Quote:
Originally Posted by Twinn
+1 to Ron99's post and here is my .02
It seems everytime I read one of these LED posts everyone makes a large point of stating use Cree LED's. Here is the problem with Cree LED's.
There is a large difference in the individual quality between the CREE LED's even if you order just XP-G LED's. Now before you get all upset I will explain.
Cree themselves grade there LED into different "bins" as in "bin A", "bin B", "bin C" and so on. The closer to "bin A" the more likely the LED is to the spec sheet and the better the quality of the LED itself.
Take cool whites for example. This is why when you wire up a DIY LED fixture one cool white light will look white while the next cool white light will have a more yellow tint in its color even thought they are techinically the same LED.
This will be way more noticable if you order your lights at different times ensuring they come from different batches from Cree.
Now Cree is still the industry leader and makes the best LED lights but, people just need to remember that not all Cree LED lights are equal.
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Yes you are correct that the chips vary somewhat when produced so Cree does bin them according to output as well as colour temperature. But it's not as simple as A is best and down from there is worse. The binning codes for XP-E LEDs can be seen here:
http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampXP_B&L.pdf
Many of us used Q5 bin XR-Es in the past which had very good output. I believe the XR-Es only went to an R2 bin and where only slightly brighter then Q5s at a higher cost.