Zodiac
Member
First, let's cover some background...
I'm a volunteer firefighter in Wisconsin.
What I do not know about emergency lighting can fill several very large books.
I cannot tell most hideaways apart like most people on this forum. I can tell most bars apart. Not all. Especially if it's an LED bar, I have no idea what it is.
I do know what hideaway strobes are, and what they look like.
I spend time in chat, I did buy these from a forum member (it's not that I don't want to mention his name, but I want to be impartial).
I feel my review would not necessarily be better than anyone else's review, however this is my first experience with Feniex products, and as I've stated before in the forums, I'm always hesitant with new products, as well as companies that have MANY dealers.
Everyone knows who Whelen, Federal Signal, and Code3 are. I had a Whelen Edge bar that I fully intended to mount on my truck, then suddenly changed my mind about bought some Feniex products. I have no idea why.
At the time of this writing, I am impartial to Feniex products. However I will admit I did like my Edge, and I still have no idea why I sold it. Oh wait, it was to buy more blinkies.
1. First impressions...
First, hanging around here and in chat, you get to learn a lot about Feniex products. Being new to this, I don't know much about any lighting product, so there's that. However, I get to talk to a few Feniex dealers in chat on occasion, and they are good guys. I get to see about people buying them and their experiences, still I was skeptical. I've seen LED products before, I have a LED StreamLight that I love, and has worked for years for everything. I carry it in my truck, and take the dang thing everywhere. But that's been the only LED product I've really been happy with.
2. Packing...
I know this is a lame topic, but it's something I really look at. I one time bought a $600 camcorder from a nationwide retailer, and it had no packing in it, being that I never bought a camcorder before I didn't know what, if any, packing it should have. Long story short, the camera never worked well, and I ended up getting screwed around for awhile by the retailer. I no longer shop there, and haven't in 10 years.
Packing and the materials can tell you a lot about the products, and the way the manufacturer cares about their products.
The Cannons came in a plastic bag. The wires were zip tied in two coils on either side of the control box, and it had a gasket and mounting flange inside the bag.
One side of the bag is clear, the other side has wiring and operating instructions printed on it.
My first impression was not that great.
"How good could these really be, if they don't even care how they pack them?"
But the bags were heat sealed, and I opened them.
After closer inspection, I realized why they were packed the way they were. And sytrofoam or peanuts or anything else would have just been a waste of money, it's a pretty solid construction and there isn't anything to break.
Sure I guess if you manhandled them and stomped on them something would happen, maybe break the flange, but in normal, every day shipping and warehouse situations, I just don't think anything would happen to these things.
3. Instructions...
Unlike most things I buy, I actually read the instructions first, I'm pretty sure that's the first time I did that with anything.
The units have four wires, a red, a yellow, a blue, and a black. Red is power Mode 1, Yellow is power Mode 2, black is obviously ground, and blue is pattern change/sync when grounded.
Everything is pretty cut and dried.
I got a single color, red, for the reverse lights in my 1999 Silverado. I did not want to use a red/white and use the white for reverse lights. No real reason, just my choice.
The packaging also has instructions on how to sync them. Just hold the blue wire to ground for three seconds, the unit will turn off, then turn back on. If all 12 LEDs flash, the unit is set to "MASTER", if 6 LEDs flash it's set to "SLAVE".
From my understanding (someone might have to correct me on this), you can have any number of units wired together to sync the flash. However all except one has to be set to "SLAVE".
To sync two or more units, just wire red to red, yellow to yellow, black to black, blue to blue. And you're done.
And that's that.
4. At First Light...
So I decided to do a little test, first I wanted to play with one HAW, and see what happens and how easy it was to wire/operate/chose a flash pattern.
Feniex claims 19 flash patterns, and that might very well be true.
But in my situation, because they are going in to taillight assemblies, I did not want a slow or steady burn because I didn't want someone to confuse them with me hitting my brakes. I wanted a fairly rapid wig wag type pattern.
