where these leaps and bounds we've experienced over the past decade are really coming from.


----------



## frisco

I swear I heard the rumor? Phillips was trying to buy Cree?? Any of you know anything about this ?

frisco


----------



## ValhallaPrime

Naw, that was GE.....both denied it, saying they were just drunk and hooked up at a bar. 

Next morning, GE left briskly, yet courteously. 

It was about 2 months ago, IIRC. That's what made their stock spike.


----------



## SemiMan

ValhallaPrime said:


> $11,686,000,000 Philips 2006 Sales
> $40,300,000 LumiLeds 2007 estimated sales
> 
> My bad, you're much closer to the actual number. Looks like about 0.34% of their total sales, if you disregard the fiscal-year mismatch.




I am thinking you are way off on both numbers....

Royal Philips sales are about $27 Billion Euros (2006) = $40 billion US. The last figure I could find as "Lumileds" was a run rate of $325 million to about mid-2005. Assuming they have had some growth, that could put them in the $375-400 million range (U.S. Dollars). That would make them 1% of Royal Philips. I am not sure where you got your numbers, but I think a 0 was missed some where.


----------



## ValhallaPrime

Hoovers Corporate research. Check it out.


----------



## SemiMan

Well they are very wrong on this one. I do not know the exact size of Lumileds, but they are certainly a lot bigger than $40 million. Your $11B was for Philips lighting, which is a subsidiary of Royal Philips just like Lumileds is a division of Philips Lighting.

Semiman


----------



## Bimmerboy

Just an idea to the pro modders out there with bagfuls of recalled parts, invested money, and product plans almost out the window over all this. I could be barking up the wrong tree, but wouldn't it be possible for single-session 24 hour burn tests to not reliably weed out the more susceptible dice (that's plural for die, right? :thinking: )?

Any number may potentially pass the first X number of thermal cycles, and seem to perform fine during burn in. But if thermal stress is the cause of die failure (can't think of anything else might be a factor offhand), I wonder if it would be advantageous to set up a test system where each emitter is turned on and off, say, 12 times over that 24 hour period before trusting them to go in your offerings. It may help weed out a larger number that would pass inspection, but fail later in the field.

If it could help cut down future warranty service, complaints, etc., then I hope this is a useful suggestion.


----------



## BentHeadTX

Very interesting thread!
I have one RB100 used in a Fenix L2D RB100 light. Luckily, I received the light in late August so the LED should not be effected by the recall. However, the cycling of the light can cause the thermal expansion problem to rear it's ugly head. 
For all you folks that pitch a major complaint about the SOS and strobe function on the LxD series...now you know why it is there! I am going to fire mine up in SOS mode to get the heating up and let it cycle for a few hours to test it out.  
After I recharge, then maybe kick it off in strobe mode for rapid cycling. I use the light as a bicycle helmet light and it would not be cool if it failed.  On the good side of things, the light is used an average of 3 hours a week so it is past 50 hours of use...it should be OK. I have never used it for more than an hour on "turbo" though and I'm not sure if it has to run constantly for 24 hours to crack. If so, my Eneloops won't provide that kind of runtime even at 350mA to the emitter. 
Maybe it is time to pick up a L2D Q5 and pull the Rebel from such a critical function? First the SOS test...


----------



## Bimmerboy

Elaborating on my last post (somebody do shut me up if I'm rambling), a potentially cheap enough (given the investment some here have), and possibly effective multi-cycle test setup might look something like...

A 120V 80W Xitanium driver (should be good to test a nice number of LED's simultaneously), cycled by a digitally controlled appliance timer, found at Home Depot, or elsewhere for $20 - $25 (can set multiple on-off cycles per 24 hrs.).


----------



## McGizmo

BimmerBoy,
I don't think you are rambling at all. I intend to hook up a Xitanium to a string of these pretty much as you suggest but I was going to go for straight burn time. I just want to see if I have some crap out and what they look like when they do. I am moving to another LED for the program I was going to use the Rebel in but I will keep the design open for the Rebel down the road if it makes sense when that day comes....


----------



## ValhallaPrime

SemiMan said:


> Well they are very wrong on this one. I do not know the exact size of Lumileds, but they are certainly a lot bigger than $40 million. Your $11B was for Philips lighting, which is a subsidiary of Royal Philips just like Lumileds is a division of Philips Lighting.
> 
> Semiman


 
Well let's not tell Dun and Bradstreet that (owners of hoovers) . I was going off their numbers, which are usually one of the most respected in the biz. Most of Wallstreet makes decisions off their numbers. They've been around about 50 years more than Philips, and global economies are determined on their numbers. 

But whatever. I'm not gonna argue this any more. I seem to recall Philips listing their global revenue on their AR for 2006 at something like $46B USD for fiscal 2006, but that could be well beyond sales, since that's a revenue figure. That could include licensing, financing, and market vesting, beyond just gross sales.


----------



## Bror Jace

I just read through this entire thread.

