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Just last September we received our first Cold Cathode Fluorescent Light
kit from Sunbeam. We featured the kit in a two-fold review showing off
some nice window mod action accented by the Cold Cathode lights. Sunbeam
has put some more Cold Cathode kits on the table along with a kit
presented to us from their booth during our recent trip to the Fall 2002
Comdex. The kit we received in Las Vegas is the crème' o' the crop
incorporating a new Sound Activated feature! Before I start running away
with the story, let me start with some of their other kits and save the
best for last.

These CCFL kits
all share some pretty common components. Going from left to right, first
we have the CCFL tubes. These tubes are colored green and blue with
power leads that are approximately 7½ inches long. Next to the light
tubes we have 2 sections of Velcro tape which can be used to mount the
light tubes. The main power bundle contains one male and one female
Molex connector. An improvement over our last product demo is the power
inverter, which this one is entirely sealed rather than being covered by
a piece of nylon covered with Velcro. Velcro strips are included to hold
the inverter wherever you intend to place it. There are terminal lugs
crimped onto two leads of wire which will connect to a toggle switch to
allow the lights to be controlled from outside the enclosure. To assist
with the switch installation a grommet can be used to size the hole you
will need to make. That same grommet can then be placed between the
switch and the mounting surface to hide any blemishes and to help the
switch fit more snugly.

They earn their
name Cold Cathode because of their extremely LOW power consumption.
These lights are using only approximately 2.85 watts which translates
into LOW heat generation. At the rated .5milli Amps' of current
draw, that would put the voltage somewhere around 570 volts DC. As an
added statistic, you can expect these lights to last around 15,000 hours
which comes out to about 624 days.
And now for
something completely different, lets bring some psychedelic funk to the
PC! We have a single UV Black-Light CCFL tube to show off. A full
size tube measuring almost 12½ inches long with a power lead that
measures 12 inches long. Well, the cliché a picture is worth a thousand
words is certainly true here.

And there it is in all of its college dorm room spender. Adding to the
persona we have my terrible finger painting of "Club OC.net" done in,
what else -- but Liquid Tide laundry detergent. This light had things
glowing all over the room once the lights were turned off! Added with
glow-in-the-dark cables, this should be on every case modders' "to have"
list for Christmas.

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