lunadesign

I unfortunately didn't hear from anyone, so I went ahead and ordered a new unit. (Unfortunately, I ordered 2 hours too early to get the NewEgg Black Friday deal.) The new unit arrived today and I have to say that I'm underwhelmed. I personally prefer the 2012 (yellow PCB) units that featured bright LEDs and didn't like the 2013 (green PCB) units that had much dimmer LEDs (you have to position your eyes at the correct angle to really see them). My contact at Norco told me the "dim LED issue" was fixed in the redesign. However, it appears they didn't fix the PCB LEDs. Instead, it appears the light pipe on the new trays has improved magnification. Still, the new cage + new tray is still dimmer than the 2012 units. What's worse is that if you use an old tray in the new cage, its super dim. If you like neat, professional looking racks with uniformity, you're not going to be happy with these changes. On the plus side, the redesigned trays appear to have much better ventilation in the front grille. They also look a bit different than the old ones. The bottom metal / front plastic attachment is different but I can't tell if its more robust or not. The cage fan is still of the super loud "air raid siren" variety but that's no surprise....I always swap them out for Noctua NF-R8 units.

I bought a handful of these in 2012 (yellow PCB) and 2013 (green PCB) but I hear they redesigned them again within the past year. Has anyone bought one of these lately? If so, how do they differ? Any pics would be greatly appreciated too. Thanks!

(Long-time listener, first time caller!) I’ve got about a dozen SS-500 units in use and really like them. I got turned on to them by this forum. I purchased a new batch of SS-500's a few months ago and just opened the first one. I noticed that the LEDs are now much more dim to the point that I can’t see them unless I line up my eyes with the front of the SS-500. I saw a note about a LED redesign on Newegg so I wanted to see if this was true.