I wired red to positive, black to ground, and turned the power on.
Here's where I made my first big mistake.
If, and when, you decide to do this, do whatever you can to NOT look directly at them.
Like I said, I've been around some LEDs before, not a huge deal.
This was different.
This was bright.
I had to wait to write this review because I saw spots for 45 minutes to an hour afterwards. (A single 100W incandescent bulb in a large room was probably not a good idea in this room either).
The things are bright. Crazy bright.
I scrambled to try and find the switch to shut the jump box off.
Then I was blind. I wanted to play with the Cannons more, but I couldn't tell what color the wires were.
I then turned the unit away from my face, and turned it back on.
MUCH more tolerable.
I hit the blue wire against ground several times, until I got a fairly rapid wig wag flash. Maybe not the pattern I'll use (I'VE GOT 18 MORE CHOICES!), but one I can play with.
Then I held the blue wire against ground and in a few seconds, all LEDs flashed.
I then did this three more times, because I was LOOKING at the unit to see if all LEDs or only 6 flashed. And I was blinding myself.
Nonetheless, got it set to "MASTER".
I took the other unit out of the bag, red to red, yellow to yellow, blue to blue, ground to ground.
They wig wag'd back and forth. Done and done.
5. Closer Look...
Now I had seen what the lights could do, I was impressed. But I noticed something that I've seen mentioned once or twice here, but no one has REALLY talked about.
The fairly large heat sinks on the back of these suckers.
Now that worried me.
My thoughts on that are this...
A large heat sink means, well it puts out a lot of heat. Where I plan on putting these, I have no idea what the airflow is like...
Also, on the cord is a warning that says contact with the heat sink may burn your skin. I was worried.
Am I going to have to cut a hole in the side of the box of my truck and wire in little computer fans to keep these bad boys cool?
I dunno.
So I ran the lights, and got my infrared thermometer.
The ambient temp in my mancave was 67 degrees.
The temp of the lights themselves before I turned them on was 60*.
I took readings at the start, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and 20 minutes. Then called it a day.
There are no fans or anything on in the basement, but they also weren't enclosed in anything. They were set to three flashes, then alternate, again in a wig wag pattern. I did not test them on steady burn, which probably would have given me different numbers, but I wanted them as close to what I'd use them for as possible.
Here's my findings...
Time (in minutes) - Temp (Fahrenheit)
0 - 60*
.5 - 63.5*
1 - 65*
2 - 70*
3 - 74.5*
5 - 87*
10 - 85*
15 - 86.5*
20 - 87*
At 20 minutes I stopped because the temp was staying between 85* and 87*, my thermometer has a pretty decent refresh rate, and I just kept it on there constantly, and if it went to 88 degrees it did so and quickly dropped.
I also cut a piece of the outer wire off the Cannons, and set it DIRECTLY in front of one unit, to see how heat resistant it was, and I put it face down on a table, to limit air movement over the lense, but maximize air over the heat sink. I did the exact opposite with the other unit.
I took readings from both, but both were (in most cases) exactly the same, or withing a few tenths of a degree off.
At the 10 minute mark I could feel them getting warmer, but it was more like room temperature, and not a huge deal.
At 15 minutes I could really feel a difference, but I did not get burned or anything.
Now, this test isn't as realistic as it could be, I failed science in high school.
So I realize that having the light in a tail light assembly, outside, in summer, with blaring sun directly on it, these little things can get pretty hot. Airflow might be a concern of mine.
They do have a 5 year warranty, and I did not see anything saying to not put them in any enclosure, so I'mma give it a shot, see what happens. Again, not going to mention who I bought them from, but they know who they are, I'll call you when something bad happens.
6. Summation...
I didn't just buy these without any research, I checked all over the internet, and I bought mine for around $66 each, with my ELB membership discount (THIS SITE IS PAYING FOR ITSELF!).
I found I did not want to use strobes, for many reasons. Four strobe bulbs (I plan on two Cannons front, two rear), plus a power supply can run around $200 (for a 90W).
