tl-style

Anybody installed CREE Reverse light?

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

yes.

tl-style

What brand did you used? do you have photos? thanks

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

CREE LED bulbs from JLClighting.

i don't have pics. though...there are pics:

http://www.mdxers.org/forums/74-2007...verse-led.html

i believe these are the same bulbs. they are brighter, and give off a little spotlight in the reverse camara shots vs say a wide angle beam of light.

in the TL, they are stupid bright and really functional to see behind the car.

Blazin Si

Just looking at the numbers, the Cree bulb isn't any brighter than the stock incandescent. A 921 bulb puts out roughly 260 lumens. I can tell from the pictures, the Cree uses at most an R2 bin XR-E emitter, which only puts out 256 lumen. That's only if the LED is driven to it's max current. It might not be.

The reason is looks brighter is that it has a very narrow beam pattern. The stock incan bulb has a wider output, therefor it looks less intense.

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

actually, after doing some searching and reading on other forums and responses by JLClighting vendor...the output is 720 lumens. not the 256.

from the lexus forum:
http://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls40...-cree-led.html

so not sure where you got your numbers...can you site your source?

Blazin Si

I'm not sure if I can dig up the exact picture of the Cree bulb from JLC, but there are several other chinese manufacturers selling the same item. Can you take a look at your bulb or would happen to have a picture saved of the actual emitter?

If it looks like this....



Then at most, it's a Cree XR-E, which is an old LED by todays standards, not very efficient or bright.

Here's the data sheet for the XR-E. Look on page 2, it gives you the bin and how many lumens it will produce at 350mA. Then look on page 7, it shows that the max current for this LED is 1000mA. On page 8, there's a graph that shows the output at a given current. If the Cree bulb uses the highest bin XR-E emitter (114 lumen @ 350mA), then at 1000mA the output is 225% of 114 which is 256.5 lumen.

http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/xlamp7090xr-e.pdf

Now, if JLC changed the LED and now uses a Cree XM-L with a T6 bin, then yes, it can output over 800 lumen.... If it's an XR-E like I've seen in the photos, then there's no way it will get anywhere close to 700. Even the MC-E, which uses 4 XR-E emitters in a single package only makes 800 lumen.

If you can, take a look at the LED and let me know what you find. I'd like someone to check it out so we know exactly which LED it uses.

I just took a few photos of some of my Cree LED's that someone can compare it to.

XR-E


XP-G


XM-L


MC-E

Blazin Si

LOL, the picture I posted has the JLC watermark. I didn't notice that. That might not even be an XR-E. I can only see 2 bond wires, which would make that an XR-C. Older and less efficient than the XR-E.

Can you give me a link to where JLC says it outputs "720" lumen. I need to show that to someone. haha

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

hmm...IIRC, the bulb when i look at it from the topside as shown in the first pic...it did not look like that. it looked like the XM-L light you show above, although my memory maybe completely fuzzy. i will have to pull one of the bulbs out from the MDX and take a look.

all i know is that the bulb appears to be significantly brighter than OEM...and it maybe b/c of the forward facing aspect of the bulb that concentrates the output. it lights up a lot of the rear of the TL when i back into my driveway (i can actually see it without worry of doing a lawn job). the MDX gives off a good amount of light as well, as shown in the link above off the other forum. so

i'll peek at my bulb and get down to the mystery here. i'll post when i get to it.

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

see post #6

Blazin Si

I see, I thought JLC made that claim. The guy in that thread is a dealer for them.

I don't doubt the bulb is brighter than stock. An LED is going to be much more efficient at getting light out of the housing and onto the ground since all the light is projected forward. Most power LED's have a wide viewing angle. Usually 120° or more, but the XR-E has a 90° viewing angle which focuses the light into a tighter area.

It's still a good bulb and has its place. If you want less width and more distance, the JLC bulb is a nice choice.

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

blazin-see post #4 link page 4. he also gives an output, but this is what he was told, and he has no affiliation with JLC, but he also bought his from someone else...i think he stated 635 lumens. mine are as bright as those. so . i'll take a look at the bulbs over the weekend and let you know what i found.

Blazin Si

Did you post a link that I'm not seeing? I couldn't find it on either the Lexus or the MDX site.

I did a little searching this morning and came across this. It's the same photo I posted above with an XR-C or XR-E emitter.

http://www.clublexus.com/forums/club...rse-bulbs.html

Blazin Si

I found it. You must have your thread display options set differently than mine.

He says it uses an R5 bin, which is an XP-G. At 1500mA, it could output as much as 500 lumen. He also says it's 7W, which isn't true. This LED has a forward voltage of 3.5 @ 1500mA. That's 5.25 watts.

Until we see a photo of it, it really can't be confirmed. There's too much inconsistency in the posted specs I keep finding. The wattage, bins, and lumens that everyone posts about these bulbs are all over the place.

Blazin Si

Alright, found some more info. On page 2 of the MDX link, he posts a photo of the LED. It has 3 bars on the emitter and it looks like an XR series optic. That narrows it down quite a bit. It's most likely an XR-E or possibly an XP-E if that isn't an XR dome over the die.

