Sunbeam Chameleon from Crazy PC

Intro

With computer modification and pre-modification becoming more and more mainstream these days, more people are on the lookout for lighting alternatives that are easy to install/use, take up as little power as possible, and most of all, look good. The Sunbeam Chameleon up for review today is just such a product. We have CrazyPC.com to thank for the review sample today so be sure to go check out their impressive list of products.

Sunbeam is already a known name in modding circles for manufacturing many innovative products used by modders around the world so my hopes were high that they would deliver on another quality product that could be utilized in my current mod project.

Contents

The package was received very quickly from it's ship date via FedEx (2 days) from Crazy PC. Bless my luck again, I seem to have bypassed Attilla's FedEx cousin(s) and received the box virtually unharmed. I was very pleased to see that Crazy PC had double boxed the product with foam peanuts in between boxes. Not much chance of this package getting hurt unless a LOT of weight was thrown on it.

After dumping the package out and cleaning up all the peanuts (seems one always sticks to clothing due to static), this is what we see first.

Taking the contents out of the box shows us what we have to work with: The 5.25" bay controller, 4 "LED cannons", bag with screws for mounting controller and adhesive-backed velcro strips for mounting the "cannons", and a brief warning pamphlet. There were no instructions included, but in all fairness none are really needed. It might be a good idea to include some anyway for those potential Darwin Award candidates out there. The second photo shows the front of the bay controller and the third shows the guts from the backside.

Unit in Action

Below are shots of the controller installed and the LEDs positioned inside the case. These LED modules are capable of pivoting as well as swiveling for more precise aim, so there should be no worry on whether you can achieve your goal of placement for optimal lighting with a little trial and error. The only problem I had here was with the velcro strips. They don't really hold the LED modules in place very sturdily so you may want to use an alternate method of mounting them and use the velcro strips more for fine-tuning where you want your final placement to be.

Now I am sure you noticed the 3 separate knobs on the bay controller, under which are labeled R, G, and B. Can you guess what this means boys and girls? (Sorry, my nephew has been watching old tapes of Mr. Rogers this weekend and it's kinda wearing off on me.) Yep, you guessed right.... these knobs allow you to change value settings for each color of the visible spectrum.

Now I feel I must say that the three LEDs under the knobs could either be omitted or customizable as far as I am concerned because many modders try to follow a color theme, but at the same time many modders would change these LEDs themselves if they wanted to be that precise. It works out ok for me (at least for now) because I have a door to hide my drive bays behind but for many this is not the case. I can see tremendous potential for this product already, especially for my project as mentioned above. Lets take a look of the different channels dialed up all the way on their own and then some combinations to give you an idea of the potential color combinations you can achieve.

Now let's put the side panel back on and get some dark shots for comparison. First a picture of the side panel with windows and 120mm fan mounted. I know, I know, I need a fan guard installed but I haven't worked out a final design yet. Plus I am a good distance from ClowN and Lyquid Kill so I don't have to worry about severing fingertips in the near future.

And the dark shots, just a few to get an idea of the trueness of the color channel being operated.