OK, the second light was delivered yesterday.
This one was also good, but needed a little work. There were some QC issues that should have been resolved before it was shipped, but nothing a fairly handy person can't fix. The glass panel that covers the LEDS should be sealed against the metal housing to prevent salt creep or spray getting to the LEDs. This panel is normally sealed with silicone, and then held in place physically by 4 bend-over metal tabs. Unfortunately the tabs were never bent down and the silicone job was quick'n'dirty, so the panel de-laminated itself from the metal housing presumeably during shipping. I'm probably lucky the glass didn't break since it was rattling around. I took it apart, re-sealed it, and bent down the tabs to properly hold it in place....all of a 10 minute repair, but again, not something I should have had to do.
The plus side, all the electrical connections are well sealed with heat shrink. The first unit if you recall had a couple spots that might need some liquid electrical tape added.
Now, more irritating than a real problem: Because I got these two units a few months apart, the LEDs are very slightly different. The Blues in this fixture are a deeper blue, almost in the violet range in fact. It skews the overall balance....just a little bit....but enough to be noticeable to my eye. I know the answer I'm going to get when I mention this to the manufacturer: something along the lines of "Very sorry to hear this, we get our LEDs in different batches, so two units built at the same time would have matched....blah blah blah." Oh well. I'm still planning on getting a third for my seahorse tank, so I'll take whichever two match the closest and use those on the big tank. It's POSSIBLE that the LED blue color will shift a little as well, but.....I doubt it. The whole point of LEDs is that they maintain their color spectrum.
I'll post some pics of the full lights when I get my camera charged. The Blue overpowers my cell phone and makes everything look like a Grateful Dead concert stage (not necessarily a bad thing!).
