When a budding electrical contractor enjoyed his own ‘eureka’ moment, little did he know that just half a year later his invention would be available to thousands of like-minded electricians. PE finds out more.
How many times have you had the task of widening a hole to fit a new fire rated downlight? We’re guessing there are too many to count! But now there is a solution to this common problem in the form of the new ‘Duoxim Arbor’ from Super Rod!
Customer creation
Whilst the product is manufactured by Super Rod, the actual design came from one of its customers, Kyle Gamble, a young contractor from St Albans.
It’s often said that “desperation is the mother of invention”, and this certainly proved to be true in Kyle’s case. He was faced with an install of over 200 downlights, all with the same issue, coupled with a customer who did not want to re-decorate.
After searching high and low across the internet for a solution, Kyle had no initial success. But, as he’s a ‘can do’ type of guy, he decided to set about designing his own device. Initially this was, in his own words, a bit ‘Heath Robinson’, but it ultimately did the job.
Spurred on both by his success at winning the install, and how much quicker expanding the 200 holes was, Kyle set about thinking of how he could bring his idea to market. After contacting Professional Electrician magazine, he was introduced to the Super Rod team by then Editor, Daniel Tovey.
GOT A BRIGHT SPARK? If you have a product idea that you’d like to discuss with Super Rod, please contact the company via: sales@super-rod.co.uk
Finished article
Six months later, the finished product is now about to hit the stores in the UK and will be demonstrated at all of this year’s ELEX trade shows.
Malcolm Duncan, Managing Director of Super Rod, commented: “As soon as Kyle showed me the prototype I knew immediately that this product would fit superbly into the Super Rod range. Great ideas come from installers working in real working situations. We’re delighted to have Kyle’s product as part of our range.”