While the Rebel was becoming a favorite LED of mine (tint is better than Cree ... and brightness is coming easy these days ... but tint is getting to be more important to many of us), I have to agree with the people coming down hard on Phillips.

Sample batch testing should have told these people there was something wrong with the LEDs that they were churning out. They should have caught the defects _hours_ after they were produced ... not months. :shakehead

There's no excuse for shipping so much defective product when the defect is (apparently) so easy to detect once you put some current through 'em. 

Best of luck to *Milky* and *McGizmo* in coming out of this mess OK financially. The small business road is a rough one full of surprises. I didn't take it myself but am thankful for the ones that have.


----------



## SemiMan

ValhallaPrime said:


> Well let's not tell Dun and Bradstreet that (owners of hoovers) . I was going off their numbers, which are usually one of the most respected in the biz. Most of Wallstreet makes decisions off their numbers. They've been around about 50 years more than Philips, and global economies are determined on their numbers.
> 
> But whatever. I'm not gonna argue this any more. I seem to recall Philips listing their global revenue on their AR for 2006 at something like $46B USD for fiscal 2006, but that could be well beyond sales, since that's a revenue figure. That could include licensing, financing, and market vesting, beyond just gross sales.




In general I trust D&B/Hoovers, but they are not infallable as is the case here. Here are some Lumileds numbers:

http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/2/1/11

http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/2/8/16

Semiman


----------



## Oznog

Gryloc said:


> The info I have from Future Lighting Solutions:
> 
> First call (Jan 16, 2008 09:25):
> - Production halted until March ’08.
> - “Everything taken off of the shelves”; the parts are unavailable (nothing to buy).
> 
> Second call (Jan 16, 2008 15:42):
> - All parts have been taken off of the inventory, and the parts have been “quarantined”.
> - “Not even the design engineers can get their hands on them”.



Well, Future Electronics still shows them as available inventory. The date codes listed as "recalled", aren't they from a specific older period?

BTW, don't be too hard on this with "oh I could have found that with a burn-in test". Testing while staying economical is a difficult task. It may be that they didn't test long enough or do enough thermal cycles to detect the problem (for that matter, why aren't they testing every LED for weeks?) Only, what, 10% or 20% would fail so testing a few out of every batch may not detect the problem. Or it could be that the epoxy is fine in the first few days but it'll crystalize or harden and crack with weeks of storage at room temp. Lots of ways to get screwed. The only way to cover your bases is to fully understand the possible failure modes of each material and structure used, apparently this was a bit "too new" and something got missed. Esp since, well, apparently the epoxy supplier is the one who screwed them. Sad, this is probably like 10ml of faulty material in the whole recall.


----------



## Confederate

Beastmaster said:


> Well, not to sound mean, but I do personally think that some of these "bad" LED's will make it's way into some of the DealExtreme and other units going for cheap.


Well, unless they misrepresent them as being something else, we, at least, should be wise to them. I've had pretty good luck with DealExtreme and am happy with the LumaPower MRV I got there awhile back. I do find it disconcerting that all this redaction has to be done to protect the innocent from the guilty, but that's the way things are going nowadays.

Up with whistleblowers! :twothumbs


----------



## evan9162

I received RMA authorization from Future last week. Apparently the initial recall was only for unused (unmounted) parts. The Future rep just called me this morning. Lumileds has modified the recall to include all parts, even those mounted on boards.

This is quite interesting. I'm thinking of a couple possibilities:

1) The problem isn't as simple as bad epoxy, and they woud like as many parts back as possible to determine the real failure mode.

2) The products fail so catastrophically as to pose a risk to those using them (fire, smoke, evolved gasses, mini-explosions).

3) Their legal department advised them to take back everything to avoid liability when the parts fail prematurely and do not live up to advertised lifetime specs.

4) Other?


----------



## Opto-King

evan9162 said:


> I received RMA authorization from Future last week. Apparently the initial recall was only for unused (unmounted) parts. The Future rep just called me this morning. Lumileds has modified the recall to include all parts, even those mounted on boards.
> 
> Hmm, how can they ask you to send them the mounted LEDs? Do they expect you also to send them the bill for the PCB and mounting cost etc.?


----------



## jtr1962

evan9162 said:


> 1) The problem isn't as simple as bad epoxy, and they woud like as many parts back as possible to determine the real failure mode.


They probably want to examine as many parts as they can to get some kind of statistical distribution.



> 2) The products fail so catastrophically as to pose a risk to those using them (fire, smoke, evolved gasses, mini-explosions).


If the LED is used with a proper constant current driver none of these should happen. However, I've been made aware of a propensity of these to failure in a short circuit condition. In all the years I've played with LEDs this is the first time I've ever heard of this failure mode. Anyway, failing in a short circuit can have dire consequences if the LED is used in a direct drive circuit. Yes, direct drive is a horribly bad practice, yet many people do it anyway. Many don't even bother using at least a fuze so there's some type of minimal protection.



