DiY LED - Cree CXA3070

SupraSPL

Well-Known Member
My main objection is drilling into the aluminum heatsink. The CREE CXA is ceramic and cannot be drilled. So even with the Vero I would just use the thermal paste/tape method.
 

PICOGRAV

Well-Known Member
you need to be very careful when tapping, aluminum is quite difficult to tap . i used a paste wax for lubrication and that seemed to work pretty well. Only snapped two dies ;)
 

SupraSPL

Well-Known Member
Sneaky it looks like the CXA2011 is on aluminum and has predrilled holes, but the rest of the CXA line is ceramic. Good catch I did not know there was an aluminum one.
 

Red1966

Well-Known Member
you need to be very careful when tapping, aluminum is quite difficult to tap . i used a paste wax for lubrication and that seemed to work pretty well. Only snapped two dies ;)
Aluminum is easy to tap. The trick is keeping the tap square to to material being tapped. WD-40 is excellent lube for tapping aluminum. Never use a sulfinated oil on aluminum, it produces a toxic gas and causes the threads to corrode away. Since the load is very small, you can use a slightly larger tap drill if you're having trouble. A "roll tap" is much stronger, but requires a different size tap drill. "tap" and "die" are not interchangeable.
 

Abiqua

Well-Known Member
^^^Bingo, though I wouldn't say "Fool's Gold" as much as "Slippery Slope". Probably important for induction, it can be good and bad for white LEDs IMO, (see PICO's COB grow and CREE's less than optimal for growing High CRI bulb for good and bad high CRI examples respectfully). It's pretty good for monos but more for a quality or performance indicator, (from what I've read), since their CRIs are much lower, but higher than average can indicate a wider spectrum, (if you want that), and/or good Tj junction performance, (See Lenks' "Designing LED..." for more on that stuff).

It's just a matter of time till they come out with the new ways of quantifying LEDs, like R96a, which we'll then argue about :). Bottom line it's a Photometric rating, right?, and that has limited value in our world I think. Best use it as just another indicator of a LED's potential performance, and not as a "Seal of Approval" IMHO. Peace.
As far as quality for monochromatics, I believe that it is actually the opposite, the CRI gives a great quantitative reading but again [where I was wrong] as long as it is one of the 8 averaged colors, if the spectrum [nm] falls outside of one of those 8 colors, it could be funky....

Slippery slope may indeed be a more apt description as middle ground for the "fallacy" , which is already in use aka CQS [which steps it up to 14 colors :0 aka R[v's]
http://colorqualityscale.com/

And I will def. have to read up R96a, haven't come across that yet! And yes, another photometric rating, but really only maybe a quantitative analysis and not included qualitative at all, which makes it moot. Us blue collars, can't afford the equipment necessary for radiometric. In ten years it will be standard on the Sony Iphone :peace:
 

0xc0ffee

Member
Aluminum is easy to tap. The trick is keeping the tap square to to material being tapped. WD-40 is excellent lube for tapping aluminum. Never use a sulfinated oil on aluminum, it produces a toxic gas and causes the threads to corrode away. Since the load is very small, you can use a slightly larger tap drill if you're having trouble. A "roll tap" is much stronger, but requires a different size tap drill. "tap" and "die" are not interchangeable.
Kerosene works well on aluminum too.
 

captainmorgan

Well-Known Member
Supra,I'm planning on reading through this whole thread when I get some extra time but in case it wasn't already asked,do they make a solder-less clip or holder for the CXA's?
 

SupraSPL

Well-Known Member
Yes they are available. The price just went up to $2 each unfortunately and shipping from Newark is $15 minimum if I recall. It also requires a drill and tap of the heatsink surface.
 

JavaCo

Well-Known Member
Yes they are available. The price just went up to $2 each unfortunately and shipping from Newark is $15 minimum if I recall. It also requires a drill and tap of the heatsink surface.
I just ordered from them last week shipping was 5 bucks and change. Use the USPS option when checking out.
 

SupraSPL

Well-Known Member
Good to know thnx Java. I think I was having a hard time finding that option, maybe I had too much weight in the order.
 
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