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Are you looking for a way to light your car, home, dorm room, or computer? Most people would tell you, "Dude, buy some neon lights!" Well, perhaps, your answer is in the cheaper and brighter alternative, cold cathodes.

Currently available:
$8.00 Dual 12" Red cold cathode kit (PC Toys)
$8.00 Dual 12" Green cold cathode kit (PC TOys)

Sorry for the lack of stock, other colors/brands will be available in the future.

What are cold cathodes?
Cold cathode tubes operate a lot like neon lights. Cold Cathodes operate much brighter than normal neon lights, however. It is a fluorescent glass tube, which is covered by a heavy duty acrylic coating. Although the inside is glass, the coating is very sturdy, and should protect it from most problems. Of course, jumping on it, or running it over with a car, etc. is not one of the things it is designed to protect it against. But minor bumps, etc. should not be a problem at all.

What's included?
Right now, I am only selling green and red cathode kits. Each kit comes with two 12" tubes (that's two feet of lighting!). You cannot mix colors (must be two of the same color). However, after the purchase, if you wish, you can mix and match tubes with your transformers- they are interchangeable (to some extent. I'd advise consulting me before your purchase if you plan to do this.) They also come with one transformer which will power the cathodes. Various mounting equipment is also included. The kit comes with a 4-pin computer-compatible molex connector for power. It also includes an on-off rocker switch. I am selling each kit for $8/kit, however, discounts for larger orders will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Quality
The cathodes I am selling are of the PC Toys brand. I am a car lighting enthusiast, and I have many different brands of cold cathodes installed in my car. I honestly say that this brand of cold cathode is as good as any other brand I have ever used, and better than some others. But I haven't found any other brand of cold cathode that I've noted was better. These cold cathodes operate at a brightness of 29,000 mcd-30,000 mcd. They are proven to dim after time, however, testing shows that this takes about 30,000 hours to happen. This means you could leave your cold cathodes on for three years straight before having to worry about them dimming. Although, leaving them on for such times is not reccomended- I have never had any problems with the transformers, however, I'm sure this would not be good for it. I have used these in my car for almost a year now. I use these lights on my car as often as possible, and they have been through quite a rough time, with rearrangement on my car, and such. I personally have been quite impressed with the duribility and brightness of these lights.

Voltage
The tubes themselves operate at about 600 volts, however, that is powered by the transformer. The transformer itself is powered by 12 volts. A few volts variance from this will work, and as expected, higher voltage means more brightness. That's for the more advanced person. However, these cathodes are easy to install! If you are installing them in your computer, they come with an attached 4-pin molex connector. The same you will find in your computer. Installing it in your computer is nothing more than a matter of opening the case, plugging it in, and finding a place to mount the tubes. If you are installing it in your car, you simply cut off the molex connectors, ground the black wire, and connect the red wire to your 12 volt battery somehow. Wiring in your home would require you to buy a 12 volt power source (Radioshack sells them for less than $25), or, perhaps, use an old AT power supply for a computer (ATX will not work, unless you have the motherboard hooked up. The switch is not built in like older power supplies.). I'd be happy to answer any questions about hooking these things up.

Precautions
These little babies are quite durable. However, there are some observations I should make here, because if you choose to purchase from me, I may forget to tell you, and that would be sad. First, if you're wiring to a 12 volt source directly and not using the molex connector, make sure not to wire them backwards. This will blow a fuse in the transformer, and it's not (easily) replaceable. It's not hard, red = +, black = -(ground). Second, if you try, you can manage to pull the glass tube out of the acrylic tube. It should be obvious that the glass tube is pretty fragile if you pull it out, and this is not reccomended, although, the tube WILL operate outside of the acrylic tube. Finally, I'd like to note that cold weather does affect these. I've noted that in my car, they only light about half when my car is not running. At this time, my car should be pushing about 11 volts. However, when I start my car, and the battery is pushing 13+ volts, there wasn't a problem. I noted this at about 10 degrees below zero. This shouldn't be a serious problem, and it does not appear to affect the lights or tranformers in a long-term sense.

Contact Information
If you want to purchase/check out these products, contact me.
Name: Scott Degen
Room: 860 Towers North
Phone: 715.572.9471 (Cell)
email: degenst@uwec.edu
AIM: Doc Senn778
MSN: taco_taster@hotmail.com