sitelights
09-03-2003, 05:41 PM
This review will cover the entire Hadco "Nightlife" underwater line; the entire Vista line, a Focus unit and two Loran "Nightscaping" items. These are all 12v luminaires made of composite material except the Hadco Bronzelite UWL1100-N and the two brass "bowl" lights that are essentially clones of eachother. I will also briefly mention a "jar" light. All the underwater lights are 12v and come equiped with a round SVO 18/2 10' cord and must be hardwired to the main supply cable.
See "product reviews" in this forum for the ground rules I have set for myself. The Hadco items were purchased from my local distributor over the course of 10 years. The Vista UW4217 is an unused sample provided to me without charge by the area Vista rep through my local distributor where I purchased the six UW4217s. The Focus and Loran "brass bowls" were never purchased but merely examined (there's not much to see) in the course of servicing. The Loran "jar" was glanced at in the bottom of a pond; it was daylight so I don't know if it was working or not.
I will start by dismissing the Focus and "Nightscaping" brass bowls; these clones barely constitute a luminaire being simply a PAR36 lamp silicone-sealed into the bowl and a clear plastic cover (color filters optional) screwed down onto the edge of the bowl but not forming a seal. These lamp protectors trap and accumulate algae and particulate matter that quickly occludes illumination. No socket, no gimbal; just a bowl, a lamp, a plastic disc and a cord. These items do not have a cavity strictly speaking but have merely enough space below the lamp to clear the screw terminals. I have had the "pleasure" of re-lamping both units in the days when I used to service systems designed and installed by others. The sealant must be cut out and then replaced entirely to re-lamp. It is hardly worth the trouble; as is usually the case with PAR lamps that are merely held in place by a surround, the lamp costs more than the holders.
The other Loran item is a glass jar with a screw top lid containing a socket. I am reminded of the good old days when many of Loran's fixtures seemed to suggest being improvised and cobbled together in someone's garage. Aren't they embarrassed?
The rest of the underwater lights have a sealed cavity holding a socket and this is where the fun begins. Nature abhors a vacuum so anything that contains empty air space is bound to eventually fill with water after immersion; it is the period of time this takes to occur that interests me.
As an aside, I was an electrician's helper a half of a century ago for two summers and my cohort was a guy with about 40 years experience. He showed me on every available occasion that an underground J-box was always full of water. His trick on new buried work was to send me back to the truck for a small sauce pan, a block of parafin wax and his blowtorch. Melt the parafin and pour it over the splice to fill the J-box and do the reverse to get at the splice. This was the time of no PVC boxes so you could heat the box and pour the parafin into a pan. The box could not fill with water because it was already full.
This phenomenon is the actual subject at hand. Since it is impractical to pot the lamp the cavity must be sealed to exclude water. All the underwater lights (with the exception noted) have gaskets compressed against the glass lens and the body top and it is the gasket's ability to "push" against the mating surfaces and stay resilient that that makes the seal. All of the gasketed (either O-ring or flat) units should get a new gasket when re-lamping; none of the manufacturers provide a spare gasket.
The liquid-tight entry fitting is also a weak point. The Hadco UWL1-A comes with a steel connector threaded into a boss on the composite housing. The connector is slathered with a white putty sealant but after a few months water gets to the steel entry fitting threads, the rusting threads expand, the housing cracks on both sides of the fitting and water enters the cavity. Goodbye UWL1-A. [I received a letter dated 01.07.04 in the mail today from Lew Waltz, Hadco's VP Landscape relative to this fixture. Lew thoroughly investigated the matter of why the 6 UWL-1s I returned (details toward the end of this post) were shipped with metal compression fittings. These fittings were not the specified non-metallic entry fittings that were originally specified and normally used without exception. This was apparently an anomoly (my word) since he did not discover how these metallic fittings got into the production line; things happen. Also, in an email a few months ago Lew informed me that the Vista UW4217 is a clone of Hadco's UWL-1 and not the other way around; the Hadco unit was in their catalog well before Vista's. I appreciate the time Lew took to set me straight. The other lights have non-ferrous metal or plastic entry fittings. As is proper, the fitting should be made of compatible material and this is the case with all the other cavity type fixtures.
I cannot find it in my UL manuals but for some reason (probably compliance) all of the units have SVO cord. This round, black, water resistant, usually 16/2 or 18/2 cord is hollow; that is the conductors are sheathed in plastic but the internal strengthening material (either twisted paper or stranded plastic) constitutes a wick into the housing. If the cord was solidly formed around the conductors this wicking could be avoided. It is absolutely imperative that the main cable splice point should be potted and all the instructions state that.