For about $64 more, I can have all LED lights, not screw around with more delicate bulbs, and not deal with a separate power supply.
I could have gone with Whelen Vertexes. I've heard good things about them, in all honesty, I have no experience with them in real life, so they could be nice. However, at $100 (average) a corner, you're looking at $400 for my truck.
I decided to test the waters with Feniex in this case.
Here's the areas I graded this product on...
1 to 10, 1 being horrible, 10 being best in class.
Packaging - 8, I couldn't see how they could improve this, but it wasn't packed like most products I see
Appearance - 8, It's pretty no frills, but what I expected
Instructions - 9, cut and dried, no BS, no filler, wire it up and go
Wiring - 10, Again, cut and dried, no BS
Sync'ing - 10, what could complicated "Pick MASTER/SLAVE, pick flash pattern, wire together, sync'd"?
Heat - 4, This is partially from my test, partially because I have no "real world" data to look at, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about it
Brightness - 10, there might be products out there that are brighter, I haven't found them. I was worried about putting them in my tail light assemblies and people being able to see them, that fear was gone after I turned them on
Overall - 59 out of 70 possible.
My biggest hesitation here is the heat.
UPDATE: So I had to take some photos of the product involved, I had the unit on steady burn. It gets MUCH hotter on steady burn. Within seconds it was up to 90 degrees.
The Feniex Cannon Hideaway LED
With it on steady burn, you can see the tag that says to not touch it because of heat.
I tried to think of different ways to show how bright this is, this was kind of accidental. But that's a photo of me making a fist around the light itself. And those are my bones. Creepy and morbid, I know, but I can't imagine how bright the white/clear ones are if a red one does THAT!
EDIT:
This morning I installed them, on the advice of a few forum members, I decided to go with these in my headlamp housings. I have a 1999 Silverado, and on the headlamp, on the far outside corners there is a lens, with optics, but no bulb.
My thinking is this...
I am not far from the station, but my little town (Population almost 2400 people), gets crazy busy in summer with people on vacation or fishing or anything like that. It is only about 30-40 degrees outside, and our main street is a state highway which also happens to be the only way to get between two large lakes. The street has lots of traffic. Without lights or siren my response is decent, but you can be waiting at an intersection for a long time before anything happens.
I've ordered 2 Cannons, and 1 Cobra 2X dash light. The cannons were going to go in to the taillamps, and the Cobra on the dash. However, I do have one intersection to approach, and after more thinking, I was worried the Cobra won't get me the "spread" so to speak, that I would need when approaching an intersection.
Placing the Cannons in the headlamp housings, plus two more Cannons in the taillamp housings, plus a Cobra on my dash, will give me the warning lights I would need for my short commute to the station.
I took photos of the install, and videos of it finished. I'll recap with my results...
Install...
First, I forgot to take photos on the first one, so these are photos at various stages on BOTH sides. Sorry. Also sorry about the quality. I spent all my monies on blinkies and had to use my phone. ;(
The rear of the housing... As it sits from the factory.
Rear of the housing, I had to remove the black plastic alignment bracket to get tools in there.
I used a 1" hole saw to drill a hole in the rear. I do not have photos of it, then I drilled two small pilot holes for screws.
The Cannons come with two gaskets, a regular foam gasket, and a double sticky gasket. I used the double sticky gaskets because I only have two hands. It's hard to see in this photo, but I just used two small wood screws, and put them right in to the housing. I'm one of those people that get upset with something if it's not tight and secure, no matter if it makes a difference or not. But the screws held it tight. The rear of the housing is also not flat, but the gasket did a great job of sealing it all the way around. Little if any water gets back here, but who cares? The Cannons are sealed and waterproof from the factory!
A close up of the Cannon installed, you can see the housing isn't flat here, and you can get a better look at the heat sink on the back.
Videos...
These videos are VERY short, seconds. That's because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to upload them from my phone if they were too long, hopefully you get the idea.
