SunbeamTech Cold Cathode Kits Showcase
Date : Thursday, 29 August 2002
Author : Diceman
Provided By : Sunbeam Tech


Sunbeam Tech Cold Cathode Kits

Introduction

Well, well, well.....here I land, back again with a cold cathode kits review. This one however, will most likely be from a company you've bound to have heard from by now: Sunbeam Tech. Reviews of their cold cathode kits have literally infiltrated the web as of late. You've seen reviews already ranging from a single light to a couple of multi-colored lights. However, my review will be slightly different for a couple of reason: 1) More pics than you're average rock concert, and 2) I've got a SH*TLOAD of Sunbeams CC Kits, and also the word on the new stuff that's in the works, coming out now, or not even out yet. See, I'm the kinda guy that when I have something particular to review from a company, and halfway thru my review, they change the design, add features, or whatever...I'm more than happy to let you guys now what the deal is, right up the minute of me writing the conclusion. So, you'll always get the latest word from the manufacturer in my write-ups. :o)

Today, what I'll be showing you, is a feast for the eyes. Put your shades on now, cuz the future's gonna be bright!! Sunbeam Tech was kind enough to send yours truley a variety of their color choices to show you fine folks.

I have here a;

Specs

Here's a quick copy from sunbeams site to get us started

Our CCFL kit surpass other products as below:

1. Second CCFL extensibility : you can add another color cathode lamp into the same inverter to make your case more stunning.
2. Removable inverter cover : it make you easy to add second cathode lamp and change the location of inverter from side of case to top of case.
3. Beautiful color acrylic casing with stripes: every CCFL comes with beautiful color casing acrylic that you've never seen before. We offer more colors and shapes of acrylic tube / two ends by custom design .

Besides, Sun Beam company's CCFL kit features with:

1. Both wires come out one end of the protective acrylic tube.
2. Additional female molex power connector
3. Round Switch (optional)
4. Extension cable (optional)
5. Low heat output
6. Low energy consumption
7. Comprehensive instruction
8. Easy installation

OK, now that you know the specs, let's move on the da pics! :O)


Full Kit

Add-On Cathodes

Dually Kit Complete

One of the many unique features to the Sunbeam line of cold cathode kits is the fact that all their kits have a dual cathode inverter option. Now why do I call it an option you ask? Well, because if you bought two CC kits, and they both came with inverters set up for 2 lights, then you'd be able to run 4 lights, but only have two. So say you buy two more lights to fill up the two original inverters, but now you got two more inverters with the new kits, and so on and so on. To resolve this issue, Sunbeam has the inverter and wiring harness ( wiring, switch, etc) as optional. This way you can get a full kit and then just a spare cathude bulb to plug into your existing inverter.


Inverter Underside

Topside Inverter

Protected Dually Inverter

Sunbeam took a very unique approach to insulating their dual inverters. Instead of the typical , and usually totally encased an impossible to get at, heatshrink....sunbeam went with a velcro wrap. Is it better or worse? I'd have to say better for the fact that it's removable, and it's thicker than a thin heatshrink wrap. With it's open ends ( and removability ), it easily allows you to plug and unplug lights at your leisure without fighting with it.


4 Lights Plugged In

Clean Wire Exit

Little Mess For 4 Lights

Here you seen me using two dual inverters, which allows me 4 lights to be plugged in , and very little wire mess. In case you're wondering...there is no heat issues even with 4 cathodes hooked to two inverters. You won't need extra fans or anything to run all this. Cathodes in general run plenty cool and acrylic covered kits seem to be even cooler. The inverters are not "hot" either. At most, I got a luke warm feeling from kits after running it awhile.


Money Shot!!!!! :o)

Comparison (4 on right are sunbeam)

Comparison (4 on right are sunbeam)

Money Shot!!! :o)

Here you'll notice the pics labeled "Money Shot!"...heh....well, that they are. As most anyone will know, taking a pic of something so bright, and having it come out clear enough to actually see the tube takes alittle bit of camera exposure trickery. You know how most autofocus cameras (digital or not) , you push the shutter release button down halfway to set focus and exposure levels? Well, to take the two money shots above, what I did was trained a bright table lamp on the cathodes while they were light up, set my digi-cam to "no flash", pushed the shutter release button down halfway to set the focus and exposure, then while still holding the shutter release button halfway , I turned off the table lamp and pressed the "fire" button the rest of the way. What that does is keep the shutter speed way up there , in this case, tricking the camera into thinking it was taking a pic of a totally illuminated area, when in reality, it was pitch black in the room, except for the cathodes. What I just said might not make sense right away to you, but think about it. I know , I know...how can it be dark with lighted cathodes right there? Well, all I can say is cameras not using the flash, are infamous for over-exposing the pics when taking nighttime pics of bright objects. Fireworks would be another opportunity to use this method to eliminate the blur or streaking. In the case of taking pcis of cathodes while they're lite, over-exposing the pics will give you that mad glow all around and appear blurry . The way I just described produces a fast shutter speed when taking pics of bright objects in dark areas while retaining the focus and eliminating most of the excess glow. I even showed sunbeam my money shots and they were like "DAMN!!..NICE PICS!"....:o)

