Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I find this product to be almost junk. They are poorly made and I found them to work poorly if at all. I thought I was buying a better more reliable product. The connections from wire to light are a great idea wish they worked as well, and wished they would all work period. The transformer pack is not a time so they stay on all night wich was also not what I expected. The bulbs pop right in but again not all work. Spend a bit more money and get a better product. Again I guess I got a cheap product that souned a bit better than what I got and was not.

I can see why folks are saying the transformers blew. I just blew one myself. The overall idea is a good one: Cheap lights like Malibu, theoretically easy to install, but with the connection between the light and the cable is up in the light housing protected from the weather. That's the problem with Malibu lights: the connection to the cable is outside exposed to the elements and it corrodes fairly quickly. The problem with Moonrays is also 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, probably 14 or 16 gauge. In order for the pins to hit the wire when the cable is pieced they have to be perfectly aligned. In my case, over half were not and it took hours of troubleshooting to make all the lights lite up. In order to accomplish this I had to have the transformer on, otherwise I'd never know whether or not I made a good connection. I used a screwdriver to push the cable up into the light base, and I must have bridged the two pins and blown the transformer. Also contacts for the bulbs come very close together, are easily bent, and I bet if a drop of moisture gets in between this tiny space: there's goes the transformer. I think the thing to do if you decide to get these anyway is to install with the transformer on (unless you have some condition where exposure to 12 volts, 4 amps will somehow harm you) and use the tip of one of the plastic stakes to push the cable up into the light housing and push the pins through the cable. 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. 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). 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. I may install a 5 amp inline automotive fuse in one of the two lines. Will that work since it's AC? I don't know I'll have to figure that out. There are cheap, auto re-setting circuit breakers; I may try one of those. If I had to do it over again I would not buy these lights.

the lights work well. however, it's to your benefit to take the advice which i read in an earlier review. that is to use 12 guage wire instead ot the 16 guage that comes with the kit in order to insure positive connections inside the light heads. this way the task can be accomplished on the first attempt rather than having to do it several times. i also altered the process in another way. instead of looping the main wire run into the lights, i cut 1 foot legnths of wire, attached them to the lights, bought connectors at a hardware store and connected each light assembly to the main wire run. this allows you to more easily reposition them for a different look or replace them as it becomes neccessary.

Six months and out. Transformer gone which, of course, renders the rest of this cheap set history. Unforunately, not a lot of corded sets out there to select from so its not a good consumer situation.

I found the wire connections to the lights very difficult to put together and ultimately unreliable.

In the end I replaced this with individual, solar powered lights. I don't miss the wires.

I purchased this item in April 2009. My husband did not get a chance to install it until October 2010. After installing the cables and setting everything up, we found that the transformer is no good. The whole system is shot and turned out to be a waste of money. Do not waste your money on this product.

Do not buy this!!!! I never leave reviews but this should really be taken off the market. I bought this for my elderly grandmother and just like the other reviews the transformer blew about a month after installation. Now I am out $50 and I have to buy a new lighting system for her.