I'm a volunteer firefighter in Wisconsin.
What I do not know about emergency lighting can fill several very large books.
I cannot tell most hideaways apart like most people on this forum. I can tell most bars apart. Not all. Especially if it's an LED bar, I have no idea what it is.
I do know what hideaway strobes are, and what they look like.
I spend time in chat, I did buy these from a forum member (it's not that I don't want to mention his name, but I want to be impartial).
I feel my review would not necessarily be better than anyone else's review, however this is my first experience with Feniex products, and as I've stated before in the forums, I'm always hesitant with new products, as well as companies that have MANY dealers.
Everyone knows who Whelen, Federal Signal, and Code3 are. I had a Whelen Edge bar that I fully intended to mount on my truck, then suddenly changed my mind about bought some Feniex products. I have no idea why.
At the time of this writing, I am impartial to Feniex products. However I will admit I did like my Edge, and I still have no idea why I sold it. Oh wait, it was to buy more blinkies.
1. First impressions...
First, hanging around here and in chat, you get to learn a lot about Feniex products. Being new to this, I don't know much about any lighting product, so there's that. However, I get to talk to a few Feniex dealers in chat on occasion, and they are good guys. I get to see about people buying them and their experiences, still I was skeptical. I've seen LED products before, I have a LED StreamLight that I love, and has worked for years for everything. I carry it in my truck, and take the dang thing everywhere. But that's been the only LED product I've really been happy with.
2. Packing...
I know this is a lame topic, but it's something I really look at. I one time bought a $600 camcorder from a nationwide retailer, and it had no packing in it, being that I never bought a camcorder before I didn't know what, if any, packing it should have. Long story short, the camera never worked well, and I ended up getting screwed around for awhile by the retailer. I no longer shop there, and haven't in 10 years.
Packing and the materials can tell you a lot about the products, and the way the manufacturer cares about their products.
The Cannons came in a plastic bag. The wires were zip tied in two coils on either side of the control box, and it had a gasket and mounting flange inside the bag.
One side of the bag is clear, the other side has wiring and operating instructions printed on it.
My first impression was not that great.
"How good could these really be, if they don't even care how they pack them?"
But the bags were heat sealed, and I opened them.
After closer inspection, I realized why they were packed the way they were. And sytrofoam or peanuts or anything else would have just been a waste of money, it's a pretty solid construction and there isn't anything to break.
Sure I guess if you manhandled them and stomped on them something would happen, maybe break the flange, but in normal, every day shipping and warehouse situations, I just don't think anything would happen to these things.
3. Instructions...
Unlike most things I buy, I actually read the instructions first, I'm pretty sure that's the first time I did that with anything.
The units have four wires, a red, a yellow, a blue, and a black. Red is power Mode 1, Yellow is power Mode 2, black is obviously ground, and blue is pattern change/sync when grounded.
Everything is pretty cut and dried.
I got a single color, red, for the reverse lights in my 1999 Silverado. I did not want to use a red/white and use the white for reverse lights. No real reason, just my choice.
The packaging also has instructions on how to sync them. Just hold the blue wire to ground for three seconds, the unit will turn off, then turn back on. If all 12 LEDs flash, the unit is set to "MASTER", if 6 LEDs flash it's set to "SLAVE".
From my understanding (someone might have to correct me on this), you can have any number of units wired together to sync the flash. However all except one has to be set to "SLAVE".
To sync two or more units, just wire red to red, yellow to yellow, black to black, blue to blue. And you're done.
And that's that.
4. At First Light...
So I decided to do a little test, first I wanted to play with one HAW, and see what happens and how easy it was to wire/operate/chose a flash pattern.
Feniex claims 19 flash patterns, and that might very well be true.
But in my situation, because they are going in to taillight assemblies, I did not want a slow or steady burn because I didn't want someone to confuse them with me hitting my brakes. I wanted a fairly rapid wig wag type pattern.
I wired red to positive, black to ground, and turned the power on.
