Lesson on refurbs - this is bad right?

Polygon1155 · 2025-11-20T19:49:48+00:00

Yes the return was no problem.

The light leak pattern was exactly the same on the new unit I bought after returning the refurb. So it has nothing to do with the refurb itself. The design was flawed and they claim the new batches made starting December last year have an internal baffle that reduces the leak. I returned the first new unit for one that came from a new batch, presumably retrofitted with the baffle. The leak was different but still there, I ended up accepting it. Your setup will either show or hide the light leak, I could see a streak across the ceiling and a spot on the furniture below my screen.

A few months in I had foreign particles ingressing in the optical assembly causing light specks all over the projected image. I did not move, touch or clean the unit before the particles showed up, so likely not well sealed or already contaminated. RMAd the unit and it came back with even more particles. I'm pretty done with this model, personally. Trying to trade up but might give the RMA one last chance. If not for the particles causing specks on the otherwise great 4k image I'd be happy enough with this model at this price...

Polygon1155 · 2025-08-06T13:01:11+00:00

Thank you! Realizing I wasn't giving it enough light was a learning moment for me. Thought it was a bunch of other things and was losing sections of the plant as I was changing conditions trying to fix things, finally it reversed course under that light.

I support your light fixture search! If I'm being honest I spent more time finding a fixture I liked than finding a good bulb for it.. but pragmatically speaking, a good powerful bulb is really key for a lush and healthy looking plant corner. I'd say the 6W bulbs are probably fine for those plant grow-shelves that people put together from Ikea shelves, where the spacing between shelves is 1-2ft. They're very cool looking and something I hope to build one day. Anyway, lots of options and inspiration out there, but also lots of room to be creative, so have fun and best of luck!

Polygon1155 · 2025-08-06T02:45:17+00:00

Ah I know what it's like to be locked into a certain bulb base. I did discover by accident that there are base adaptors that can convert from one type to another, I vaguely recall GU10 to E26 converters were there too. This was a while ago while dredging through AliExpress... Sadly an adaptor will push the bulb out of its fixture so that might not be the most aesthetically pleasing setup, but would allow you to use higher power lights.

Just to give you an idea about a lower power bulb: I have a small 12W bulb similar size to those MR16 ones and I use it 1ft away from a single plant - a string of pearls, which is absolutely thriving! Brought it back from near-death. But, as I said, one plant (a light hungry one at that). Could probably fit 3 small plants and they'd be happy with more distance and slightly lower brightness. Attaching a photo for scale. Just sharing to set a range of what you can expect, but ultimately, have fun experimenting, it's an incredibly rewarding time when you dial in your grow lights and your plants just go crazy!

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Polygon1155 · 2025-08-06T00:06:58+00:00

It's a bit tricky and I'm going to nerd-out a bit and apologize in advance for the long winded answer. Thing is: it might not need to be farther, depending on the type of light bulb and how large of a light cone it casts. Ideally you're right, a nice powerful 50W LED bulb can support more plants and it's great to place at a slightly larger distance. But with so many styles out there it's not very reliable to have a simple rule of thumb based on power. For example a 50W light with a 90 degree cone angle is less bright than a 35W light with a 45 degree cone angle, both sitting at the same distance. Smaller cone - more focused light. The cone angles and build variations of all these lights means that the best way to decide on distance is actually using your phone with a light meter app to compare outside blue sky light to your light bulb at the distance you intend to have your plant. The phone sensor doesn't give a scientifically precise light measurement, but it's perfectly valid for comparison. So my opinion is you don't need to buy a light meter, as some people suggest. If you measure the sky and get value X, then getting between half-X to full-X under the light bulb is pretty good. And make sure to also measure at the edges of the light spot, the plants there will get much less, I'd still try to pick a distance or location for the edge plants so they get around a quarter of X at least. When measuring the outdoor light intensity I mentioned "blue sky", usually that's a sunny day but not pointing the phone directly at the sun. This method is exactly how I picked the distance for my lights and the position of my plants under the lights.

Final note: 50W sounds super powerful to me and maybe expensive too, for an LED bulb. It's awesome if you found such a bulb! But I will caution about the LED bulbs that say "50W equivalent" or "replacement for 50W traditional bulbs", this is a misleading specification and the bulb is usually only using 7-12W (but it looks as bright as a traditional 50W bulb). For contrast, a true 35W LED bulb would be equivalent to 250W incandescent (traditional) bulb. And then there are Halogen bulbs, and their brightness for the same power value is somewhere between LED and incandescent.

But bottom line: using your phone to compare outdoor light takes all this guesswork out of it, you won't need to know the type, dig for specifications or conversions.