> 3) Their legal department advised them to take back everything to avoid liability when the parts fail prematurely and do not live up to advertised lifetime specs.


Possibly, but what to do about mounted parts? I mounted a bunch of rebels on boards for someone. Is this person going to have to pay me again to mount his replacement rebels, or will Lumileds do so? I'm certainly not doing it for free. And will Lumileds pay also for the boards they're keeping? Those weren't exactly cheap, either.



> 4) Other?


They may want all the parts back because it will affect their statistical reliability analysis. The small percentage of bad parts can greatly reduce the average lifetime in the field. Lumileds will have to have an asterisk explaining why. They can't just drop any premature field failures from the total by assuming they are from the bad batch. They need them removed from circulation completely in order to drop them.


----------



## evan9162

Having thought about the implications, March doesn't seem like an unreasonable timeframe for this kind of change.

It probably takes 3 months to qualify a new epoxy for this kind of application.

There's a lot of testing that needs to be done that can't really be acellerated:

Manufacturing test
Long term storage test
Thermal cycling tests
High temperature lifetime
Low temperature lifetime
Humidity
Shock and vibration



These kinds of tests can take quite a while to complete, since many of them require long timeframes before the test is completed. It's not unreasonable to assume that they have several epoxy options that they are testing in parallel, each of which would require a sample manufacturing run in order to produce test samples for qualification.

Attempting to integrate a new thermal epoxy in a very short timeframe would introduce too much risk of achieving the same outcome as before. 

I wonder if any other LED manufacturers were hit with this epoxy change...


----------



## McGizmo

Evan,
Wasn't Lumileds using a compliant epoxy _prior_ to this problem? If they can't go back to the previous epoxy then I agree they need time to evaluate a new epoxy solution.


----------



## evan9162

It sounds like their supplier changed the epoxy formulation on them - probably without telling them, but who knows?

It won't be the first time that a supplier changed things without notifying their customers - happens all the time. I've personally experienced it on electronics products - the supplier substitutes a lower cost part under the same part # without informing anyone, and all the sudden, things don't work at all. And 10s of thousands of boards are already made with the new, non-working part. Really hoses things up for a couple months.


----------



## GaryF

evan9162 said:


> 3) Their legal department advised them to take back everything to avoid liability when the parts fail prematurely and do not live up to advertised lifetime specs.


 
Bingo. An uninstalled LED is a much smaller liability than recalling a faulty one that is already installed in a finished product, or having a finished product fail. Priority one is to limit the potential liability for both Lumileds and their customers / partners.

I know some of you guys are ready to write off your losses and move on, but don’t give up on Lumileds coming through and reimbursing for more than just the cost of the LEDs. It might be their best move when they consider both the potential liability and the importance of customer confidence in their products. 




saabluster said:


> Seems like he may have been right after all back in Oct.. Taken from here post #15.
> 
> "Originally Posted by *mds82*
> _I heard that the Rebel's were being pulled from the market due to a 15% failure rating" _


 
Largely dismissed as a troll at the time, and it may have nothing to do with current events, but it does make one wonder, doesn’t it?

I guess we were lucky that there were availability issues on the Rebel LEDs, or this could have been much bigger. Imagine a recall on Crees covering that same period, and how many manufacturers and products would be involved. It would probably knock some of them out of business. Hopefully this will only be a little bump in the road in comparison.


----------



## pilou

So what does this say about the Terralux's new Mag drop-in using this latest K2?

And where does this leave the new 2008 Inovas supposedly using this LED that were rumored to be planned for release in Feb 2008? :thinking:
[FONT=arial, helvetica][/FONT]


----------



## PhantomPhoton

pilou said:


> So what does this say about the Terralux's new Mag drop-in using this latest K2?
> 
> And where does this leave the new 2008 Inovas supposedly using this LED that were rumored to be planned for release in Feb 2008? :thinking:




IMHO Terralux doesn't have a large enough piece of the market for it to matter a whole lot, and likewise their K2 products have just shown up so they don't have a massive amount of parts to recall. Inova on the other hand is a bit more screwed. :mecry: 
Since they have large market penetration via Target they'll take months longer to get their 2008 products out. I'd be surprised to see the 2008 Inovas by May, and wouldn't be surprised if they don't actually make it out until July. I'm sure Inova has enough stock of obsolete 2007 K2 lights to keep the Target shelves stocked, so while it sucks for us flashaholics it won't affect the unenlightened.

I am interested to see how LumiLEDs handles this over the next couple months. I'd hate to see modders and custom light manufacturers get royally screwed.


----------



## 5kids

This story came out yesterday on LEDs Magazine

http://ledsmagazine.com/news/5/1/19


----------



## soffiler

5kids said:


> This story came out yesterday on LEDs Magazine
> 
> http://ledsmagazine.com/news/5/1/19


 
I saw that earlier today. I don't think there's a single shred of information in that article that hasn't already been mentioned in this thread.