Here's where I made my first big mistake.
If, and when, you decide to do this, do whatever you can to NOT look directly at them.
Like I said, I've been around some LEDs before, not a huge deal.
This was different.
This was bright.
I had to wait to write this review because I saw spots for 45 minutes to an hour afterwards. (A single 100W incandescent bulb in a large room was probably not a good idea in this room either).
The things are bright. Crazy bright.
I scrambled to try and find the switch to shut the jump box off.
Then I was blind. I wanted to play with the Cannons more, but I couldn't tell what color the wires were.
I then turned the unit away from my face, and turned it back on.
MUCH more tolerable.
I hit the blue wire against ground several times, until I got a fairly rapid wig wag flash. Maybe not the pattern I'll use (I'VE GOT 18 MORE CHOICES!), but one I can play with.
Then I held the blue wire against ground and in a few seconds, all LEDs flashed.
I then did this three more times, because I was LOOKING at the unit to see if all LEDs or only 6 flashed. And I was blinding myself.
Nonetheless, got it set to "MASTER".
I took the other unit out of the bag, red to red, yellow to yellow, blue to blue, ground to ground.
They wig wag'd back and forth. Done and done.
5. Closer Look...
Now I had seen what the lights could do, I was impressed. But I noticed something that I've seen mentioned once or twice here, but no one has REALLY talked about.
The fairly large heat sinks on the back of these suckers.
Now that worried me.
My thoughts on that are this...
A large heat sink means, well it puts out a lot of heat. Where I plan on putting these, I have no idea what the airflow is like...
Also, on the cord is a warning that says contact with the heat sink may burn your skin. I was worried.
Am I going to have to cut a hole in the side of the box of my truck and wire in little computer fans to keep these bad boys cool?
I dunno.
So I ran the lights, and got my infrared thermometer.
The ambient temp in my mancave was 67 degrees.
The temp of the lights themselves before I turned them on was 60*.
I took readings at the start, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and 20 minutes. Then called it a day.
There are no fans or anything on in the basement, but they also weren't enclosed in anything. They were set to three flashes, then alternate, again in a wig wag pattern. I did not test them on steady burn, which probably would have given me different numbers, but I wanted them as close to what I'd use them for as possible.
Here's my findings...
Time (in minutes) - Temp (Fahrenheit)
0 - 60*
.5 - 63.5*
1 - 65*
2 - 70*
3 - 74.5*
5 - 87*
10 - 85*
15 - 86.5*
20 - 87*
At 20 minutes I stopped because the temp was staying between 85* and 87*, my thermometer has a pretty decent refresh rate, and I just kept it on there constantly, and if it went to 88 degrees it did so and quickly dropped.
I also cut a piece of the outer wire off the Cannons, and set it DIRECTLY in front of one unit, to see how heat resistant it was, and I put it face down on a table, to limit air movement over the lense, but maximize air over the heat sink. I did the exact opposite with the other unit.
I took readings from both, but both were (in most cases) exactly the same, or withing a few tenths of a degree off.
At the 10 minute mark I could feel them getting warmer, but it was more like room temperature, and not a huge deal.
At 15 minutes I could really feel a difference, but I did not get burned or anything.
Now, this test isn't as realistic as it could be, I failed science in high school.
So I realize that having the light in a tail light assembly, outside, in summer, with blaring sun directly on it, these little things can get pretty hot. Airflow might be a concern of mine.
They do have a 5 year warranty, and I did not see anything saying to not put them in any enclosure, so I'mma give it a shot, see what happens. Again, not going to mention who I bought them from, but they know who they are, I'll call you when something bad happens.
6. Summation...
I didn't just buy these without any research, I checked all over the internet, and I bought mine for around $66 each, with my ELB membership discount (THIS SITE IS PAYING FOR ITSELF!).
I found I did not want to use strobes, for many reasons. Four strobe bulbs (I plan on two Cannons front, two rear), plus a power supply can run around $200 (for a 90W).
