Who has done a swap of Matrix reflectors?

[Drew]

URI has been selling the new reflectors for the Matrix. Plug in lamps for a much faster relamp.

Who has done this? Any change in tanning? And if you bought the reflectors from TA and got stuck with the TA PL lamp that is lower output, how much did the bed go down in output and how much more$$$ were the lamps than the URI lamps?

[Brian Oshman]

I posted on this before.

The TA kit is a real POS. THe lamps are not reliable and difficult to remove without breaking them. I don't have prices since it was a TA setup and I think this guy was a guinea pig.

All of the lamps that were installed failed in two to three weeks. The lamps need the ignitors swapped out too from the 400w to 1000w. If you want to have the ignitors bolted in you can only use the green square ones (also a pos) as the mounting bracket won't acept the round metal ones.

The original ISO kit that URI sells is a good kit. The lamp ends are different between the two kits and are not compatible with each other. With the latest pissing match that went on with these units you can see that TA was trying to lock in lamp sales by doing this.

The reflector geometry is the same just the lampholders are fitted to the reflector. The ISO kit will result in the same numbers as the original wire leads since it is the same lamp. The numbers from the TA kit is about 10 to 15 mils lower. (if they light)

[salon]

i posted this ibn the manfacture thread but it seems better suited here

"i have a friend who installed the TA conversion in two Matrix beds and is happy with the results - how about some feedback from other installs using either brand - are the lamps performing?"

[salon]

not much action in this forum - no matrix lamp info from users?

[royalsun]

Best advice is to not do it. The ISO lamps with wire leads work fine in this bed. The conversion kit is marginal at best. The lamps are difficult to remove, you will have to change out all of your 400 watt ignitors to 1K ignitors and you will still have a remarkably unreliable set-up. Lower output and lamps not lighting would be the norm. It would be nice to hear from anyone who has tried out URI's version, maybe these are a more solid effort. Forget the BLV's.

[John]

I can tell you that we have done about 35 L33's & a few V28's & L22's. No complaints as of yet. The new ISO reflector has facets on it which help to disperse the lamp output more evenly. The lamps are identical to the original ISO wire lead lamps, only the ends have changed. Session time & output are the same. The benefit is slightly less hot spots with a much faster future lamp change.

We have had some people report that they did not have to change the 400W ignitors to 1000W ignitors with the ISO set.
However I would recommend doing it anyway to save yourself the hassle of doing later after you have the new kit in. After all the unit uses a 620W lamp & the ignitor wouldn't last to long anyway being only rated to 400W.

Lamp life is still 450-500 hrs max on the original Matrix™ L33 with retro kit.

[royalsun]

Makes you wonder why ISO outfitted Matrix's with 400 watt ignitors in the first place?

[dbl-a]

Anyone have any more input on the kits? Getting a 2002 Matrix soon.

[springboktanning]

ive had it done to both my v28 and l33, and agree with everything john from uri said.