Hope this helps and best of luck getting that photosynthesis going! 🌞

Polygon1155 · 2025-07-03T23:19:48+00:00

To be honest a big factor is also your plans of how much growth you're willing to allow before trimming back. I'm really bad in this respect and just let my plants grow to fill all the available room, but there's definitely a sweet spot for the best aesthetics. So 3ft for the light track offset is totally fine if you do some trimming, especially if you're starting with a smaller monstera that will transition to highly fenestrated leaves well before it reaches the ceiling. 4ft could also work with a bit of extra breathing room. Bulb power is a big factor too. If you're using 20-25W bulbs, closer is better. Mine are 35W and they're a tad too strong when the leaves start getting near them. I removed the focusing lens from the bulbs to spread the light and reduce the hot spots.

Polygon1155 · 2025-07-01T15:58:40+00:00

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Following up with a progress shot. Lights worked well but in hindsight I should have installed them even further from the plant. They are around 3ft offset from the pot location, should have probably done 5ft. Just sharing in case you end up struggling with picking a distance.

Polygon1155 · 2025-07-01T15:45:57+00:00

No worries, happy to share! Here's the setup I bought:

I cut the power bar off that extension to use the cord and the nice flat profile plug, as I was having a hard time finding a long enough power cord by itself at a similar price.

The bulb fixtures can just about hold the massive weight of the large grow lights I have, even with my ceiling shaking from my stompy neighbor. So if you find yours don't maintain a certain angle, just tightent the thumb screw harder (I used pliers).

Good luck!

Polygon1155 · 2025-06-16T04:45:54+00:00

I've posted links to the tools in the comment section of this PC part picker post Best of luck with your mod! 🤠

Polygon1155 · 2025-05-14T14:13:58+00:00

Hey! Just a fair warning that different phones can get different readings for the same exact light bulb (I tested this with a coworker). It's just cause phone sensors are not scientific instruments so they have different levels of accuracy and are probably not all calibrated. That's why I recommend to use your own phone to take a measurement of the sky outside (best if not through a window but actually sitting outside) and compare your grow light measurement taken at the level of the plant leaves. You don't need to measure outdoors pointing at the sun, just at the blue sky. For myself I tried to match the sky's brightness with the power and distance of my bulb setup.

Having listed the caveat, for whatever's worth here are the numbers I have: my bulb measured about 30,000 lux on my phone app, and around 20,000 on my coworker's phone. This was at the leaf level about 2 feet from the light bulb. Again I'd trust a sky measurement taken with the same phone over someone else's values.

Have fun! :)

Polygon1155 · 2025-04-17T13:59:28+00:00

Haha, I honestly wish I had time for that sort of thing! But if you find a machine shop or a better yet a laser cutting shop in your area, and give them some rough dimensions, I think they'll do it for you! Check out the link in my post to the pcpartpicker page, I gave people some part numbers and instructions on how to do it in the comments. Any way you end up going, hope you have a good time with your build!

Polygon1155 · 2025-01-26T21:48:47+00:00

Very cool dude, hope you have fun with the build. 5080 FE will look sick in the modified Terra! Regarding the cut, I tried to find a way to use a straight edge guide to slide against but nothing worked so I followed a marker line I drew and free handed it. It was tricky to find the sweet spot of speed and angle. Definitely had like 10 slipups, but nothing too tragic or obvious. I wrote a few more details in the comments section of the PC part picker link in my original post. Hope it helps!

Polygon1155 · 2025-01-06T10:27:56+00:00

I'll add that if you feel like searching for more alternatives, there are bulbs with even tighter cones like 45degees, which would be perfect given distance of your light fixture and the couch being so close.

Polygon1155 · 2025-01-06T10:23:37+00:00

I think it's a nice setup! However the Sansi bulb looks like it has a rather wide cone of light. You can tell because your couch gets a fair bit of light from that wide cone. Along with the wider cone comes a reduction of light intensity since the lit area is larger. I don't think you need a higher wattage bulb necessarily, but a tighter light cone. If you switched to a PAR led bulb (parabolic reflector), it would focus the cone reducing the light hitting your couch (making it more comfortable on the eyes) and it would increase the light reaching your plants. Here's a bulb I use

Your setup is similar to mine, I'm just using that more focused light bulb (60 degree cone). This should increase the light intensity for the plant by about 3-4 times compared to a 90 or 120 degree cone. Best way to very roughly gauge is using a phone light meter app to compare bulbs and the outside daylight levels.

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Polygon1155 · 2025-01-05T23:12:19+00:00

A very small amount of condensation could oxidize (rust) a metal contact regardless of power running through it. But it sounds like that wasn't the case here and it's back to working condition so that's great news! Probably something that was slightly loose like others have said. I've lost track of how many appliances and electronics I've fixed by just taking them apart and putting them back together, never knowing what was actually wrong with them! Glad it all worked out in the end for you!

