sitelights
10-25-2004, 06:02 PM
The image attached to this post is a bit crowded since there are actually four fixtures: each type is shown intact and "exploded". The Vista fixtures are described as "deck & rail"; the Hadco is termed a "downlyte". While I am always more interested in performance rather than appearance the look and feel of something is still a factor. The Hadco with its gloss finish (up until 2002 the finish was more "eggshell") and clunky design reminds me of a "Captain Nemo" (in the James Mason film "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea") device; in particular the cap which looks to me like a part for a hard hat diving suit. The Vista has a finely textured matte finish (something like a camera) and a cleaner, less cluttered design. Following Henry Ford's Model T dictim my clients can have "...any color as long as it is black".
Left to right in the image: a Hadco DRL2-A and the same item disassembled; a Vista DS2236 and DL2236 taken apart and intact. Note that the Vista items have the same part number but are different: short shroud has the DS prefix and long shroud the DL prefix. The Hadco does not have a shroud since the MR16 lamp when mounted is regressed about 3 inches. The yoke mounts are similar and they must both be removed from the fixture body to attach the yoke to a surface.
It is clear that the Hadco is more robust in that the wall thickness of the cast aluminum tube is a full 3/16th inch. This is twice the thickness of the Vista and the component parts for each: yoke, body, cap and lens holder are sized accordingly. In my opinion the Hadco is over-designed and over-built. I am not aware of any other Hadco 12v cast aluminum fixture that has such a hefty...ah, heft. The extra weight and the awkward mounting assembly are not very user-friendly. The Vista is half the weight and while the yoke is almost as difficult to mount it has the virtue of being easier to handle and adjust.
The bracket arms form a "U" shape and it is impossible to mount either the Hadco or the Vista fully assembled; there is just not enough space between the body of the fixture and the base of the "U" to drive the screws to fasten the assembly to a surface. This is simply poor design; my viewpoint is detailed in "white lab coats" in an early post to the Engineering forum. The bracket could have been designed so that the base of the "U" would be offset so that in profile the "U" looked like an "L". This would have put the backing plate above or below the fixture body so that a driver (we use Makita 12v right-angle battery powered drivers because the weight of the driver is not cantilevered out from the wrist) with a short bit could be used. This is a design flaw that both the Hadco and the Vista share.
In certain difficult circumstances we use screw bolts and wing nuts to attach these fixtures. The screw bolt can be driven by chucking it into a driver; the bracket is then attached to the bolt end with wing nuts. My only complaint is that I cannot find these hardware items in stainless steel.
It is readily apparent that the fixtures are attached to the bodies with similar knurled and slotted bolts; try to find these Hadco pieces when you drop them. The Hadco also has short 1/8th inch rough-cut pieces of plastic tubing that act as friction washers to hold aim when the knurled bolts are snugged down; these unattached critical parts would be impossible to find if they were dropped. These pieces made me nostalgic for the improvised parts that used to be a hallmark of the early Nightscaping fixtures. In an extremely odd reversal of roles, the Vista knurled bolts are captured with tiny (friction enhancing: there are no spacers) O-rings which are a kind of Hadco trademark but the Hadco plastic tubes which do not capture the bolt are used instead. Strange world.
The Hadco has a fixed socket while the Vista socket "floats"; a floating socket is easier to lamp and re-lamp and I have also exhausted this topic in an earlier post (try "floating" on the search engine). The floating Vista socket does not have a lamp clip (search); I found this unusual since the rest of their line (correct me please) has the MR16 clip to minimize loose lamps. The MR in the Vista is pressed against the inside of the lens by a light, open spiral spring that looks exactly like the spring mount in the Cast spotlight. "Why re-invent the wheel?" says Cast (which, by the way does have a lamp clip). None of Hadco's 12v MR fixtures have a lamp clip and my nagging has not succeeded; this lack of an MR clip is also a design flaw for both Hadco and Vista.
