# Cree or SSC at 1500mA?



## longleg (Jul 21, 2007)

Provided enough cooling - is it safe to drive a Cree or SSC @ 1,5A? Or will they degrade faster than normal?

I've seen various charts where Crees and SSCs are tested at above 1A, but I wonder how it will work IRL..

Thanks!


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## Illum (Jul 21, 2007)

what do you intend on using for cooling?

1500ma at what voltage?:green:
even the lumiled K2 originally designed to be able to run on 1000ma would fry under 1500ma. I'd put two in parallel...750ma each


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## evan9162 (Jul 21, 2007)

> even the lumiled K2 originally designed to be able to run on 1000ma would fry under 1500ma.



Utter nonsense. The K2 was designed to run at 1500mA from the beginning. It'll handle 1500mA just fine without any issues with good heatsinking.


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## Illum (Jul 21, 2007)

evan9162 said:


> Utter nonsense. The K2 was designed to run at 1500mA from the beginning. It'll handle 1500mA just fine without any issues with good heatsinking.



I fried a UX0M running it at around 1.3A at 3.8V...I had it epoxied on a CPU heatsink....I guess my power supply isn't telling the truth

went from white to slight blue then no light


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## RCatR (Jul 21, 2007)

Not trying to start a flame war; but I built two lights running the same bin into 3C mags; driven at 1.43A and they're still working to this day


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## jbosman1013 (Jul 22, 2007)

I could see the total life of the LED to be less but if you design the light with enough cooling it might be possable. correct me if i am wrong but the U2 clone from DX runs a cree at 1200mah and i havent heard of any having problems


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## longleg (Jul 22, 2007)

Thanks fellas - seems like its worth a try. I'm planning to build a bike light, and to make it as compact as possible, using two LEDs instead of three would be optimal. They will be mounted directly on a heatsink with cooling fins on the back, so I think the cooling bit will be taken care of.


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## leeleefocus (Jul 22, 2007)

Just remember a decent heatsink is useless unless you have a good thermal contact to it.


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## longleg (Jul 22, 2007)

leeleefocus said:


> Just remember a decent heatsink is useless unless you have a good thermal contact to it.



Yup - I'm more or less gonna build it the same way i built this light:
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/139108

The cooling fins got pretty warm when in use, so I think the design is good. Hopefully the new light won't look as ghetto as the above


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## Nereus (Jul 23, 2007)

I have tortured one Cree XR-E emitter by direct driving it from 4 AA nimhs - that's 2,5 amps! :green: The emitter has been in use for half an hour now and there has been no problems so far. Incredibly robust design... I have glued the emitter to a D size hotlips heatsink using Arctic Silver epoxy.

-N


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