With every product ETC manufactures, we strive to stay at the forefront of technology while holding quality to the highest standard. As with any new technology, things don’t always go as planned. Source 4WRD™ incorporates an advanced heat pipe cooling system that was custom designed and built for ETC by an expert in the field. We’ve been monitoring long-term life-cycle testing for months and recently discovered that this heat pipe may experience premature degradation of its heat-transport mechanism under certain conditions. This increases heat at the LED array and reduces the usable life of the product.
This problem may not occur for a very long period of time, if ever, under normal use. The degradation does not cause any safety issues, but is the reason we proactively placed Source 4WRD on a shipping hold several weeks ago. It is safe to continue using all Source 4WRD fixtures existing in the field. We are working to qualify new parts from our vendor and have high hopes that we are on the road to fixing the heat pipe issue soon.
We apologize for the delays. At every turn, it appeared we were close to having a solution that would allow us to ship product again soon. We regret placing some of you in difficult positions and we are committed to doing what we can to make this right.
Because of the high standards of testing at ETC, it may unfortunately be several months before we have fully tested product we are willing to send to you. We will continue to keep you updated through the website as we work on this issue.
If you have existing S4WRD product:
Please register your products at www.etcconnect.com/S4WRD/Register/ and continue to use them as part of your system. We will contact you in the near future to discuss how your product is affected.
If you have a current purchase order with ETC for Source 4WRD product:
Please call your local dealer with any immediate concerns or system requirements that need to be addressed.
If you are interested in following the research, development, and testing progress, please check our website often. We’ll be posting updates and information as we continue to design a more robust, longer lasting heat pipe.
Thank you for your loyalty, we hope to be shipping again soon!