For about $64 more, I can have all LED lights, not screw around with more delicate bulbs, and not deal with a separate power supply.
I could have gone with Whelen Vertexes. I've heard good things about them, in all honesty, I have no experience with them in real life, so they could be nice. However, at $100 (average) a corner, you're looking at $400 for my truck.
I decided to test the waters with Feniex in this case.
Here's the areas I graded this product on...
1 to 10, 1 being horrible, 10 being best in class.
Packaging - 8, I couldn't see how they could improve this, but it wasn't packed like most products I see
Appearance - 8, It's pretty no frills, but what I expected
Instructions - 9, cut and dried, no BS, no filler, wire it up and go
Wiring - 10, Again, cut and dried, no BS
Sync'ing - 10, what could complicated "Pick MASTER/SLAVE, pick flash pattern, wire together, sync'd"?
Heat - 4, This is partially from my test, partially because I have no "real world" data to look at, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about it
Brightness - 10, there might be products out there that are brighter, I haven't found them. I was worried about putting them in my tail light assemblies and people being able to see them, that fear was gone after I turned them on
Overall - 59 out of 70 possible.
My biggest hesitation here is the heat.
UPDATE: So I had to take some photos of the product involved, I had the unit on steady burn. It gets MUCH hotter on steady burn. Within seconds it was up to 90 degrees.
The Feniex Cannon Hideaway LED
With it on steady burn, you can see the tag that says to not touch it because of heat.
I tried to think of different ways to show how bright this is, this was kind of accidental. But that's a photo of me making a fist around the light itself. And those are my bones. Creepy and morbid, I know, but I can't imagine how bright the white/clear ones are if a red one does THAT!
EDIT:
This morning I installed them, on the advice of a few forum members, I decided to go with these in my headlamp housings. I have a 1999 Silverado, and on the headlamp, on the far outside corners there is a lens, with optics, but no bulb.
My thinking is this...
I am not far from the station, but my little town (Population almost 2400 people), gets crazy busy in summer with people on vacation or fishing or anything like that. It is only about 30-40 degrees outside, and our main street is a state highway which also happens to be the only way to get between two large lakes. The street has lots of traffic. Without lights or siren my response is decent, but you can be waiting at an intersection for a long time before anything happens.
I've ordered 2 Cannons, and 1 Cobra 2X dash light. The cannons were going to go in to the taillamps, and the Cobra on the dash. However, I do have one intersection to approach, and after more thinking, I was worried the Cobra won't get me the "spread" so to speak, that I would need when approaching an intersection.
Placing the Cannons in the headlamp housings, plus two more Cannons in the taillamp housings, plus a Cobra on my dash, will give me the warning lights I would need for my short commute to the station.
I took photos of the install, and videos of it finished. I'll recap with my results...
Install...
First, I forgot to take photos on the first one, so these are photos at various stages on BOTH sides. Sorry. Also sorry about the quality. I spent all my monies on blinkies and had to use my phone. ;(
The rear of the housing... As it sits from the factory.
Rear of the housing, I had to remove the black plastic alignment bracket to get tools in there.
I used a 1" hole saw to drill a hole in the rear. I do not have photos of it, then I drilled two small pilot holes for screws.
The Cannons come with two gaskets, a regular foam gasket, and a double sticky gasket. I used the double sticky gaskets because I only have two hands. It's hard to see in this photo, but I just used two small wood screws, and put them right in to the housing. I'm one of those people that get upset with something if it's not tight and secure, no matter if it makes a difference or not. But the screws held it tight. The rear of the housing is also not flat, but the gasket did a great job of sealing it all the way around. Little if any water gets back here, but who cares? The Cannons are sealed and waterproof from the factory!
A close up of the Cannon installed, you can see the housing isn't flat here, and you can get a better look at the heat sink on the back.
Videos...
These videos are VERY short, seconds. That's because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to upload them from my phone if they were too long, hopefully you get the idea.
Last edited by a moderator:
