# Brightest Blue, Amber, and Red LED's



## freeride (Apr 25, 2007)

What are every one's opinions on the absolute brightest blue LED's, amber LED's and red LED's?


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## IsaacHayes (Apr 25, 2007)

I hear that the XR-E cree's will be coming out with a Blue and then a Green in the future.

A quick google search shows this. They talk of XR-E Blue and Royal Blue.
http://www.forge-europa.co.uk/product_pages/xlamp.htm


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## Sub_Umbra (Apr 25, 2007)

Blue LEDs can be hidiously bright but most have a hard time wrapping their heads around using blue lights. I'm waiting for new monochromatic LEDs to surface...


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## cratz2 (Apr 25, 2007)

Not sure if you are familiar with them, but there was a 190 lumen version of the Luxeon III in red/orange which isn't radically un-red... It is an absolute scorcher. I mean, it's crazy bright and it's fairly cheap and you don't have to wait on them.


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## IsaacHayes (Apr 26, 2007)

Sub, it seems cree is going to release the XR-E in colors. Blue and royal blue first, then green. I would imagine they would do Cyan too, since it's all the same technology. Keep your fingers crossed! 

Yes the Luxeon3 amber and red-orange leds are pretty bright. As far as I know they are the brightest red/amber leds out still. 1.4amps is what they are rated at, so they take a bit of power. 

The die is 4x as large as the luxeon1 red/ambers though, so focusing to a tight spot isn't going to happen. It's sorta like a LuxV where it's 4x as more power than lux1, only its all in parallel, and just one bigger die.


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## Sub_Umbra (Apr 26, 2007)

IsaacHayes -- You were reading my mind.


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## freeride (Apr 26, 2007)

So you guys think the new cree xre blues's will be brighter than any luxeon blues? What about the red/orange luexon iii's you're talking about, will cree beat those too? And what about the Seoul, have you tried theirs?

Seoul Semiconductor Introduces The World's Brightest LED, A 240 Lumens Single Die Light Source:
http://www.embedded-computing.com/news/db/?4868

Also, what is the die? I'm not familiar with that term.


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## Sub_Umbra (Apr 26, 2007)

I don't follow LED development anywhere near the bleeding edge but I am confident that eventually we'll have a new crop of monochromatic LEDs that are brighter and use less power. The way things have been going I don't think we'll have to wait very long.

Most at CPF are only into white but for the few here who have their own monochromatic preferences it will be very exciting indeed. The new LEDs will be bright and it will be lots of fun. I move slowly but I'm always thinking about my next colored light. Most of my lights are green or cyan.

For me, the coolest aspect of the great changes we're going through now is that for the last few years I've been trying to buy lights with future LEDs in mind. I hope to upgrade some EL Blasters and perhaps a few others when new colored LEDs come out. Cheap thrills.


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## jtr1962 (Apr 26, 2007)

I also believe that monochromatic LED development will accelerate soon even though it has lagged behind for quite some time. My rationale is that white lighting based on RGB instead of blue plus phosphor has the potential to be more efficient. However, as of now red and green LEDs are far behind blue ones in terms of conversion efficiency. The best blues exceed 50%. Reds are something like 15% to 25%, and greens mostly less than 10%. Increasing the conversion efficiency of green especially would go a long way towards making RGB lighting more efficient.


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## IsaacHayes (Apr 26, 2007)

freeride: once cree releases XR-E in blue, yes it will be brighter than luxeons. They already have XR-E in white, and it's way brighter than luxeons. A white led uses a blue chip, with phosphor. The improvement to the blue chip is what mainly makes the led's brighter. Seoul uses the die/chip from cree in their P4 leds. So Seoul won't have any colored leds until cree does, and releases the die/chip's to seoul to use. The die is the little square thing that emits the light. The heart of the led. Red and amber led's use a different chemistry and construction than white/blue/cyan/green leds do, and therefore are a totally different technology. So I doubt we will see any XR-E's in those colors.... I'd say Luxeon3 in red/amber are about the best for now for output in that size package.


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## brickbat (Apr 26, 2007)

freeride said:


> What are every one's opinions on the absolute brightest...




Just curious, what are you building, where all you care about is 'brightness', and not things like efficiency, cost, beam shape, etc??


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## freeride (Apr 27, 2007)

^
I'm working on a lighting project for my motorcycle. The blue is strictly for aesthetics and the amber will be for signal lighting. The red would be used to replace the tail lights which I believe are currently LED but not as bright as I would like. 

Initially I wasn’t concerned about beam shape because I want to incorporate optics, heat I can dissipate and the cost would be worth it to achieve the look I'm going for. You have a valid point though, I should pay attention to energy consumption. My initial thought was to use the least number of LED’s to achieve the desired effect but could I possibly get the same effect with more LED’s and in turn lower cost and energy consumption?


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## 2xTrinity (May 3, 2007)

> However, as of now red and green LEDs are far behind blue ones in terms of conversion efficiency. The best blues exceed 50%. Reds are something like 15% to 25%, and greens mostly less than 10%. Increasing the conversion efficiency of green especially would go a long way towards making RGB lighting more efficient.
> Reply With Quote


Greens are certainly much lower than 10%, based on the lumen figures I'm finding, more like 5% -- most green LEDs are around 30 lumens per watt, and according the luminosity function, a perflectly efficient 532nm would be about 600 lumens per watt.

Consider that if we got green to be as efficient as the blue in the Cree Die (say, around 40%), that LED woudl be emitter over 240 lumens per watt. We could see 700 lumens from a single emitter! True, it would be green, but I actually like green in single-color flashlights if color-rendering isn't important, as it focuses most sharply on the retina, so I can most clearly resolve detail. That's also why I prefer neutral white to cool white or warm white.

Also, throw in red and blue emitters, which are already highly efficient, and you have adjustable-color-temperature white at over 150 lumens per watt.


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## Sub_Umbra (May 3, 2007)

2xTrinity said:


> ...Consider that if we got green to be as efficient as the blue in the Cree Die (say, around 40%), that LED woudl be emitter over 240 lumens per watt. We could see 700 lumens from a single emitter! True, it would be green, but I actually like green in single-color flashlights if color-rendering isn't important, as it focuses most sharply on the retina, so I can most clearly resolve detail...


 Sign me up! I'd like to think that we'll be able to make mods like that at some point, and I don't have to think about it at all -- _I want one._


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