----------



## DonnyD

I can't access the Lumileds website, nor luxeon.com. What's up with that?

http://www.luxeon.com

http://www.lumileds.com


Post Edit: THE DARK PERIOD HAS NOW PASSED. MESSAGE CANCELLED.


----------



## Burgess

That IS strange !


_


----------



## DonnyD

er...ahh...

Guess Lumileds saw my post, because the site is back up, now. CPF is powerful. Wow. That's huge.


----------



## Gryloc

Any news about Lumileds? I was hoping by now something new would have come up. Anybody hear about any updates on when the parts will be sent back out, or available for purchase?

Well, I am still in the process of burning in some TFFC K2s that I purchased after the recall :devil:. Next week, I will build myself a rig to test all of them (6 rows of 5) and burn them in for 24-48hrs. I am just finishing up with burning in a single LED just to get my process down. It is a TUME bin TFFC K2, and so far, it has over 70 hours of operation, with a slight change in forward voltage, and a slight increase in output. I even abused it a few times electrically (both intentionally and by accident ). Sure this is only one LED, but it just could have been that one in 10-30%. I will keep everyone updated on my progress.

I was hoping to hear if the 24 hour burn in test would be the proper way to find the failures. What if 10-30% of the LEDs were fine in a burn test, but only lasted only 5,000 hours?

-Tony


----------



## McGizmo

Below are some "bullet points" in an e-mail which was forwarded to me today. I leave out the Lumileds source as well as who I received it from for sake of privacy but I see no reason not to post this content here.

*****


> - Lumileds has identified and received "conforming epoxy" from our existing vendor.
> 
> - Initial testing looks very promising with final testing scheduled to be complete by 2-21-08.
> 
> - The testing is being performed at high current levels with an elevated ambient temperature of 85 degrees C (equating to a 125C junction temperature).
> 
> - There is a high level of confidence that this will fix the problem, and as such Lumileds has re-started limited production on TFFC LEDs. However, until the tests are completed Lumileds is referring to the parts presently on the production line as "risk parts". These parts are being manufactured now so that on 2-21-08 when the testing is complete these parts can be re-classified from "risk parts" to good parts.
> 
> - Lumileds expects to have limited quantities of good parts by early March, with high-volume quantities soon thereafter.
> *****


I was also informed by my Future rep that those LED's which survive the first 24 hours are highly likely to carry on as they should.

It seems that this problem is not going to be a show stopper for too long.


----------



## Gryloc

Thank you for the positive update, Don! That is very good news to hear that the recalled parts may be just fine! Now, if their testing is complete and there are no problems (you never know), do you think that they will send the original RMA'd emitters back to their previous owners? I would like to see you and a few others get the same LEDs back, especially since they were attached to a custom MCPCB or are specific premium bins. I am just trying to stay optimistic.



McGizmo said:


> There is a high level of confidence that this will fix the problem
Click to expand...

What would you guess that the mean by "this"? Just their basic testing or burning in? I dunno, maybe higher currents and operating temperatures? Well, it is great to hear a semi-detailed plan on the dates of availability.

-Tony


----------



## evan9162

I received physical paperwork describing the recall.

One important note (I think covered earlier) was that there's nothing wrong with the TFFC die or design. So it must be the die attach epoxy that's the problem.

In addition, the notes stated that TFFC die production has not stopped at all. They're continuing to produce TFFC dies and stockpiling them to ensure a quick re-ramp. So once the new die attach epoxy is qualified, production can re-ramp and only be limited by final assembly, and not die production.

Since the amount of die attach epoxy is so tiny (think of how little is required to attach a 1mm x 1mm square to a surface), a bad batch of epoxy that can affect the production of 100s of thousands of LEDs probably isn't a huge amount. I would imagine that a single barrel of die attach epoxy would probably be enough for 1 million LEDs or more (I'm sure it doesn't come in barrel sizes). So a batch could be a sizeable quantity that was intended to supply the production of hundreds of thousands to even millions of LEDs. We're not talking about a whole lot of epoxy needed, per LED, so one "batch" (even just a few 10s of liters) could easily be several months worth of production LEDs. A small volume of epoxy is easy for a supplier to mess up, but its effects spread out over many many LEDs, so it's much much worse for the customer.

The big challenge in all that is likely tracking down where the bad batch went, and properly flushing the bad epoxy out of all of the equipment.


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## saabluster

*production restarts*

Their back running fairly quickly all things considered.


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## BentHeadTX

*Re: production restarts*



saabluster said:


> Their back running fairly quickly all things considered.



GREAT news!,
I need another matching L2D RB100 so I can run dual mountain bike lights. A relief to know I don't need to pick up two Q5s so the beams will blend together. There should be a large amount of RB100's (maybe RB120's please?) after all, after a month of production and non-stop die production...there should be plenty to go around.


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## iconoclast

*Re: production restarts*



BentHeadTX said:


> GREAT news!,
> ... after all, after a month of production and non-stop die production...there should be plenty to go around.



But how many of those are destined to replace two months of production that was recalled? Just because they'll be shipping leds in march doesn't necessarily mean they'll be readily available to new purchasers. We can hope though.