One thing I haven't mentioned yet, and I'm infamous for mentioning when reviewing cc kits, is the internal wire. Is it stripped and invisible or not, right? Well, lemme ask you, have you seen the internal wire yet in the pics I've shown you so far? No? Ok, that's a good thing and you probably assume it's stripped judging from the quality appearance of the kit so far. It's not. However, this is one of them setups that it really hides itself well enough that you have to really look to notice it. That's mostly due to the white striping on the acrylic casing itself, which is pretty ingenius I think.

Internal Wiring

I had to use some more flash trickery to get the following pics but I wanted you to see something here. I'll show you two blue cathodes side by side. One will have a stripped internal wire and the other will have the white tube covered wire.


Oops, a green one :o)

See...

The.....

Wire inside?

There's a particular reason I'm showing you these pics. Besides the fact that I received both of these blue lights you see above from Sunbeam. The main reason is Sunbeam is offering both the internal stripped wire and one without the interenal wire stripped. Here's what I got from Sunbeam about it:

We offer two options to customers.
A. White wire inside acrylic : applied with a standard inverter
B. Special edition : with very narrow stripe , the inverter is powerful to drive this kind of CCFL .

I didn't know that the inverter would have to be different to run either one...heh..but hey, Sunbeam is the people spending the cash on really researching what can and can't be done with cathodes these days. I'm sure they just mean that "they'll" be packaging different inverters with the stripped wire kits and not that it's really NEEDED.

Now again, as far as the above pics go, I went outta my way to make you guys able to see the internal wire inside. Under normal conditions, you can just spin the cathode so that the wire inside is facing down and you'll never see it at all. However there is a slight loss of brightness without the wire inside stripped. You can see alittle bit of that in the pics above. You can see the tube on the right, WITH the wire stripped inside, is a good bit brighter than the one without. Both lights still plenty bright, but the difference is there. If you MUST have the light one way or the other, might be best to either contact Sunbeam directly . ALL the CC Kits from Sunbeam DO have the white, or colored striping on the acrylic shell itself anyway, so you'll still have some "hide factor" if you need it :o) You can refer to my "money shots" above to see that normally, you really can't see the white wire inside and all four of the lights there DO have the white wire inside. I only have ONE light with the wire stripped inside it, and that's the one blue one you see above compared to the other blue one.

New Products from Sunbeam

Here is some new products info from sunbeam , as well as some new additions to the cold cathode line-up.


Cathode Side

Inside

Inverter Side

Fully Connected

Disconnected

Display Samples

After I had received my review kits, My sunbeam rep informed me that they were changing over to a new "boxed" inverter setup and sent me some preview pics to show you guys. So....there they are ;p I can't tell you first hand about them, but as we can both see, they look to be custom fit and look to provide ultimate protection. Heck, it even includes some airholes to let the inverter release it's heat.....can't beat that. :o) I think I'd rather see a black one or maybe even color matching ones though, but can't have everything I guess...heh.

Now I'll show you what I was again shown by my sunbeam rep. These are products that are just about ready for release. As you can plainly see, SunbeamTech is in no way slowing down with just a great cathode kit. They're progressively seeing just what kinda crazy things they can do with them too :o)


Dancing Cathodes

Rotating Lights


Dancing Circular Cathodes?!$%

Conclusion

I've seen alot of cold cathode kits in my time and the Sunbeam Tech kits are on the very top of the list that I've seen up to this point. They've done their homework on what makes a great kit, and when you do your homework, it pays off in a big way. This kits not perfect, but it's damn close. I think one of the best features about it is the striped acrylic casing. It just does so much for the overall look of the kit and also to hide the bulb and wire inside. I'd have to say it's the most professional looking kit I've yet to review. It came very neatly boxed with a good bit or wire between the inverter and the molex for it to install fine for just about anyone.

I'd like to thank Sunbeam Tech for allowing me to show you guys some of the best lights on market. The great thing is, I think this is just the beginning of what we're gonna see from Sunbeam Tech down the road. They've already just released even more new products like LED Fans, EL Cable, and a "portable" El Cable kit that runs on batteries! LOL!

Pros

Cons

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