We are now waking up to the Fake LED dilemma we all are faced with when buying budget lights from many of the budget-light sellers we buy from, and we all likely had the wool-pulled-over-our-eyes so to speak of over a year now apparently, until now we’re aware if this mass-fraud of claiming that these lights have genuine “Cree” leds, when in fact they have low-quality, inefficient, trash, fakes & knock-off Emitters. As the recent rash of some sellers claiming their lights they sell have real CREE emitters in them, (like the recent XP-L fakes flowing in in lights that have obvious fakes) its likely to get much worse with the other types and models of LEDs, and more difficult to know what are fakes and what are real genuine CREE emitters. One good example is this “Latticebright” company: http://www.latticebright.com/En/cpzs/cpzs1.html

notice how their emitters look nearly identical to many CREE models. its likely soon that most non-established branded budget lights we get will likely have these off-brand fake-Cree LEDs instead of real CREE manufactured genuine emitters.

I edited this OP for others to post their side-by-side photos comparing the fakes to the genuine Cree emitters, to help us to identify the fake ones from the real ones.

Below are three examples: An unknown or Latticebright XM-L fake and the latticebright original clone VS. the CREE XM-L. Notable identifiable differences, The far left fake has a much smaller die, (appears to be close to the size of a XP-G die) cThe middle clone has smaller die, and “square” gold pads under the bond wires on the die in the middle image, while Genuine Cree XM-L emitters are round. -Far left image provided by The_Miller, and the two right Images provided by RMM

This photo below of the Latticebright clones on LB & Cree stars provided by Tom-E. Take note of the LB symbol found on many of their stars, also the LB fake emitters can be found even on CREE stars as we see here

Below this photo provided by Dchomak, shows the genuine CREE XP-E on the left, fake on the right. Notable differences: XP-E has dimpled textured coating on the base around the dome, fake is smooth. Fake also appears to have phosphor extended past the die, (Cree does not) the Fake HT-PE has a small hole in one corner, while the cree XP-E does not

Photo below was provided by Antiparanoico, showing the real Cree XP-E (Left) to another variant the latticebright XP-E fake (right) the genuine Cree has a smaller die, and the corner mark is round, where the fake has a larger die and no round dots in any corner

Photo below was provided by Keltex78, showing the real Cree XM-L on the left, and the fake on the lower right. Note here the base substrate of the Cree is darker green/grey color, while the fake is of a white ceramic color Also you can clearly see the smaller die of the fake, and smoother coating on the green area around the dome.