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## evan9162

*Re: production restarts*

Ack!

I went to package up my TFFC K2s tonight to ship off tomorrow...

Only problem...now I can't find them... 

The last time I did anything with them was in November - and I thought for sure I had put them in the bin with the rest of my LEDs...but they are nowhere to be found.

Maybe they returned themselves...heh...


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## Gryloc

evan9162,

Oh, no!  I hope you can find them okay. That is the scariest thing when you think that you lost a bunch of emitters! I have done that before, even though it was only with a few emitters. It worried me sick and I turned my place upside down to find them. They will be in the most obvious place that you have already checked before, hidden by something. Atleast that was what happened for me. I guess that the worst case would be that a guest or someone got their grubby hands on them, not knowing what they were exactly. :sick2: Good luck with the search...

-Tony


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## evan9162

Found em.

They were sitting in a resistor drawer, exactly where I had left them over 2 months ago. Kinda shows you how little interest I had in these parts - I hadn't even bothered to put them away properly.

At least I'll get my $32 back.


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## evan9162

Just mailed them back today. Kinda glad to be rid of them, given how high the Vf was.


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## Lightingguy321

What was the forward voltage bin on your K2 TFFC samples? I thought the Vf ranged from about 3.01v to about 3.50v?


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## evan9162

I got G and J bins (3.75-3.99V and 4.23-4.47V, all at 1000mA).

The Vfs I actually measured at 1A were 4.37V, 4.28V, 4.31V, 4.11V, 4.01V, and 4.03V.

At 350mA, they were 3.74V, 3.69V, 3.70V, 3.64V, 3.61V, and 3.56V.

Very high.


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## Lightingguy321

that is high compared to the TVOE and TUNE binned K2 TFFCs that Photonfanatic was selling before the recall.


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## uk_caver

Further to saabluster's post, a slightly longer news item:
http://compoundsemiconductor.net/cws/article/news/32827


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## evan9162

Got my refund from the RMA - took a few weeks after shipping them. Future actually refunded my shipping costs too, so that was kinda nice, all things considered.


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## Burgess

Just curious . . . .


Has *any* CPF member encountered a "failed" emitter from this event ?



Have you even *heard* of a failure ?



Perhaps the failure rate turned out to be not quite as severe as Lumiled feared.


Glad, however, that they've gone the extra distance, in this recall.

:thumbsup:

_


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## jeffosborne

I have 20 of the recalled neutral white Rebel -0080 emitters that have survived lots of hours at 850ma with no problem at all.

Jeff O.


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## milkyspit

I've been working through a batch of LuxK2-TFFC emitters for which I'm not sure if they were recalled or not. :shrug: That said, I've mounted about 40-45 of them so far... no problems with any of them. Some are driven low, around 200mA... some as high as 1500mA. I've used them with both constant current and PWM circuits. Great performers across the board. (Knock on wood.)


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## Jarl

I'm fairly sure one of my rebel 100's is going. I have 3 mounted as a bike light. 2 are very bright (as normal), one has dimmed considerably. They're wired in series with a buckpuck to control current at 700ma, so i'm fairly sure it's the LED, though I haven't done any troubleshooting yet.

Edit: yes, it's the rebel. Did some tests, more current draw with the 3rd rebel on, even though there's no light coming out. Ripped it out, direct drive off 4xAAA's. Very little light emitted (it was more like random sparking at a specific point on the die than actually lighting up), but it heated up as you'd expect. Pronounced dead at 11:09 pm, 7th march 2008.

edit 2: Forgot to add- it was heatsinked properly and ran for far less than 24 hours (no more than 15, probably more like 10)


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## milkyspit

Jarl said:


> I'm fairly sure one of my rebel 100's is going. I have 3 mounted as a bike light. 2 are very bright (as normal), one has dimmed considerably. They're wired in series with a buckpuck to control current at 700ma, so i'm fairly sure it's the LED, though I haven't done any troubleshooting yet.
> 
> Edit: yes, it's the rebel. Did some tests, more current draw with the 3rd rebel on, even though there's no light coming out. Ripped it out, direct drive off 4xAAA's. Very little light emitted (it was more like random sparking at a specific point on the die than actually lighting up), but it heated up as you'd expect. Pronounced dead at 11:09 pm, 7th march 2008.
> 
> edit 2: Forgot to add- it was heatsinked properly and ran for far less than 24 hours (no more than 15, probably more like 10)




Jarl, that sounds typical of the failure pattern I've seen: the emitter gets really dim but doesn't go completely out... and it continues to pass current... this typically happens quickly, often in the first MINUTES of operation.

The good news is this: replace the bad one with another Rebel, even one from the affected batch, and your chances for correct operation will be 70-90%.


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## brightnorm

McGizmo said:


> ...I was also informed by my Future rep that those LED's which survive the first 24 hours are highly likely to carry on as they should...


