Tweakmonster Lightstrips Rev. 2

Company: Tweakmonster
Product: Lightstrips Rev. 2
Street Price: ~$19.99 for 30" & $39.99 for 60"
Date Reviewed: March 8, 2002
Reviewed By: Jason

Image courtesy of Tweakmonster.com

Introduction:

Lets face it, case modding is all the rage these days. Everyone wants a case with windows, fans, lights, switches, buttons, pretty much anything and everything that is possibly imaginable. Today we take a look at the Tweakmonster Lightstrips (Revision 2) which is a highly flexible, self adhesive, electro-luminescent strip to go in, out, or around your case, or pretty much wherever you can think to put it.

The actual specs from the Tweakmonster website as are follows:

• 7/16 of an inch wide x .020 (20 thousandths of an inch) thick (about the thickness of a piece of posterboard)
• Self-adhesive backing sticks to anything stickable
• Fully bendable and configurable
• May be cut to different lengths, all of which will glow individually
• Comes in any color of the spectrum you can think of
• Uses small power converter that is easily hidden, and can run numerous Lightstrips at once
• Negligible power consumption
• NO heat generated from the light (which is always good)
• Fully weatherproof
• Can conform to just about any type of surface, including sharp bends and corners
• Burn life of 15,000 hours (3 years straight)
• Works right off your computer's power supply
• Can handle heat just fine (like heatsink installations......)
• Easily attachable to heatsinks, video cards, motherboards, cases, fans, water tanks, keyboards, mice, monitors, printers, mousepads, desks, speakers, etc.
• Revision 2.0 has been completely redesigned with QUIET inverters, and the strips are alot more pliable.

Closer Look:

The strips come in a 2½' (30") version, or a 5' (60") version, this is the length of the lightstrip itself, it doesn't include the length of the power cord or inverter. The model I reviewed was the 2½' version which retails for about $19.99, this is very affordable to any person wanting to add a little pizzazz to their case. The 5' version retails for about $39.99 I believe. As you can see in the picture below, there is plenty of extra length to connect it to a regular 4pin power connector, and the inverter box is extremely small and can be tucked away in a corner of your case.

Taking a look at the strip itself, it is literally almost paper thin and just as flexible. The self-adhesive backing comes in very handy so you don't have to fidget to try and tape the strip down and also ensures that it will stay flush with the surface you stick it to.

As mentioned before the inverter is very small and could be placed just about anywhere. I opted to place it under my front fan intake, since I was going to try and run the light strip around the edge of my case from front to back. When I plugged in the power the inverter was really quiet (one of the new features of the Rev 2), when I held it up to my ear I could barely hear a hum, so it is safe to say it really adds no noise to your case. Also these lighstrips only use a few milli-amps of power which is pretty much nothing compared to other components in your case.

Light It Up!:

One thing I learned from this review is that my digital camera absolutely stinks at taking pictures in low light / darkness. These were the best I could get, and they really don't do the light strips justice, they definitely glow brighter than what you see in these pictures!

However I must point out that they aren't going to glow as bright as a neon or cold-cathode light, but those are completely different products. There are several advantages the Tweakmonster Lightstrips have over neons or cold-cathodes, the main one being the amount of space inside your case that they use. The Lightstrips are completely flat so they take up pretty much zero space, and are flexible enough to bend and twist to be placed wherever you choose, inside or outside your case. A neon or cold-cathode is essentially a long rod that has limited placement in a case, especially smaller cases.

Like I said, these do give off more light than the pictures show, check out the links below for some better pictures. For the review I didn't want to cut up the wire because I am planning on giving it away (check out the contest page), but you can easily cut and wire together the strips if you wanted to highlight certain places in your case, like around your heatsink or window.

For more info on the lightstrips you can check out this page, or for some modding ideas you can check out this other page.

Also you can find where to buy this and other Tweakmonster products around the world.

To win this lightstrip (absolutely free), go check out our contest page!

Pros:
   Generates little to no heat
   Requires almost no power to run
   Thin & flexible allows placement just about anywhere
   Quiet and small inverter
   Adhesive backing comes in very handy

Cons:
   Does not provide as much light as a Neon or Cold Cathode

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