The body of the Hadco has a flat rubber gasket (neophrene, silicone?) adhered to the body edge that mates with the socket-containing cap. The Vista has a thin O-ring that fits into a circumferential channel machined into the socket housing; this join is very tight and is locked with a set screw. Oddly the Vista installation instructions (Hadco provides no installation instructions for the fixture; only for the connector) refer to an Allen screw on the DS short shroud ("Allen wrench provided") and a Phillips head screw on the DL long shroud but neither of my fixtures had Allen screws. The Hadco body has a lens set on a "shoulder" and fastened with a bead of black silicone adhesive; this shoulder is formed by a cast lip inside the lens end 1/16th inch thick so that the lens is set just below the rim on this lip. The lens sits far enough below the the rim to collect and retain water; this is of no consequence when tilted down but above horizontal water can pool on the lens since there is no scupper. The Vistas, both short and long shroud, have the lens set flush with the end of the body and thus no water can collect on the lens. Without this rain-shedding feature the Hadco can, over time, evaporate enough water to leave mineral and/or lawn chemical deposits on the lens surface; as stated, this is inconsequential when the fixture is aimed below horizontal.
The Vista fixtures prices are appreciably less than the Hadco but since price is a negotiation with the supplier I will merely say that the difference was about 40% not including the MR16 lamp. The Hadco and the Vista are both rated at 35w. Vista will provide a lamp of your choice if ordered with the "L" suffix; my lamp prices are lower from my distributor. Since we never know exactly what the application will demand we do not buy pre-lamped fixtures. Hadco provides T3 and T4 bi-pin halogen lamps at no added cost in fixtures with that spec but they do not offer pre-lamped fixtures with the MR base.
Vista provides a 60" 18/2 pigtail lead and two gel-filled wire nuts (search) and the Hadco provides 96" of 18/2 leads, an LVC3 pierce point connector (search) AND 2 plated wood screws.
Full disclosure: I purchased the two Vista fixtures from my distributor and they came in one week UPS ground; the Hadco items were delayed through no fault of Hadco but held up invoicing the client. Kind of a "...for the want of a nail the shoe was lost..." (Shakespeare again) since I bill on completion and a $5K invoice was stalled for the lack of two fixtures. I have dropped the Hadco DRL2-A from my equipment roster and will order only the Vista DS/DL 2236 as needed. Of course, Hadco's 2005 catalog may change my mind.
As usual I emailed alerts to the executives of each company about this post in case they would like to correct any errors in fact. Vista responded the next day that there were no substantial errors of fact; Hadco, also the next day, corrected me on the delay in shipping which, as corrected above, was contrary to their usual quick response.
Left to right in the image: a Hadco DRL2-A and the same item disassembled; a Vista DS2236 and DL2236 taken apart and intact. Note that the Vista items have the same part number but are different: short shroud has the DS prefix and long shroud the DL prefix. The Hadco does not have a shroud since the MR16 lamp when mounted is regressed about 3 inches. The yoke mounts are similar and they must both be removed from the fixture body to attach the yoke to a surface.
It is clear that the Hadco is more robust in that the wall thickness of the cast aluminum tube is a full 3/16th inch. This is twice the thickness of the Vista and the component parts for each: yoke, body, cap and lens holder are sized accordingly. In my opinion the Hadco is over-designed and over-built. I am not aware of any other Hadco 12v cast aluminum fixture that has such a hefty...ah, heft. The extra weight and the awkward mounting assembly are not very user-friendly. The Vista is half the weight and while the yoke is almost as difficult to mount it has the virtue of being easier to handle and adjust.
The bracket arms form a "U" shape and it is impossible to mount either the Hadco or the Vista fully assembled; there is just not enough space between the body of the fixture and the base of the "U" to drive the screws to fasten the assembly to a surface. This is simply poor design; my viewpoint is detailed in "white lab coats" in an early post to the Engineering forum. The bracket could have been designed so that the base of the "U" would be offset so that in profile the "U" looked like an "L". This would have put the backing plate above or below the fixture body so that a driver (we use Makita 12v right-angle battery powered drivers because the weight of the driver is not cantilevered out from the wrist) with a short bit could be used. This is a design flaw that both the Hadco and the Vista share.
In certain difficult circumstances we use screw bolts and wing nuts to attach these fixtures. The screw bolt can be driven by chucking it into a driver; the bracket is then attached to the bolt end with wing nuts. My only complaint is that I cannot find these hardware items in stainless steel.
