There are truck loads of mini lightbars on the market. Every company seems to make a half dozen of them and has since the mid 70's. They come in all shapes and sizes and are mounted on everything from golf carts to semi trucks. So when Axixtech debuted the all new Micro-bar you probably wondered what makes it any different from the other bazillion mini bars on the market. We've spent the last few weeks with our demo bar, showing it off and putting it through its paces in an attempt to answer this question for you.
The first thing that will strike you about the Micro-Bar is just how appropriate it's name is. We hadn't put much thought into it around the office. We just figured, "well, that's a catchy name" and went about our daily routine until the box showed up. Now, we knew the Micro-Bar was small. We'd read over the promotional material and saw other dealers comparing their demo bars to rulers and batteries but something gets lost in translation on the internet. You just don't really appreciate just how small it is until you're holding it in your hand. Yes, hand, singular. It comes in at a little under 7 inches in length and a little less than 1.5 inches tall. It's not much bigger than two dvd cases stacked on top of each other. That really does put it in a class of it's own and make it smaller then almost any other mini bar making the name Micro-Bar truly accurate. It's so small you can store it in a backpack, your glove compartment, under your seat, just about anywhere.
How did they get it so small? Axixtech used their popular MS3 module inside the bar. Ten of them to be exact. Just like its big brother the Axixtech Falcon, they have arranged the modules so that not only do you have great front, back, and side warning but you also have modules mounted at an angle on the corners of the bar so that you have off angle warning as well. That's something you don't get with many other mini bars.
It has other things going for it besides its size. The MS3 modules pack quite a punch and give you all the brightness that you would expect from a mini bar. The build quality is excellent as well. The bar feels nice and sturdy and the parts fit snugly together. The Micro-Bar comes with 19 flash patterns which you can select from the cigarette lighter plug and while many of the patterns are similar to each other there is enough variation that you are bound to be able to find one that works well for any application. The only thing we can say even remotely negative about the bar is that the MS3 light heads have a much smaller light projection footprint versus a bigger light head like the ones used in the Falcon. That's to be expected though and it doesn't mean that the Micro-Bar isn't bright (we're still seeing spots) but it is something that you might want to consider based on your application.
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