Diamond Lumenarc III - Are their rip-offs AKA fake Lumenarcs?

[skatezen]

As the title says: Are their rip-offs AKA fake Lumenarcs? As a cautious buyer I just wanted to know if Diamond Lumenarc is printed anywhere on the reflector? How can you tell if it is a true lumenarc? I'm looking into getting 2 of these for my tank.

Also anyone know the dimension differences between the A3 Mini and the A3 Compact? I need them to fit over a 75.

Jeff

 

[Reef55]

They do not say it on them. I bought mine direct from www.pacificgardensupply.com. I have never heard of a fake lumenarc though. The design is rather exact for them, and IMO would be quite difficult to copy.

 

[joefitz]

They really don't seem that sophisticated to me. Bend some properly cut, highly polished aluminum and there you go. Of course, that didn't stop me from buying a few new ones recently...

I really don't have the whole story, but I had heard that the company that developed the lumenarc III was going to close it's doors and/or sold the design to someone else...this was a while ago. Could have just been a rumor, not sure, but there was a lot of talk about rip-offs a while back. I'm not sure but it could have just been confusion over that situation.

The ones that PGS sell seem to be the real deal to me but then again, I've never bought them from anyone else. I did buy them on two separate occassions though (3 about 2.5 years ago and 2 more recently); they are different but not substantially so...the new ones have a few modifications that I perceive to be improvements.

 

[Greg Hiller]

I understand that the improvements include a holder of some sort for a shield glass. This is a useful improvement that I had to kind of retrofit myself onto mine.

 

[skatezen]

Thanks for clearing that up guys.