It is readily apparent that the fixtures are attached to the bodies with similar knurled and slotted bolts; try to find these Hadco pieces when you drop them. The Hadco also has short 1/8th inch rough-cut pieces of plastic tubing that act as friction washers to hold aim when the knurled bolts are snugged down; these unattached critical parts would be impossible to find if they were dropped. These pieces made me nostalgic for the improvised parts that used to be a hallmark of the early Nightscaping fixtures. In an extremely odd reversal of roles, the Vista knurled bolts are captured with tiny (friction enhancing: there are no spacers) O-rings which are a kind of Hadco trademark but the Hadco plastic tubes which do not capture the bolt are used instead. Strange world.
The Hadco has a fixed socket while the Vista socket "floats"; a floating socket is easier to lamp and re-lamp and I have also exhausted this topic in an earlier post (try "floating" on the search engine). The floating Vista socket does not have a lamp clip (search); I found this unusual since the rest of their line (correct me please) has the MR16 clip to minimize loose lamps. The MR in the Vista is pressed against the inside of the lens by a light, open spiral spring that looks exactly like the spring mount in the Cast spotlight. "Why re-invent the wheel?" says Cast (which, by the way does have a lamp clip). None of Hadco's 12v MR fixtures have a lamp clip and my nagging has not succeeded; this lack of an MR clip is also a design flaw for both Hadco and Vista.
The body of the Hadco has a flat rubber gasket (neophrene, silicone?) adhered to the body edge that mates with the socket-containing cap. The Vista has a thin O-ring that fits into a circumferential channel machined into the socket housing; this join is very tight and is locked with a set screw. Oddly the Vista installation instructions (Hadco provides no installation instructions for the fixture; only for the connector) refer to an Allen screw on the DS short shroud ("Allen wrench provided") and a Phillips head screw on the DL long shroud but neither of my fixtures had Allen screws. The Hadco body has a lens set on a "shoulder" and fastened with a bead of black silicone adhesive; this shoulder is formed by a cast lip inside the lens end 1/16th inch thick so that the lens is set just below the rim on this lip. The lens sits far enough below the the rim to collect and retain water; this is of no consequence when tilted down but above horizontal water can pool on the lens since there is no scupper. The Vistas, both short and long shroud, have the lens set flush with the end of the body and thus no water can collect on the lens. Without this rain-shedding feature the Hadco can, over time, evaporate enough water to leave mineral and/or lawn chemical deposits on the lens surface; as stated, this is inconsequential when the fixture is aimed below horizontal.
The Vista fixtures prices are appreciably less than the Hadco but since price is a negotiation with the supplier I will merely say that the difference was about 40% not including the MR16 lamp. The Hadco and the Vista are both rated at 35w. Vista will provide a lamp of your choice if ordered with the "L" suffix; my lamp prices are lower from my distributor. Since we never know exactly what the application will demand we do not buy pre-lamped fixtures. Hadco provides T3 and T4 bi-pin halogen lamps at no added cost in fixtures with that spec but they do not offer pre-lamped fixtures with the MR base.
Vista provides a 60" 18/2 pigtail lead and two gel-filled wire nuts (search) and the Hadco provides 96" of 18/2 leads, an LVC3 pierce point connector (search) AND 2 plated wood screws.
Full disclosure: I purchased the two Vista fixtures from my distributor and they came in one week UPS ground; the Hadco items were delayed through no fault of Hadco but held up invoicing the client. Kind of a "...for the want of a nail the shoe was lost..." (Shakespeare again) since I bill on completion and a $5K invoice was stalled for the lack of two fixtures. I have dropped the Hadco DRL2-A from my equipment roster and will order only the Vista DS/DL 2236 as needed. Of course, Hadco's 2005 catalog may change my mind.
As usual I emailed alerts to the executives of each company about this post in case they would like to correct any errors in fact. Vista responded the next day that there were no substantial errors of fact; Hadco, also the next day, corrected me on the delay in shipping which, as corrected above, was contrary to their usual quick response.