SUMMARY: Sunbeam Technology are a relatively new competitor to the cold cathode lighting kit business starting manufacturing in 1998. The Taiwanese company sent us in a couple of their new lighting kits for testing. Does this new competitor have what it takes to compete with lighting products from the likes of PCMods and PC Case Gear? Read on as Cameron "Mr.Tweak" Wilmot gives us an answer regarding the CCFL kits from Taiwan based Sunbeam Technology!
The first thing you notice when powering on these lights is how vibrant the colours produced from them are. The cold cathode tube produces bright output of light which is easily comparable in quality to the light kits from PCMods and PC Case Gear.
Interestingly, the tubes feature many thin color strips running from top to bottom with an equal space between each. I was unable to tell if this improves the quality of light output or if they are just there as a means of telling which tube is what colour without the fuss of having to power them up just to find out – I’d say the latter is more probable, but that’s just my guess. I come to this conclusion since the package we received had no retail packaging to identify which light is which. I would imagine many companies in the US would be selling these kits relabeled with their own name and packaging, as I had never heard of the Sunbeam company before they contacted us.
To give you an idea of the quality of these light kits I’ve taken a photo of the blue Sunbeam light next to the PCMods blue light, with camera flash off and on – The Sunbeam light is furthest to the top while the PCMods light is furthest to the bottom in both photos.
As you can see there isn’t a great deal of difference between each light in terms of total light output goes – It was difficult to find a clear cut winner out of the two. Although, it was easy to see that the Sunbeam light does produce a much more vibrant and defined shade of blue which I consider superior to pervious lights I have tested, then again – that’s just my opinion.
In case you were wondering, the heat output of the Sunbeam lights is nothing to be concerned about – Your case temperatures aren’t going to increase. After having the lights on for roughly 4 hours they did not heat up anymore then any of the previous lights I’ve used.
In the attempt to give you a better idea of the difference between both, I set both lights up in my case in the exact same position and took photos with camera flash off. The first shot is of the Sunbeam light while the second shot is of the PCMods light.
Ignore the innards of the case; it’s quite messy I know… :)
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