 
As a P3D/Rebel owner my question is 24 hours at what level? If heat is a primary problem then 24 hours at Low or Medium might not reveal the defect. Would you suggest 24hrs on High, fan cooled, replacing the batteries every 5 hours?

Brightnorm


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## Gryloc

I am not sure if it means 24hrs at the typical 350mA or 1000mA. Heat may screw with defective epoxy by cycling the light on and off slowly (thermal shocks). I burned in my TFFC K2s at 350mA for most of the 24 hours, with occasional 700mA and 1000mA runs (for 1-3hrs each). I used a CC power supply, and each of my sets of K2s (6 sets, 5 in each set in series) were placed on a massive heatsink. I also tested the Vf a couple times during the burn in, so I gradually ramped up the current to 2000mA (50-100mA steps and a pause to measure Vf). Finally, I did a very tedious test where I pulsed the LEDs on and off every 10-20 seconds at various currents (from 350mA to 2000mA) for several minutes. I did not have a program for burning in my emitters, so I tried various tests (as you could tell from my varying currents and time periods), each getting more vigorous and stressful for the emitters as I progressed. I wanted to be safe and just try everything that I thought would make an LED fail (within reason). No luck at killing any or causing any damage, which is promising. I hope someone else can chime in.

If you want to try burning in your emitter, why waste batteries? To save batteries, what if you used a different power source. 2 CR123s means 6V, so 4 Alkaline D cells, 5 NiMH batteries, or maybe an old 5.9VDC cell phone charger. You can make a dummy battery out of anything (wad of paper) with a wire fed to the positive terminal, and the wire gets pressed against a bare aluminum spot on the battery. Hold things together temporarily with tape or rubber bands. Then hook up the above power sources and test the light in front of the fan. This will save your precious CR123 cells, and battery changes may be reduced to one time, or none at all. Sure this sounds crude, but it would work given the voltage requirements of the P3D's driver...

-Tony


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## chewy78

Was this k2 ever used on certain models of terralux's tle-6exb? my drop in started to get a real dark nlue tint, smoked, and it stopped working. Would this have anything to do with this recall? I bought the unit on 2/4/08. From z battery.com.


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## Gryloc

Eww! That sounds like the classic case of overheating (turning blue and the magic smoke). Did the entire module get real hot? If the circuit delivered too much current to it, or too many cells were used (from the required amount for that module), I can see the LED frying. This could happen to just about any emitter since those modules did not have the best heatsinking. 

However, if the LED stayed cool to the touch (the metal PR-bulb base) throughout the entire failure process, then the LED could have been at fault. Could a the die carrier have separated from the slug and allowed itself to cook? Like mentioned before, some of the common failure symptoms of the emitter, if it was caused by the epoxy as indicated from the recall, there would be greatly reduced output at the same or increased power input, odd, candle-like flickering, or parts of the die going dark as though no power is going to that section. I have had Rebels die in this fashion early in its life (within the hour of first use), and I blame that to my shoddy soldering skills, and in one case, sending more than the rated current to it with inadequate heatsinking. I have had emitters turn angry blue and letting out smoke from too much current going to the LED, or when I did not heatsink the LED properly. 

I would contact zbattery.com about getting a new one. It could be failing electronics (as Newbie found a while back that early generations had very inefficient and hot running driving electronics), or an K2 that did not meet quality control and failed. They should be able to straighten things out. If it is determined that the LED is at fault, I wonder what Lumileds can do to compensate for your losses. You can always contact them as well.

-Tony

EDIT: I forgot to ask: could you tell exactly where the smoke was coming from? It could have seeped out of the cracks in the heatsink if the smoke was from the driver circuitry. Newbie analyzed the Seoul P4 version of this module and he said that the electronics were very inefficient.

Also, could you confirm if the TLE-6EXB used a Lumileds TFFC K2 or the Seoul P4 emitter? I noticed that both emitters were used for that product after a quick Google search (the K2 was the newest upgrade I believe). The K2 has a squarish emitter package and a die that looks like swiss cheese (small dark spots on the die which are vias), while the Seoul P4 is round and has a big glob of phosphor over the die. I ask because sometimes, when current exceeds 1000mA-1200mA, the Seoul P4 is known to turn an angry blue tint. Sometimes it is not safe to drive the Seoul P4 over these currents.


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## chewy78

Ya I will probably call them up on monday and see if I could get a replacement If I send my old one back in. I noticed inside the module a part got cherry red when i turned it on. the led did not light up but maybe the electronics inside could of fried. I never had this happen before.Do you think it could be the fault of just terralux?


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## jeffosborne

I noticed today that Future Electronics has the neutral white Rebel -0080 available again - AND at only 2.49 each! I paid $3.74 for the last ones I ordered - before the recall. So I ordered 12 emitters and some other goodies. I half-way expect them to call and say the listing is a mistake of some kind.... but I am hopeful. After all, I have lights to build! 

Cheers, 
Jeff O.


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## Calina

Does this thread still needs to be a sticky?