Now some details. The Hadco "Bronzelite" UWL1100-N is the most expensive and reliable of all the underwater fixtures; it is made to last. The lamp housing pivots on a yoke formed as part of the ring base and the housing cover is cast with an integral sunburst-shaped rock shield with six hefty bolts. These compress a molded silicone gasket captured between the the tempered clear glass lens perimeter and the body of the fixture. A hemispherical stainless steel reflector fits into the housing containing a T-3 socket for the supplied 100w bi-pin halogen lamp. The rough natural bronze castings are nickel plated and, being robust, the fixture is self-weighted. No spare gasket is supplied even though the re-lamping instructions require replacement.
It is important to know that all the underwater lights are rated as if they would remain immersed. While ponds are seldom drained for the winter, fountains usually are. If you think the fixture will be operated dry you MUST halve the rating. The "Bronzelite" units were reduced to 50w in a fountain that would be emptied for the winter or for maintenance and the fixtures are, indeed, operated dry without ill effect.
Hadco's largish UWL136-H and the smallish UWL516-H are both rated for 50w (wet) but the one could almost fit inside of the other. The UWL136 takes a PAR 36 sealed beam halogen lamp behind a tempered clear glass lens. While there is no available rock guard, the in-ground IL136G-H guard may fit but check with Hadco first. This unit is self-weighted and just sits there underwater looking straight up; there is no provision for aiming at all. The closure "sandwich" (a lens captured between the top and the housing and fitted with a silicone gasket) is held in place with 6 wimpy phillips head bolts that tighten into pressed-in-place brass threaded sleeves in the housing. This is a no-frills item but in its favor I installed one in a small but deep pond where it never leaked even though I re-lamped it 3 times in 8 years with 36w PAR lamps and the same gasket. I have now lost track of it; the owner moved. The UWL516-H is junk. This is the same body, socket, gasket, lens and top as their IL516-H in-ground (see the post "Vista's new in-ground vs. Hadco's IL516" in this forum). The differences being a side liquid-tight entry fitting, SVO cord and resin potting in the base up to the socket. Try to change the water-damaged socket on this thing! This item also has a frustratingly delicate tilt feature that holds the body on a bracket set into the concrete "hockey puck" base. The flange on the body and the bracket on the puck are connected by a nut, bolt and lock washers. The washers must be placed between the mating parts while the bolt and nut are aligned; this is a three-handed job. The reward for this agonizing task is that the plastic flange breaks before the bolt is tightened enough to fix the cantilevered body into aiming position. Over the years all of the UWL516s I installed failed early and I just kept turning them in for new replacements. I have dropped both the UWL and the IL from my line and replaced them with the superior Vista 5271/2 in-grounds and the UW4217 submersible.
Vista's UW4217 shares a housing with their in-grounds but is otherwise significantly different. The lens is captured between the top and the body by 5 hefty stainless steel slotted bolts threading into brass sleeves and compressing an O-ring silicone gasket held in a circumferential channel in the body. The socket has the admired stainless steel MR-16 retention clip on the fixed socket*; the internal wires are protected by a heat resistant flexible sleeve. The body is suspended between the yoke of the stainless steel gimbal seated in a square concrete base. The SVO cord is fitted to a liquid-tight, plastic connector on the side of the body. Just as with the in-grounds Vista kicks Hadco's ass.
Hadco's composite UWL1-A is an exact match for Vista's UW4217; the moldings look identical except that the Vista logo is cast into their housing while Hadco's housing has no identifying marks. The Vista T-3 socket is upright; the Hadco tilted 90 degrees; both units are rated for 20w wet. On both the clear prismatic cover is a single piece captured with 4 phillips head bolts mating with brass threaded sleeves and compressing an O-ring silicone gasket. Unlike the Hadco clone the Vista has a compatible liquid tight connector (brass) that will never rust but the same problematic SVO cord. Both units have accompanying aluminum reflectors that snap into the underside of the cover creating side light if desired. Six of these units were installed in the upper two tiers (4 and 2) of the fountain with the Bronzelites The shallow (less than 4") water in these upper tiers required a shallow fixture; both are 3" high. The Hadco UWL1-A originally installed failed in less than a year (but were kept functioning until I found replacements with liberal applications of GE silicone II); this was a real maintenance headache because the sealant wouldn't set up underwater necessitating a second trip each time we replaced the rusted pin 10w lamps and resealed the units (four times).
