Odyssea Lights?

[saltwaterjunki]

Hello - New to the forum and after reading the posts for awhile, and learnign a lot! thought I should sign up, so, hello all!
So, For the last couple weeks we have been reading a lot of mixed reviews on the Odyssea MH lights. It's about 50/50 out there but...most of the postings I have found have been fairly old (2005-2006).
Our old icecap ballast blew last weekend and we obviously needed to replace, we wanted to go to MH anyway and found a 'great' deal on Aquatraders. We were skeptical but went ahead and bought them - they showed up yesterday. One of the bulbs is bad but...other than that, they seem to work great.
My question is.....are these lights still a major fire hazard? Does anyone have any recent experience with them?
I will tell you that Aquatraders customer service is AWFUL!!!!!! But...so long as the lights work, I guess I can get over that..
Probably should of made this post prior to purchase but.....
THANKS!!!

 

[05xrunner]

seems new thread on this every other day
no the lights are fine..i have the 48" and its fine...cant beat the price for the light. its a totally new design, electronic ballast and individual power cords. The stock ballast doesnt put out as much power as it should. I replaced mine with the Coralvue ballast and run 14k phoenix bulbs. Still saved a good bit
whats wrong with Aquatraders service..my light was shipped same day...the 100 page thread over at reefcentral the general feelings is they got decent service from them.

 

[saltwaterjunki]

Ok - Good, thank you! I feel better now! Was beginning to get very nervous!
With the customer service, I called yesterday to let them know that one of the bulbs, and at that time, one of the ballasts were bad (we fixed the ballast, loose connection inside) and got the run around, BIG TIME. When asked to speak with the supervisor, who she just spoke with, the supervisor was out to lunch. I tried contacting her 3 times after that to be told she was still out to lunch - I wish I could take lunch breaks like that!
Sent an email and still have not heard anything back.
So - now, everything is working except one of the HQI bulbs. Do you know if like a Home Depot or Lowes sell these type of bulbs?
Thanks again for your reply!!!!

 

[05xrunner]

no u wont find any of them at home depot.
so is it the ballast that doesnt work..or the bulb is blown?

 

[saltwaterjunki]

didn't think so but thought i'd give it a shot
the bulb is blown
the ballast did NOT work out of the box BUT it does now - one of the connections were loose on the board