The Duo Burner from SolarMax is a dual envelope metal halide lamp which appears to employ the same technology as ReefBrite’s TwinArc metal halide lamp. With nearly all the same color combinations as the TwinArc lamp from ReefBrite, the Duo Burner might be coming from the same factory in the wee hours of the night, but who knows if they are using the raw materials to make the components as well. However, keep in mind that SolarMax is the same company which took more than a fair share of design cues from C2 development’s AI LED when they made their own Advanced LED System so it’s also possible that they simply bought a couple TwinArcs and reverse engineered the thing. At $99 the ReefBrite TwinArc lamp is already a great price considering the added functionality and increased life of the bulb and we shudder to think what kind of material and design compromises Solarmax would make to undercut the price of the TwinArc, which they invariably will try to do. The TwinArc is built with patented technology so we anticipate that patent holders will not take the news of the Duo Burner very lightly, unless Solarmax really has come up with a way to do the same thing in a very different way. We doubt it.