There are many underwater luminaires out there but they all share the kind of characteristics and failings that are detailed above. You may have noticed that I sometimes tell people more than they want to know but consider the alternative.
*This socket clip is shown as an attachment to "mr socket clip" on this forum.
See "product reviews" in this forum for the ground rules I have set for myself. The Hadco items were purchased from my local distributor over the course of 10 years. The Vista UW4217 is an unused sample provided to me without charge by the area Vista rep through my local distributor where I purchased the six UW4217s. The Focus and Loran "brass bowls" were never purchased but merely examined (there's not much to see) in the course of servicing. The Loran "jar" was glanced at in the bottom of a pond; it was daylight so I don't know if it was working or not.
I will start by dismissing the Focus and "Nightscaping" brass bowls; these clones barely constitute a luminaire being simply a PAR36 lamp silicone-sealed into the bowl and a clear plastic cover (color filters optional) screwed down onto the edge of the bowl but not forming a seal. These lamp protectors trap and accumulate algae and particulate matter that quickly occludes illumination. No socket, no gimbal; just a bowl, a lamp, a plastic disc and a cord. These items do not have a cavity strictly speaking but have merely enough space below the lamp to clear the screw terminals. I have had the "pleasure" of re-lamping both units in the days when I used to service systems designed and installed by others. The sealant must be cut out and then replaced entirely to re-lamp. It is hardly worth the trouble; as is usually the case with PAR lamps that are merely held in place by a surround, the lamp costs more than the holders.
The other Loran item is a glass jar with a screw top lid containing a socket. I am reminded of the good old days when many of Loran's fixtures seemed to suggest being improvised and cobbled together in someone's garage. Aren't they embarrassed?
The rest of the underwater lights have a sealed cavity holding a socket and this is where the fun begins. Nature abhors a vacuum so anything that contains empty air space is bound to eventually fill with water after immersion; it is the period of time this takes to occur that interests me.
As an aside, I was an electrician's helper a half of a century ago for two summers and my cohort was a guy with about 40 years experience. He showed me on every available occasion that an underground J-box was always full of water. His trick on new buried work was to send me back to the truck for a small sauce pan, a block of parafin wax and his blowtorch. Melt the parafin and pour it over the splice to fill the J-box and do the reverse to get at the splice. This was the time of no PVC boxes so you could heat the box and pour the parafin into a pan. The box could not fill with water because it was already full.
This phenomenon is the actual subject at hand. Since it is impractical to pot the lamp the cavity must be sealed to exclude water. All the underwater lights (with the exception noted) have gaskets compressed against the glass lens and the body top and it is the gasket's ability to "push" against the mating surfaces and stay resilient that that makes the seal. All of the gasketed (either O-ring or flat) units should get a new gasket when re-lamping; none of the manufacturers provide a spare gasket.
The liquid-tight entry fitting is also a weak point. The Hadco UWL1-A comes with a steel connector threaded into a boss on the composite housing. The connector is slathered with a white putty sealant but after a few months water gets to the steel entry fitting threads, the rusting threads expand, the housing cracks on both sides of the fitting and water enters the cavity. Goodbye UWL1-A. [I received a letter dated 01.07.04 in the mail today from Lew Waltz, Hadco's VP Landscape relative to this fixture. Lew thoroughly investigated the matter of why the 6 UWL-1s I returned (details toward the end of this post) were shipped with metal compression fittings. These fittings were not the specified non-metallic entry fittings that were originally specified and normally used without exception. This was apparently an anomoly (my word) since he did not discover how these metallic fittings got into the production line; things happen. Also, in an email a few months ago Lew informed me that the Vista UW4217 is a clone of Hadco's UWL-1 and not the other way around; the Hadco unit was in their catalog well before Vista's. I appreciate the time Lew took to set me straight. The other lights have non-ferrous metal or plastic entry fittings. As is proper, the fitting should be made of compatible material and this is the case with all the other cavity type fixtures.
I cannot find it in my UL manuals but for some reason (probably compliance) all of the units have SVO cord. This round, black, water resistant, usually 16/2 or 18/2 cord is hollow; that is the conductors are sheathed in plastic but the internal strengthening material (either twisted paper or stranded plastic) constitutes a wick into the housing. If the cord was solidly formed around the conductors this wicking could be avoided. It is absolutely imperative that the main cable splice point should be potted and all the instructions state that.