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## dmdrewitt

Yes, it would be nice to hear here when they are available again :thumbsup:


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## milkyspit

dmdrewitt said:


> Yes, it would be nice to hear here when they are available again :thumbsup:




Speaking of which... any word on availability of K2-TFFC? Anyone? :thinking:


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## McGizmo

I spoke with a Future rep the other day and asked after the Rebels. He said that they are getting some parts in and that they move out pretty quickly. I asked about the 100 lumen Rebels and he hasn't seen these since the glitch; just the 80 lumen ones. He did make some comment about thinking that there was more of an issue with the K2 although he didn't know the nature of it, just that they hadn't seen any of them come through. :shrug:


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## dmdrewitt

Thanks Don :thumbsup:


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## TMorita

Any new news on the K2 TFFC availability?

Toshi


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## AvPD

Could it be time to un-stick this thread? This is ancient news.


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## zzonbi

Hooray, the wait is over, 9 in stock:
http://www.luxeonstar.com/luxeon-k2-with-tffc-c-1_48.php
And soon, before the year is done, we can buy the brighter version too.


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## milkyspit

zzonbi said:


> Hooray, the wait is over, 9 in stock:
> http://www.luxeonstar.com/luxeon-k2-with-tffc-c-1_48.php
> And soon, before the year is done, we can buy the brighter version too.



The only trouble is, that's the 160 lumens @ 1000mA version... and I wouldn't necessarily trust the availability date on the 200 lumens version. There is also no mention of exactly which bin code one is getting, so no way to know if the tint and Vf are what one might want.


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## TexLite

zzonbi said:


> Hooray, the wait is over, 9 in stock:
> http://www.luxeonstar.com/luxeon-k2-with-tffc-c-1_48.php
> And soon, before the year is done, we can buy the brighter version too.


 
Future has those too,I thought they were in stock,now I'm not sure...
http://www.componentsuperstore.com/...me=41301000000&ParentCategoryName=41102010000

I'm with Milky,I'll hold out for the 200 lumen like Fred had a while back,with known tint and Vf,not sure when they'll get here though...

Which brings up an interesting question...Streamlight is using the K2 TFFC in the SuperTac,Stinger LED,and Vulcan LED Lightbox,what others I'm not sure.The ones I've played with are actually pretty bright,seemingly brighter than 160 lumens,that is if they were driven at spec.If they are the 160 lumen bin,and driven at 1500ma,then these will be awesome with either a P7 or MC-E.Thats my next project.

Michael


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## zzonbi

But are there other leds with TFFC (thin die) available (besides the K2 and Rebel)?
Funny, the best Rebel is specced with [email protected] anf the best K2 with less, 170lm. I wonder why.


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## milkyspit

zzonbi said:


> Funny, the best Rebel is specced with [email protected] anf the best K2 with less, 170lm. I wonder why.




This is total conjecture on my part, but my guess is the larger dome on the K2-TFFC causes some light loss since there's more material for the light to pass through.


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## TexLite

milkyspit said:


> This is total conjecture on my part, but my guess is the larger dome on the K2-TFFC causes some light loss since there's more material for the light to pass through.


 
That very likely is the answer,the Rebel has no shoulder around the emitter as well,unlike the K2 in which the phospher is surrounded by black plastic,making the phospher slightly recessed/lower than the body/lens.That accounts for a significant increase in material through which the light must pass.

I am still surprised when working with the Rebels at the amount of light being emitted from such a small package. 

Thanks,
Michael


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## lctorana

zzonbi said:


> Hooray, the wait is over, 9 in stock:
> http://www.luxeonstar.com/luxeon-k2-with-tffc-c-1_48.php
> And soon, before the year is done, we can buy the brighter version too.


 
I take it this means that the recall is finished & done with.

But - I'm assuming - before I buy K2s from resellers like our favourite Hong Kong outlets, I should wait for assurance that they are new, post-recall production. Because if they're not, then they are either on the road to self-destruction or very old stock that is just too dim to be worthwhile.

That's right, isn't it?


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## zzonbi

After thinking, it may be that the Rebel has the (same) die shrouded by a single chunk of silicone, which is also its lens, while the K2 has a plastic lens at some distance, and sits too in a silicone blob(?). That makes for 2 more surfaces where reflections occur and send light back to the die. As always, can't beat simplicity. Why didn't they single wrap the K2 as well? Why did they make the package square instead of round? Too bad Rebel is so small and clumsy to handle, nonstandard secondary optics etc.

Bad news, the 9 samples are gone and the "in stock" date changed several times before being postponed even more. Was it for real at all?

I heard the quality problem affects only a small % of leds and happens during the very first hours/days, if you can source a K2 at all these days, that is.


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## Gomer

zzonbi said:


> After thinking, it may be that the Rebel has the (same) die shrouded by a single chunk of silicone, which is also its lens, while the K2 has a plastic lens at some distance, and sits too in a silicone blob(?). That makes for 2 more surfaces where reflections occur and send light back to the die.



