Bob Wagner

This post is to set the record straight:

AEGIS created the electronic starter market here in North America 2.5 years ago. Solar Starters, known under the brand name of OekoStart in Europe, have enjoyed a flawless reputation in tanning salons worldwide for over 4 years.

Solar Starters are qualitatively different from the Johnnie-Come-Lately's, who have recently forced their way onto the market by virtually giving their products away, in the following manners:

1. Solar Starters employ a composite material PCB (Printed Circuit Board), which is designed specifically for use in high heat, high humidity environments, such as exist in most tanning salons. The others use Phenol Paper (like hard cardboard) type PCB's, which absorb water from condensation,
causing potentially hazardous component conductivity failures. These cheap also-ran's are good for industrial lighting, such as in warehouses, etc., but not for use in commercial tanning salons.

2. The most important thing in any electronic starter or ballast is the type and quality of storage capacitors
mounted on the printed circuit board itself. The manufacturer of Solar Starters, PalmStep (a German company producing on the island of Mauritius) enjoys the exclusive purchasing rights to a unique capacitor that can withstand ambient operating temperatures of up to 105 degrees Celsius, which is essential when used in commercial tanning salons. The wannabe starters are forced to buy other, qualitatively lesser capacitors, which have far lower hear resitance thresholds. This
means that they will fail if used in enclosed, poorly ventilated spaces, i.e., in a tanning bed.

Not to be outdone by the heavy discounting of our competitors, we began distributing Solar Starters throughout North America for $2.50 ea. at the Nashville show. This price is now fixed, regardless of quantities purchased by any particular salon owner. Why should you choose Solar Starters over the green and blue ones? Well, apart from the abovementioned techical points, we have lots of positive testimonials from all over the country, and a 4 year track record of success.

For more information, please go to:

www.amexport.com

Thanks for reading this, and we hope to have you as a customer soon.


Bob Wagner
President / CEO
AEGIS, Inc.
On the way to TAN-CUN!!!:)
(727) 578-4060

Brian Oshman

You know,

I have never seen a commercialy installed flourecsent fixture in office or warehouse lighting that had any kind of ventilation built into the fixture.

However, I believe that all tanning equipment has venilation fans to cool the components incorporated in the fixture and all starters that I have seen use a phenol base to mount the posts to. This has never been an issue as far as moisture absorbtion or severe catastrophic failure. The capacitor of the size in a starter does not store any real useful charge for starting a lamp being in the pf range but does control the delay of the start cycle.

Bob Wagner

Brian,

Thanks for your input. The storage caps used in the SolarStarters are different from the others in their level of heat resistancy, not load capacity. We perform dozens of spectral analyses of tanning beds / lamps each week according to IEC recommendations (FDA doesn't have such, yet...); cooling is a major factor in output efficiency and general component surviveability. Operating temps of over 50 degrees celsius are quite normal at the lampholders, with many machines going well beyond that threshold.