Coolmax Rounded Electro Luminescent Cable
Coolmax Rounded Electro Luminescent Cable
Introduction
Hello Everyone. Continuing with the "build it and they will buy it" theme as of late, today I'll be showing you a flashy new rounded IDE cable to hit the market recently. It's called the "Rounded Electro Luminescent Cable". Yea, long name. I'll usually just call it an "EL IDE Cable". You can instantly tell that it's not the "run-of-the-mill" rounded ide cable. Ya know, it's truley amazing how far this whole "modding" thing has come. Remember back in the day when a "modder" to the average person was just someone that had "too much time on their hands"? Well, now it's the average guy that "can't get enough of this stuff", but is this item pushing that "must...light...everything!" thought right over the limit? You decide.....
Product Description/Specs
The exact item I have here to show you now is the 18" Red EL Rounded Dual Device ATA-133 Cable and it was supplied by FrozenCPU.com. This is just the next line of products in FrozenCPU.com's long inventory list. It seems everytime I turn around they've got something new added, which is a good thing. I don't know about you, but that kind of product advancement is what I like to see for the community and in particular, a "mod shop". Nothing worse than a "stale" shop that just sits on an inventory, never updates their site, and never seems to have anything "new", right? Right!
Ok, let's see what FrozenCPU.com
tells us about this particular product....
These awesome round cables are covered with aluminum
mesh shielding and a protective see through cover. On top of that we have added
an EL glow wire inside to add a unique glow effect to the cable. The inverter
is included and comes assembled. Everything is ready to go. They are 18"
long and support two devices.
Connector Spacing: 0"----11.5"----18"
 Retail Packaging |
 What You Get Inside |
 Unwrapped Inverter |
 "Scorpio" ATA/133 |
 See The EL Running Thru? |
 See Where It Starts? |
Once I got the item out of it's packaging, it was a few minutes of "hmmmmm" while I checked it out. At the heart of the product is a very high quality rounded silver mesh ata cable. It has an interesting red electro-luminescent spiral wire traveling down the entire length of the cable, over-wrapping the silver mesh, but still underneath the clear protective covering of the cable.. So far so good. You can see in my pics above, that the el cable is nicely inserted into the ide cables covering. It's also run very cleanly from end to end, even right thru the ide connectors. That makes it nice seeing one continuous and un-interrupted wire. However, what I can not overlook is the annoying wire, inverter box, and molex plug dangling out of the end of the cable. That was an instant turn-off for me. In my mind, I immediately multiplied this wiring mess by 3 ( since I use 3 IDE Cables in my setup ) and from that moment on, the product turned from "kinda neat" to "utterly uncalled for".
 Smooth Transition |
 EL Starting Point |
The first thing I do with any new product is evaluate it in the "real world". I think about the design, the quality, the value, and also real world application. Questions like "is it a high maintenance product?" , "does it take alotta time to install?", and beyond that, "does it take alotta time to install cleanly?". That last question is the "kicker" to me with many new products. There's lots of products that , in theory, are a great friggin idea, but in the real world, they're just over-the-top, overly bulky products, or simply just uncalled for.. This happens to be one of them.
Ok, I'm jumping right to the conclusion here, lemme slow down and show you what this product is suppose to do first...then i'll taunt it some more :o)
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 |
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After about 2 minutes of trying to plug in the molex connector to it ( the 2 pins were very loose and took forever lining up with the pc molex ), I got this thing`a glowin`. I'm not overly impressed with it. The whole "ridiculous" factor kept attacking my thoughts. I really don't think it's that "pretty" to begin with though. I know the spiraling effect doesn't go with my case theme, nor really any I've seen lately. I recently checked out the UV Sensitive IDE Cables and they win hands-down to these in my opinion. Not to mention they're way cheaper and don't have any added wiring.
I've been sitting here trying to think of a good analogy of
what it is I don't like about this product and this is the best I could come
up with, hopefully you'll catch my drift.
Analogy: Think of buying an extension
cord (for your house plugs) that has an el cable spiraled around it from end
to end. However now, you need to plug in the el wire seperately from the extension
cord, which now uses 2 wall sockets just so you can see it glow. Oh yea, and
it's $30 instead of $10 for the exact same thing that uses one wall socket and
without the glow. Is that worth it to you? Doesn't that sound rediculous? Yea,
that's what I thought too...just sounds silly. :o)
Let's review...
 $9 |
$29 |
$9 |
$29 |
Worth it?....You decide. I think your money would be much better spent with a set of LED Fans or some nicely placed LED's , along with a full set of these sweet silver tinted cables.
Conclusion
The bottom line is : Good quality product, just simply not worth the cost or trouble
I think there's certain things that "if they aren't broke, don't fix them" and this is one of them. Like we don't have enough stuff in our cases that need power and/or molex plugs, now the damn IDE cables too?!.... HELL NO, WE WON'T GO!!...LOL! I'm a huge supporter of LED fans myself. Why? Because they not only serve their cooling purpose, but they add the great colors and glow to the product WITHOUT adding any additional wiring. It's totally an invisible feature. That to me, is the perfect kinda product. This EL IDE Cable, is the exact opposite of an led fan. Instead of taking a messy product and either adding features or making it neater, this product takes a perfectly fine item and turns it into a pricey mess. Remember guys, even if you like the spiral glow of these, think x 3. Three inverters to hide, Three wires to hide, Three molex plugs you'll need .....just for your ide cables!
If you've already got led fans, or cathodes in your case, (as I do) adding just one of these cables will do absolutely nothing for you. You'll spend lots of time trying to make it neat and pretty, then be lucky to see it at all. The glow is very subtle and is easily washed out by surrounding light. If you have NO other lights in your case, and you add 3 of these EL IDE Cables, it'll look like twilight zone spaghetti (and still not light up your whole case). Also, if you stare at them too long, you'll probably be sent into a dillusional state of mind followed by barking like a dog perhaps, dressing yourself in your mothers clothing, maybe even creeping around pecking the floor like a chicken. OH DEAR LORD!!!....MY BEEKS$@!#!@
I also think that our IDE Cables are one of the parts of the case interior we'd rather have disappear totally if we could. They're certainly not worth the cost, or extra effort of something like this in my opinion. But hey, who the hell cares what I think right? Right! If you see a need or a use for these "Rounded Electro Luminescent Cables", you can head right over to FrozenCPU.com and pick yourself up a few (for a measly $26-$30 each!).
Pros
Cons
I'd like to thank FrozenCPU.com for supplying me with the review item above. They've got lots of great products over there, this just isn't one of them in my book.