Moonrays 95534 10-Fixture Low-Voltage Plastic Lighting Kit, Black

by Coleman Cable

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

This set of traditional path light fixtures help to illuminate any area that needs added safety and beauty. The 4-watt bulbs are energy efficient and nicely mark the edge of a driveway or sidewalk. The 2 tiered, black fixtures install quickly and the 12-Volt connection is as safe as a child's train set. The kit includes everything needed for installation except a screwdriver. Step by step instructions are included with the fixtures, 50-Feet of wire and transformer. The traditional fixtures are perfect for any home.

Product Description

10 Pack, Plastic Low Voltage Tier Light Kit, Includes 10 Black Plastic Tier Lights, 48W Control Unit, 50', 18 Gauge Low Voltage Cable, Ten 4W Bulbs, Control Unit Is Photocell Operated, Dusk To Dawn Operation, For Replacement Bulb Use #95503, True Value #122-428.

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 7.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000Y4BTW0
• Item model number: 95534
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,757 in Home Improvement (See Top 100 in Home Improvement)
  • #65 in Home Improvement > Lamps & Light Fixtures > Outdoor Lighting > Path Lights

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice Low Voltage Power Pack, November 30, 2009

By 

PaulB "PaulB" (Lewisville, Texas) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Moonrays 95534 10-Fixture Low-Voltage Plastic Lighting Kit, Black (Tools & Home Improvement)

I had been looking for these for a while since you can usually only find Malibu. They are plastic but snap together in such a way that they are tight against water or insect infiltration. The cable loops up through the shaft and contacts to two sharp pins below the bulb. This is locked in place using a plastic cam pin. It's a little tricky to get the hang of installing at first and what I found that worked well was to use a screwdriver and push the cable hard on both pins until I could see it pierce through the other side, then put the cam lock in place. I love this feature where the connection is inside. Many of the replacements you find at your local home improvement store have clips that clip on the outside of the light to the cable and these tend to rust and look unsightly.

Another install issue is the light sensor. It is a simple on/off light sensor and while I was testing each bulb I thought my transformer pack was broken. You can not place your finger or thumb directly on top of the sensor. You have to cup your hand over it. Don't ask me why but it works.

I specifically looked for the lowest wattage transformer since I use LED bulbs in all my landscape sets. You can find them on amazon or on the web for around $4 and they produce 7-10 watts of light (much more than in this set) for 1/3 watt each. I've had some in the front for the last 4 years without burning out. So...I'm running all 10 lights at 7 watts brightness for about 5 watts total. It's silly that the companies keep upping the wattage with 120/300 watt transformers and larger incandescent bulbs. Save electricity and money by using LED's.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars So close yet so far.., May 17, 2010

By 

J. D. Jacob "~Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit~" (Anderson, Indiana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moonrays 95534 10-Fixture Low-Voltage Plastic Lighting Kit, Black (Tools & Home Improvement)

Moonrays 95540 Low Voltage Path Lighting Kit with Power Pack

I actually bought the Moonray kit with the spot lights, but wanted to also list my review on here since they are essentially the same kits (sans spot lights).

Like others have stated with these type of lights and systems, is you get what you pay for. Don't get me wrong, they are not horrid, but by no means are they a great system. The problem with Moonrays is the connection. It is made at the light bulb base where there are two pins under the base that pierce the cable. The problems are: The cable that comes with this unit is a very small gauge (18 Gauge is what is supplied despite the picture showing 16 Gauge). In order for the pins to hit the wire when the cable is pieced they have to be perfectly aligned. I learned from other reviewers and just bought some 14 Gauge wire instead, which gave me the desired thickness of copper to work with while maintaining flexibility when trying to bend the wire and push the pins into it. To keep the transformer on to check each connection I simply used a small piece of electrical tape over the sensor. I used a small nut driver to push the cable up into the light base pins while using the base of another (screwdriver) to hold the top part (where the light bulb goes) into place. Also contacts for the bulbs come very close together, are easily bent. If the bulb doesn't light after some manipulation of the bulb, pull the bulb base off, look at the wire and likely you'll see the perforations were off kilter, though with the 14 or 12 gauge wire this should not be a problem. Use your screwdriver to bend the pins in the proper direction and try again (but don't push the cable up into the housing with anything that will conduct electricity if you still have the transformer on. Having a voltmeter handy is nice, so if still the bulb doesn't lite, you can check the voltage across the bulb contacts. On a couple of mine it was hard just to get the bulb to contact properly and that's what was wrong even though the cable connection was good. Don't stake any of the lights down until all are connected and all are lit.

Once you get the idea of what your doing on the first light, the rest are quite easy to install. Unplug the transformer... install light, plug in to check if it works... repeat until finished.

Now all this works great for the pathway lights, the spot lights are another matter entirely. What a major pain in the butt to get installed. The major problem with the spot lights is there is no cam (the little thing that in the pathway lights, helps to keep the cable connected to the pins) for use in these. You push the pins and cable together, and attempt to set the "correct" angle for your spot lights, and place in the ground, the problem comes that if you Move the angle in which the spot light is set in the slightest without some major coordination of moving the cable along with it, the pins will come right out of the cable and your back to square one. Major flaw in setting these up. Setting up the two spot lights took longer than setting up the pathway lights.

So only 3 stars for this product with the spot lights, minus one star for the crappy 18 gauge wire they sent, and I had to go out and buy 14 gauge wire. Minus another star for the shoddy spot lights. If it was just the pathway lights, I'd give it 4 stars.

Otherwise, it was a fairly simple set up. I haven't had any problems with my transformer blowing yet, so do not know as to the longevity of the product.

If anyone knows of a link to finding decent / equivalent LED's for these lights, please let me know. Getting into Lumens / mCd vs Watts is a whole other story.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A nighmare from start to the dumpster, June 8, 2011

By 

Will Macadam "NY Theater Guy" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Moonrays 95534 10-Fixture Low-Voltage Plastic Lighting Kit, Black (Tools & Home Improvement)

It's not the forty some odd bucks down the drain that gets my goat, it's the valuable time I wasted trying to get these things to work. I've installed similar products in my garden before, so I'm not a novice. I got the spikes in the wires to connect all right, but the flimsy apparatus that connects the bulb becomes lose and kills the connection. I actually blew two bulbs in instillation and broke another trying to tighten the connection. It took an entire morning to get six of the damn fixtures working, remember I couldn't use all ten, as I now had only six bulbs remaining. When I looked out last night, one fixture had gone out after only four days of operation! In trying to reconnect it, I obviously blew the entire transformer, now rendering the product the obvious garbage it is, rather than the subliminal garbage it was when it arrived. Avoid this product, Amazon should remove it from their inventory immediately.