metrokat Posted December 30, 2015 Share Posted December 30, 2015 So this is a review of the upgrade to my light. The original light was great but what happened over the summer was that all 3 arrays on one of the heatsinks flickered and then only lit up blue. I could smell a faint burning and I assumed something had shorted out. Dave was planning on visiting NY sometime with his wife and he was already talking about visiting some of his customers to take pictures, so I was hoping he could repair the light when he was here. This was more for my convenience than anything else. This monster light costs about $60-$70 to ship one way. Further, it's such an old clunker that I originally bought (you can read all about it in the original review thread linked below) that I have had issues with it not working as it gets jostled in shipping. It's been shipped back and forth several times and I wasn't going to risk one more time. Dave assumed it was a faulty driver and he brought a replacement. He landed at the airport and a few hours later he was working on the light. Anybody know how tall he is?! He should walk around with a pillow on his head. What he found was a busted LED on one of the arrays. The thing had burnt right off. He had never seen anything like that before, and it was probably caused by surge. In fact I have some track light in the nook which flickered while he was here so that pointed to it too. We hadn't figured it might be one LED on one array that caused the problem so he wired up the light after changing the driver, by-passing the burnt LED. So then the light worked fine except for the one array which was all blue. The light got upgraded to the BlueFish controller - I'm glad I let Dave convince me to upgrade from the Storm, it's very easy to change the levels and with 4 channel dimming, I can change a lot to make it look a lot different. He didn't stop there, he sent me a matching red case for the BlueFish (to my light) and a new array with pre-soldered wires and connector plugs. Had Arce come over to help me with that this past weekend. It couldn't have been easier but electrical stuff and me aren't very good together. Anyway, the light is fantastic again, the upgrade is well worth it. The extra touch of my red matching case, and other little things Dave does to make this a personal experience is truly one of a kind. Nobody in the world has my light, I'm the only one. It's unique to me. This was the first time I met Dave, he's utterly professional, very humble, and I'm so appreciative of his respectful demeanor. My brother was home at the time and they talked about cameras and things too. Didn't make Dave cook anything, maybe we will leave that for next time when I can also hopefully meet his lovely wife. He visits customers when he is travelling and I'm extremely glad that he was able to work on my light and save me a ton of stress with the shipping. For anybody considering a light from Dave - do not hesitate and go with 4 channel dimming if possible. He's a one man shop - stuff gets delayed, there is much that goes into building each light that is personalized than people realize. He sat there in his shop and painted a little blue fish cover to match my light - who does that?! Thanks a lot Dave. The original review can be found here with some awesome pictures http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/360008-kats-ati-nanobox-retrofit/ Link to comment
DaveFason Posted December 30, 2015 Share Posted December 30, 2015 Thanks Kat. Great meeting you in person as well. Always fun to see tanks that use my lights as well! -Dave Link to comment
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