Unique Lighting Observations

[Eden Lights]

Adjustable ball knuckle on accent fixtures is a pain to adjust from a ladder unless you have three hands.

Lock and load socket has high failure rate and is about the most useless thing I have seen second to Kichlers Lighting LightHouse.

Lock and load socket makes for awful lamp patterns in the bi-pin flood fixtures. Looks like kids doing rabbit ears in front of a overhead projector.

Par36 Well Lights are problematic just like everybody elses: Collects debris, Dont hold location or aiming, expensive lamps, poor shielding, and are excellent fire starters

Unique has the best customer service that I have used for warranty items, second to nobody. I just completed renovation of a property of 7 transformers and 150 fixtures and all the faulty equipment has been warrantied fast, curteous, and no questions asked.

[LowVoltPro]

I use alot of Unique products so I feel I should add to this old thread here.

Unique has since discontinued the use of the lock and load socket. While the idea was definitly worth exploring the negatives have out weighed the positives. Problems stemmed from the connectors losing contact and on the down lights the lamps weight pulls down just enough to seperate the contacts. Unique did send me some reworked socket replacements that had additional solder added to the connectors and that has since solved my problems on the lock and loads that did fail.

The orbital ball joint/knuckle I find as very usefull and smart. In conjunction with the Strat Bracket I dont think there is an easier way to mount your down lights. I dont think you need 3 hands at all. You need one hand to lossen and tighten the nut and the other hand to adjust and angle the light? I use a ton of them and have had zero problems. I am able to angle the light in any direction I choose without being limited to up and down and if I need to go left to right i don not losen the light from the base! I love this feature.

Well lights.....well I have had my ups and downs and I cannot deny that I have had a few melt down. But I will be the first to admit that the lights that did melt were completely covered up. The well lights that remain clear and free of debris never have a problem and work very well!! I have not experienced any problems with the stainless steel gimbal ring falling out of place. I have however noticed some that were lose but it was very easy to tighten up in the field.

Just my 2 cents.

[Tesla]

Just to give some more life to this thread:
Lock and load seemed to us great idea at the time, now we have hundreds of fixtures out there waiting to fail. It already started to go downhill.
Two hands are enough for Ball Knuckle style fixtures, but first you need to secure yourself very good up in the tree, because while tightening ball knuckle with channel locks you need to hold the fixture in desired direction. Tilting fixture up and down is limited, it is better to install Lunars on the side of a tree, that way you can tilt up-down 360 degrees.
Almost everybody has negative words about well lights, which I don’t understand. MR16 fixtures have far greater failure rate than PAR36 fixtures. Not much difference in cost either.
Unique went overboard with their “famous” customer service. I just needed a part to fix transformer, and they made me send the transformer to them, paid $60 shipment and no to mention the wait. I don’t see the logic behind this.

[sitelights]

My 02.26.04 warning about the Unique socket evidently went unheeded. The review in this forum was posted soon after the socket became available. There is even an image for those unfamiliar with this ill-conceived device. The previous day (02.25.04) I examined the floodlight fixture equiped with the socket and while I had some good things to say about the fixture I could see the socket was a bad idea when I opened the box.

When I spoke to Nate Mullen to thank him for the prompt response to my request for a sample floodlight we discussed my conclusions in the reviews. I thought the socket was a kind of novelty item while Nate thought it addressed a problem.

[LowVoltPro]

Tesla-

Next time you have a problem with any Unique products when you call in ask for Joey D., he will do whatever you ask, he knows the products inside out and is very easy to work with. The girls in customer service are great but sometimes they dont understand the products as well as he does.

[Paul]

I've known Joey for a few years and he is back at Unique since leaving Goya. He does know the product very well.