This only really matters when there is a large difference in index of refraction. plastic to air, is ~ 1.5 to 1 (large difference which results in a nominal 4% loss. I bet dn for silicone to plastic is small causing a trivial loss.



> This is total conjecture on my part, but my guess is the larger dome on the K2-TFFC causes some light loss since there's more material for the light to pass through.


I can't imagine the absorption coefficient would be that large to cause a 5% absorption loss over the additional path lenght. The shoulder explanation is much more likely.


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## zzonbi

I hope I was wrong and the lens makes contact with the silicone. There is confusing evidence though:
http://peu.net/mods/ray04 (note rays' bending at inner lens interface)
http://myweb.cableone.net/evan9162/newk2/newk2-2.jpg (small die blob visible)
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/assets/getAsset.aspx?ItemID=52190

As for the side spill it should be next to zero due to the thin die.

Or is it just a newer binning they use for K2TFFCs, less optimistic than the older Rebels specs.


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## Gomer

If anyone can tell me the index of refraction of the two materials, we can put refraction numbers to it


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## zzonbi

Seems that Seoul leds have been using a monomaterial dome. Could this also be why they get more flux than similar Cree dies? Looks like after Philips' Rebel followed Seoul, Cree joins too with their coming 4 die pack.


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## OldNick

I chucked all my K2s already...no great loss....except all the $$ and heat


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## Gryloc

What?! Nick, are you speaking of the old K2s, or about the newer TFFC K2s? I agree about the old 80-100lm 3W K2s, but the newer K2s, even the crappier 160lm binned TFFC K2s were decent. I see your point if they had a high Vf or a lousy tint. 

I have had great luck with my 0200 K2s that I got from Photon Fanatic! They have a very low Vf, a pleasant creamy color, and they are bright as heck. I do wish that these were more common, so others could enjoy the best of the TFFC K2s. I have used the 0160s and 0180s, and I am content with those...

-Tony


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## zzonbi

Are there leds brighter than these elusive TFFC K2 available? Except the laser diodes.


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## metlarules

Any update? I want a 200 for a mag4d. In a LOP reflector this may be the perfect outdoor led light.


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## datiLED

Any sign of the TFFC K2's?


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## Lightingguy321

I know Inova is using them right now in their T series lights (Tx-mp) but I don't know of a large number being available from a dealer for personal use.


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## TexLite

180lm K2 TFFC in stock at Future again.

Lumileds is said to have the issues under control now,I would hope so considering these are being used in mainstream lights again.

Maybe we'll see some higher flux bins soon.

-Michael


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## jirik_cz

Litemania has preorder for 200 lumen K2 TFFC on the marketplace.


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## tebore

Well this is good news. Hopefully this will light a fire under Cree and SSC to ramp up R&D.


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## Burgess

Golly . . . .


Sure took quite a long time

to replace that defective batch of

non-conforming epoxy material.






But i* am* glad they're available once again !

:twothumbs
_


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## LukeA

Burgess said:


> Golly . . . .
> 
> Sure took quite a long time to replace that defective batch of non-conforming epoxy material.
> 
> 
> 
> But i* am* glad they're available once again !
> 
> :twothumbs



It's not really the epoxy that made Lumileds products hard to find. What made Lumileds products hard to find is Lumileds' new requirement that dealers not distribute less than a full roll of 500 LEDs.


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## jeffosborne

LukeA said:


> It's not really the epoxy that made Lumileds products hard to find. What made Lumileds products hard to find is Lumileds' new requirement that dealers not distribute less than a full roll of 500 LEDs.


 
Let me happily contradict you 

Hey, hey, hey - bargain alert! Low-quantity and low-price!!
Future Electronics has the 90-lumen per watt cool white Rebel for $3.30 !! I bought 12 pieces last week and have them in my hot mittens today. That's right, I bought 'onesy' quantities at the 'REEL' price:

http://www.futureelectronics.com/en...tters/white/Pages/9511122-LXML-PWC1-0090.aspx

It reminds me of that one Monopoly game chance card that says "Bank error in your favor..." After all, they have the same part listed alongside at the regular onesy price of $5.78 - good time to get 'em before they correct their mistake, me thinks.





Cheers,

Jeff O.


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## jeffosborne

Nuts!

After finally firing up the low-price Rebels from Future Electronics, I find that they are plenty bright, but THEY HAVE A NASTY PURPLE TINT!

I have been buying cool-white Rebels for a long time, NONE are as 'cool' as these!

I cannot recommend that anyone would be happy with these. This must be why they have the 'mystery listing' of 90-lumen per watt units at the low-low reel price.

Sorry for the somewhat-false alarm :-(

Jeff O.


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## phantom23

Rebel 0100 neutral (3500-4500K) in stock @ leds.de.


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## DM51

At the suggestion of a member, I have unstuck this thread. It is old news now, and the matter was resolved. 

I am posting here to put it temporarily at the top so that members may comment if they wish; then it can take its chances, and in all likelihood it will just slip down the page in the normal way.


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