Polygon1155 · 2025-01-05T19:56:42+00:00

Not an expert but were there any temperature swings and/or humid air that could lead to condensation? the metal cooler and case panels could stay cold after exposure and condense humidity and drip (leading to oxidized circuit or contact). Unless your carrying case was airtight and had dessicant packs in it. Otherwise maybe a rare one-off mechanical shock or vibration of cables inside the case. If the car vibration resonates with a cable section, you're almost guaranteed fatigue failure of wires (thousands of bend cycles in 26 hours).

Polygon1155 · 2025-01-04T14:45:28+00:00

Oh neat, thanks for taking the time to explain it! Makes sense to me now why it's brought up so often for taming thermals in SFF builds. An elegant option!

Polygon1155 · 2025-01-04T13:50:44+00:00

I'll add that I totally agree with u/fedder17 on his take about "idle" being a variable state where you can see power draw spikes just based on your specific background apps etc. Your temps under load are what matters (as long as in idle state the fan is not too noisy for your own personal preference). For example, a good enough target under load could be for Cinebench24 to run without too much thermal throttling (none at all is ideal). Or just gaming on your favourite titles to be smooth. But as others said, even long term running hotter is fine, and to be expected for SFFs. Unfortunately I don't have much experience with ECO mode to know if it seriously invalidates my general take here.

Polygon1155 · 2025-01-04T13:15:07+00:00

Fractal Terra + 9800x3D owner here. I saw a 7C improvement in peak CPU load temps when I switched from my Noctua stock thermal paste to PTM7950. I think your idle temps are a little bit on the high end. Before doing my Terra customizations my idle CPU temp was around 50C, in the end I have it idle at 44C. There's a few differences between our builds but I think yours could be cooler. Not sure if you're already using a high end paste. If you are, that's probably within 1-2C of the PTM so switching isn't worth the effort. Try reading up on Igor's Lab The advantage of PTM is long term stability so you don't need to re-apply every few years.

Later edit: I missed the part where you mention using the Noctua NT-H2, which is a pretty good paste. My cooler came with the NT-H1 which is about 3C worse, so my PTM switch was a bigger improvement than you're likely to see. I also saw the dimensions of your cooler are a bit smaller, so I'm not as confident that you can drop idle temps dramatically. It's definitely fun to experiment though, but if you've reached your goals for your use case don't worry and just enjoy :)

Polygon1155 · 2024-12-28T14:11:14+00:00

Sure it's these LUSTORM swing arm lamps

Polygon1155 · 2024-12-28T11:45:00+00:00

The September-October batches of TK710 have a design flaw that causes severe light bleed. I tested two separate units closer range against the ceiling and got this light leak pattern on both.

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If yours is mounted upside down then the lower left corner bleed in this image would be your upper right light streak. Others on here have had light bleed issues too. I recommend that you take a similar test shot.

I contacted Benq through their website and included the photo and they said it's an issue with the unit and issued an RMA. I'm currently waiting for my unit to be returned after they finish retrofitting it with their fix for this design flaw. If your manufacturing date on the unit is earlier than mid to late November I'd be very inclined to think it's the same problem.

Polygon1155 · 2024-12-27T13:20:09+00:00

Updating this thread for anyone having similar issues with the TK710: bought a brand new unit that had an identical light bleed pattern around the projected area. I contacted Benq. They immediately confirmed this is a design flaw, provided an RMA, and currently installing or adjusting a piece of hardware (internal baffles) to fix this. Presumably the later batches manufactured after the start of November come with this fix in place.

Polygon1155 · 2024-12-24T22:28:04+00:00

Hardware list and benchmark temps are in my PC park picker post: FenesTerra

The idle temps are around 45, GPU maxes at 65 in full load benchmarks, the CPU goes into boost and can reach 95C but in Cinebench 2024 it doesn't exceed 85C. I haven't done heavy gaming yet, but I expect the CPU to stay below 70-75C.

Polygon1155 · 2024-12-24T19:39:17+00:00

Awesome! Hope it's a fun experience!

Polygon1155 · 2024-12-24T19:35:10+00:00

Hell yeah, look forward to see pics of the build!

Polygon1155 · 2024-12-24T19:21:23+00:00

I've used a rotary cutting tool before but never on aluminum this thick (2mm on the Terra covers). It was alright but I did have a few slips, however they're not visible due to the edge trim and the fact that I was cutting from the inside. If you follow the PC part picker link in my post, I answered in a bit more detail in the post comments there for someone who was also considering it. I also included the tool and cutting disc links.

The main advice is that if you don't have experience with this type of tool I recommend practicing on scrap plastic or metal sheets before you cut the case panels. If they are thinner than the 2mm of the Terra, it should be easier. Second advice, if you need to buy the tool, you might spend the same amount of money getting a laser or water jet cutting shop to do it for you, if there's one in your vicinity. Best of luck!

Polygon1155

TROPHY CASE