Now some details. The Hadco "Bronzelite" UWL1100-N is the most expensive and reliable of all the underwater fixtures; it is made to last. The lamp housing pivots on a yoke formed as part of the ring base and the housing cover is cast with an integral sunburst-shaped rock shield with six hefty bolts. These compress a molded silicone gasket captured between the the tempered clear glass lens perimeter and the body of the fixture. A hemispherical stainless steel reflector fits into the housing containing a T-3 socket for the supplied 100w bi-pin halogen lamp. The rough natural bronze castings are nickel plated and, being robust, the fixture is self-weighted. No spare gasket is supplied even though the re-lamping instructions require replacement.
It is important to know that all the underwater lights are rated as if they would remain immersed. While ponds are seldom drained for the winter, fountains usually are. If you think the fixture will be operated dry you MUST halve the rating. The "Bronzelite" units were reduced to 50w in a fountain that would be emptied for the winter or for maintenance and the fixtures are, indeed, operated dry without ill effect.
Hadco's largish UWL136-H and the smallish UWL516-H are both rated for 50w (wet) but the one could almost fit inside of the other. The UWL136 takes a PAR 36 sealed beam halogen lamp behind a tempered clear glass lens. While there is no available rock guard, the in-ground IL136G-H guard may fit but check with Hadco first. This unit is self-weighted and just sits there underwater looking straight up; there is no provision for aiming at all. The closure "sandwich" (a lens captured between the top and the housing and fitted with a silicone gasket) is held in place with 6 wimpy phillips head bolts that tighten into pressed-in-place brass threaded sleeves in the housing. This is a no-frills item but in its favor I installed one in a small but deep pond where it never leaked even though I re-lamped it 3 times in 8 years with 36w PAR lamps and the same gasket. I have now lost track of it; the owner moved. The UWL516-H is junk. This is the same body, socket, gasket, lens and top as their IL516-H in-ground (see the post "Vista's new in-ground vs. Hadco's IL516" in this forum). The differences being a side liquid-tight entry fitting, SVO cord and resin potting in the base up to the socket. Try to change the water-damaged socket on this thing! This item also has a frustratingly delicate tilt feature that holds the body on a bracket set into the concrete "hockey puck" base. The flange on the body and the bracket on the puck are connected by a nut, bolt and lock washers. The washers must be placed between the mating parts while the bolt and nut are aligned; this is a three-handed job. The reward for this agonizing task is that the plastic flange breaks before the bolt is tightened enough to fix the cantilevered body into aiming position. Over the years all of the UWL516s I installed failed early and I just kept turning them in for new replacements. I have dropped both the UWL and the IL from my line and replaced them with the superior Vista 5271/2 in-grounds and the UW4217 submersible.
Vista's UW4217 shares a housing with their in-grounds but is otherwise significantly different. The lens is captured between the top and the body by 5 hefty stainless steel slotted bolts threading into brass sleeves and compressing an O-ring silicone gasket held in a circumferential channel in the body. The socket has the admired stainless steel MR-16 retention clip on the fixed socket*; the internal wires are protected by a heat resistant flexible sleeve. The body is suspended between the yoke of the stainless steel gimbal seated in a square concrete base. The SVO cord is fitted to a liquid-tight, plastic connector on the side of the body. Just as with the in-grounds Vista kicks Hadco's ass.
Hadco's composite UWL1-A is an exact match for Vista's UW4217; the moldings look identical except that the Vista logo is cast into their housing while Hadco's housing has no identifying marks. The Vista T-3 socket is upright; the Hadco tilted 90 degrees; both units are rated for 20w wet. On both the clear prismatic cover is a single piece captured with 4 phillips head bolts mating with brass threaded sleeves and compressing an O-ring silicone gasket. Unlike the Hadco clone the Vista has a compatible liquid tight connector (brass) that will never rust but the same problematic SVO cord. Both units have accompanying aluminum reflectors that snap into the underside of the cover creating side light if desired. Six of these units were installed in the upper two tiers (4 and 2) of the fountain with the Bronzelites The shallow (less than 4") water in these upper tiers required a shallow fixture; both are 3" high. The Hadco UWL1-A originally installed failed in less than a year (but were kept functioning until I found replacements with liberal applications of GE silicone II); this was a real maintenance headache because the sealant wouldn't set up underwater necessitating a second trip each time we replaced the rusted pin 10w lamps and resealed the units (four times).
There are many underwater luminaires out there but they all share the kind of characteristics and failings that are detailed above. You may have noticed that I sometimes tell people more than they want to know but consider the alternative.
*This socket clip is shown as an attachment to "mr socket clip" on this forum.