Well, I have an update on the lighting front, but unfortunately, it's not great news.
For the last couple months I have been in a 3-way email with Will from
Aquarium Obsessed and Alessandro from
Sfiligoi trying to get this sorted out. It's basically been a step by step trouble shooting exchange with Alessandro walking me thru each thing to check. It was a ridiculously slow process that really never should have gone on as long as it did because I should have just yanked the whole fan module out from the get go and did the trouble shooting all at one sitting instead of the way we did it.
So what did I find? It seems I had a break in the cable between the 12v power supply and the fan module. So on Jan 30th I was informed by Will at AO that a replacement would be going out from Sfiligoi first thing the following week.
However, he failed to mention that
Sfiligoi was sending it out by bicycle messenger because it took a whopping
4 weeks to get a $3.00 replacement cable. What an absolute joke! Perhaps I'm expecting too much here, but when you have a customer who drops serious coin for a top of the line fixture that doesn't work as advertised, you do not, and I repeat, you DO NOT simply drop the replacement part into an outgoing shipping container along with the rest of your normal shipment.
Couple this with some serious frustration that Will at AO is functioning as the go between and, while I'm sure he is doing the best he can, telling me he didn't realize that I was actually USING the light all this time doesn't go real far towards keeping me a warm and fuzzy customer.
So, the cable arrives a few weeks ago and I pull the fixture off the tank so I can install it. Only I can't install it because
Sfiligoi failed to include the crimp-on pins for the wire ends that slide into the terminal block screw posts on the fan module. :mad2: And of course an hour of searching the internet fails to turn up anything small enough to work. So I switch to plan B and out comes the soldering iron and some shrink tubing where I manage to hack together a reasonably good substitute for crimp-on pins.
An hour later the fan module is back in and running and the fixture is back hanging over the tank. And imagine my lack of surprise when a whole 30 minutes later I walk by and see the same ballast has shut down again and the same two lights are out. :mad2: And why my lack of surprise you ask? Well, it's because the entire time I'm two-stepping with Sfiligoi I can't help but wonder why a fixture that was originally released to the market without active cooling suddenly NEEDS active cooling to keep a couple lights on.
So after a whopping 3 months of time, effort, and frustration, I have made absolutely no progress on getting this issue resolved. I am literally right back at square one.
Two days ago I emailed
Aquarium Obsessed and informed them that I am done! I informed Will that I am no longer going to play lighting repairman and that I feel that I have not only been more than patient, but that I have gone above and beyond trying to make this work. I want a new fixture plain and simple!
Which brings us to today. Will has referred me directly to Alessandro and asked that I provide him with my schedule so he may call and speak to me. Which I did - 8:00am to 11:00pm PST all weekend long. So here I sit.
In all fairness, I should confess that my phone did ring, this morning as a matter of fact - at 5:59am with an unknown number and no message left when I failed to shrug off the deep throws of slumber and get to the phone in time. So gain, here I sit, waiting.... :mad2:
Brett
