

Nichia 119D SM505, Nichia 219F SM505 D340, Nichia 219F SM305 D320

After the very succesful and high performing 219C, Nichia has brought out 2 successors sofar, the 119D/219D, and the 119F/219F (the 219 version has the standard 3535 footprint while the 119 version is the same led with dual solder pads without thermal pad in between).

Clemence, who is a led and flashlight fanatic but who also runs a small lighting business, Virence.com, and is official Nichia dealer, has kindly sent me samples of the 119D (5000K 70 CRI) and of the 219F (5000K and 3000K, 70 CRI). According to him these successors are aimed at the streetlight market where Nichia is loosing market-share to the Cree XP-G3 which is cheaper and performs better than the Nichia 219C. The newer 219D and 219F are higher binned than the 219C and I assume are cheaper too. Here is my test of one led each. Mind that these are all “engineering samples”, the leds that finally hit the market may or may not have undergone design differences.

The test is a bit overdue, the 119D/219D has been on the market for a while and in my posession for months, and I received the 219F a month ago already.

Tint .

First some tint data. For the three led samples I measured the tint straight above the led and in the hotspot when a S2+ reflector was placed on top of the led. In general I find that the tint from a reflector hotspot is very close to the tint of the bare led at 60 degrees, and that almost always, compared to straight above the led, increases the duv (a measure for the distance to the Black Body Line).

119D SM505, above bare led



119D SM505, hotspot from S2+reflector



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219F SM505 D340, above bare led



219F SM505 D340, hotspot from S2+reflector



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219F SM305 D320, above bare led



219F SM305 D320, hotspot from S2+reflector



Lots of graphs, but the summary I think is that the tints of these leds is nothing special and that these leds actually have fairly large angle-coupled tint shift, even though the beam from the S2+reflector does not look nearly as ugly as the latest Cree leds.

Performance

The output test was done like most of my emitter tests over the last years. I described it in detail in my XP-L test (found via my sigline), with the minor difference, that should not matter significantly for the results, that I used my Integrating sphere no. II instead of no. I.

In summary: 1) just one led of each type was tested, reflowed on a DTP copper board (but the 119D was on a Virence high performance board) 2) I used my large version II integrating sphere with high quality luxmeter, 3) the output numbers and voltages were measured with the led close to ‘steady state’ for each current, so warmed up and settled (I take a minute before each current increase), you should be able to get these numbers in a well heatsinked flashlight. Mind that these are output numbers of the bare led; in a flashlight there will be losses from light obstructions, lens and optic, 4) output is in ‘djozz-lumen’ defined as 1/550 of the output of my Sunwayman D40A on high setting, which I hope is close to the real lumen (recent comparisons show that it is actually between 7 and 11% high), but at least is consistent over all my previous emitter tests done in integrating spheres, so all my output data over the past years can be directly compared.

I added my measurements of a XP-G3 and a Luxeon V2 for comparison in the graph because they are also fairly recent 5000K leds with the same die size.

The performance of the 119D was already predicted to me by Clemence who did an output test himself of the 119D and 219D: very competitive performance up to 2A (which is the current range that these leds are intended for), but maxes out much earlier than the 219C and other the brands leds and at 6A it free-falls down to zero (with led damage).

To my surprise the 219F SM505 was even worse: a very sharp free-fall at 4A with large led-damage. I had not planned to test the 3000K 219F but wanted to know if the bad performance was a freak incident ( bad led or bad reflow). But the SM305 performed exactly the same.

Conclusion

These newer 119/219 version do have higher bins than the 219C, and are within their specifications competitive with other high performance leds in the same class, but they do not like being overdriven much and I wonder if that also has implications for their lifetime in the normal applications of these leds (like street lighting).

For how we use these leds in flashlights, they do not add much to the performance of leds that are already available, like the XP-G2/3, Luxeon V2 and SST-20. Perhaps if they are driven regulated at the correct current (3A sounds still safe) they may be somewhat useful.