The top bin for the XP-E is R3 with 122 lumen. At max current, 1000mA, the minimum luminous flux is 274.5. The specs still aren't close to 600 lumen.

tl-style

I'm impressed with your knowledge about LEDS! Is this a good quality LED bulb..I read that this bulb gives static reception only on the FM station when reversing but not on XM or CD.

Blazin Si

It's definitely a high quality LED that can take some abuse. This particular model of LED has been available since somewhere around 2006 and it's still used in a lot of todays lighting products.

The questionable part of this bulb is the built in constant current driver. If they used a name brand driver, they might have advertised the name like they do with CREE. Cheap drivers are very unreliable, but so far it looks like big problem with these bulbs is the heat. That small heatsink can't handle an extended run time and the LED burns itself out.

As for the EMF interference, I can't really comment on that. The built in circuit in the base of the bulb likely uses switch-mode topology. I just started building my own drivers and don't have a good understanding of them yet. The frequency of the switching and the EMF of the inductor might cause static in the radio signal. It might be like aftermarket HID ballasts where some cars are more susceptible to static than others.

Just to add to the LED mystery. I'm almost positive it's an XR-E and more specifically a Q5 bin XR-E.

It has 4 bond wires, 3 bars inside the die, an optic ring, that teal blue strip and what looks like large top side soldering pads.

Here's a photo to show the similarities. I don't believe it's an R2 bin because the XR-E I posted before is R2 and it has a yellow tint on the substrate around the die. From what I've seen, the lower binned XR-E's don't usually have that.

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

yes there is static in reverse with FM stations. none in XM or CD mode.

not a big deal if you don't even listen to FM stations.

@blazin...hmmm...good info...will have to pull my bulb. will have to wait until sunday when i have time.

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

okay pulled my bulb, looked at it. definitely does NOT look like the first JLC photo you posted.

it looked like a solid little LED light. no rows that i could tell like you pointed out (or i'm blind these things are pretty friggin' small. i did not notice any teal bars in the housing...all i saw was the chip and little wires similar to your last post. the chip itself did not really look like any of the ones you put up...only a few similarities, so idk.

anybody else have a pic of the bulb itself? my camara's resolution isn't that great.

i asked JLC how many lumens their reverse light puts out. they said 700 lumens. suppose i could take it a step further and ask them which chip it is.

Blazin Si

Yeah, someone get a photo of it. I've recently found several of them and they're ALL XR-E's. JLC might be getting "700 lumens" by combining the output of the both reverse lights and then exaggerating it a bit. You can get over 300 lumens per LED if they're overdriven.

It has to be one of, or a variation of an LED that I posted. Cree only has a few power LED's, so it has to be one of them. If you can see the bond wires, it's most likely an XR-E. The XM-L wires aren't insulated are much harder to see and the XP-G wires are nearly invisible.

I found these on the Infiniti forums, where their bulbs were failing when used as DRL.

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

the JLC bulbs don't really show the edges of the chip. you have the lens and then nothing but a white background surrounding the chip. the wiring, you really had to look for, they almost looked flat, but you could see little yellow (at least that's what they looked like) wires from the LED to the chip. idk. the mystery continues...

Blazin Si

The MDX uses a smaller bulb. It's the one shown in post #15 of this thread and that's an XR-E. I'm confident the mystery is solved. If it used a different LED, there would have been a photo of it somewhere.

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

upon further review...i'd take a pic, but my camara won't focus on the bulb that tight...

pulled my bulb out again, took a much better look. i will say it looks like the one posted in #15. you really had to look and move the bulb at an angle to see the blue/green edges of the chip itself. so maybe JLC is adding the lumen numbers together from both bulbs (@300 each). though that doesn't come close to the 700 they claim. so . either way the focused beam of light of these bulbs does allow for greater light despite lumen rating. i know on my TL...it is quite noticeable. i'm happy with them even though my wallet is lighter b/c of them. this has been quite enlightening. thanks!

Blazin Si

It was a good discussion.

I just bought a set of these JLC bulbs and when they arrive, I'll connect it to my DMM and see how much current it draws. Then I'll take it apart and replace the LED with an XP-G and an XM-L and will post the results.

The XR-E might be the best choice in terms of output with this type of bulb design. It's still a popular LED for high powered flash lights because of its small die, which translates into a tighter, more intense hot spot. There's a good chance it could out-throw the SST-50's in my home made reverse lights.

MistahWes06TL

I just bought these through JLClighting.com
not very impressed. i ordered on the 2nd, and just got it in the mail yesterday, the 21st... dont know what kind of first class mail that is..
also, for as bright as they look in the pictures, they are a disappointment. It basically does exactly what the stock bulb did, just in white light, and not a yellowish color. It didnt produce more visible light whatsoever. I plan on going HID now..

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

bought mine on a monday...got them on thursday same week. so not sure what the issue was with yours unless they were temporarily out of stock. perhaps your expectations were a bit too high. most people are pretty pleased with them. i personally couldn't see a damn thing down my driveway at night (pitch black). put the CREE's in and there is enough light i can actually see where my driveway starts when i'm backing in. they are much more noiceable when it's really dark. any street lighting will blunt the "that's stupid bright" effect.

tl-style

is this better than JLC? in terms of output?