Looking for ai sol blue's
- Thread starter rapture
- Start date
zrogst
New member
AquaIllumination sells "Refurbished" Sol Blues from their parts store - these units are new but had cosmetic defects during manufacturing on the heatsink or plastic housing and have been deemed unfit for retail sale by QA. I bought 3 of them for $300/ea and couldn't be happier with the deal. More controllers should be hitting the market as the Director Beta units continue to roll out
tcamos
Reef, Crustacean, Puffers
I posted on here a little while ago asking the same question. At that time no one had any and I was directed to the refurbished. I purchased one and it's on it's way. For the price I feel that really is a good way to go and even when I did see them for sale from aquarists the price was usually very close to that $300 mark anyway. I paid $309.99 with shipping. That's worth it.
Long story short...that's the best route...no one seems to want to part with them.
Long story short...that's the best route...no one seems to want to part with them.
tcamos
Reef, Crustacean, Puffers
We've got it narrowed down to probably being one of the pucks. It turns out like old Christmas lights if one LED of a color is bad they all won't work. So it's likely I have a cracked royal blue LED.
I took the motherboard off of one of my working lights and put it on the new one and the RB's still didn't light. I took the mother board from the new light and put it on one of my old lights and the RB's did work. So this confirmed that it's not the motherboard.
So when I get home from work I will take one of the pucks off my old light and replace one that I think might have a bad LED (feels rough instead of smooth like the others) and if that confirms it as the issue they will send me a new puck.
I took the motherboard off of one of my working lights and put it on the new one and the RB's still didn't light. I took the mother board from the new light and put it on one of my old lights and the RB's did work. So this confirmed that it's not the motherboard.
So when I get home from work I will take one of the pucks off my old light and replace one that I think might have a bad LED (feels rough instead of smooth like the others) and if that confirms it as the issue they will send me a new puck.
tcamos
Reef, Crustacean, Puffers
I took a good puck from one of my working lights and swapped it with a puck from the bad light, then put back on the mother board, plugged it in, then did the same with each puck until I found the bad one. Fortunately it was on the 4th puck I tried rather than the 8th.
I let AI know this and here was their reply:
"Thanks for the update on this Chad and glad to find the issue causing this to happen. We can ship out another puck to you however would be via USPS Standard Mail (may take up to 30 days or so to get to you). If you would like to expedite this we can ship to you Priority Mail (6-10 days) however the cost to do this is $25 to do so. If you wanted to do this I can send a link for payment and can have out to you today. Please let us know, thank you.
Kind Regards"
That's particularly annoying to me. Here's my reply:
"I'll take the free shipping. Though I must complain as I paid shipping already for a working unit. Since that's not what I got it seems AI should cover getting me my product. I feel I've been very patient and went through a lot of effort to trouble shoot this light. I found the problem, it seems AI's part could be to fix it more quickly than 30 days or asking another $25 out of me to do it faster."
I let AI know this and here was their reply:
"Thanks for the update on this Chad and glad to find the issue causing this to happen. We can ship out another puck to you however would be via USPS Standard Mail (may take up to 30 days or so to get to you). If you would like to expedite this we can ship to you Priority Mail (6-10 days) however the cost to do this is $25 to do so. If you wanted to do this I can send a link for payment and can have out to you today. Please let us know, thank you.
Kind Regards"
That's particularly annoying to me. Here's my reply:
"I'll take the free shipping. Though I must complain as I paid shipping already for a working unit. Since that's not what I got it seems AI should cover getting me my product. I feel I've been very patient and went through a lot of effort to trouble shoot this light. I found the problem, it seems AI's part could be to fix it more quickly than 30 days or asking another $25 out of me to do it faster."
tcamos
Reef, Crustacean, Puffers
A funny story...
He replied to my post above by saying that because I had an international warranty they could not make an exception on shipping since costs were so high to ship internationally. He explained with a US warranty it would be a different story.
I asked, "Why do I have an international warranty? I'm in Arizona."
So...turns out there are two people with my name in their system, the other is in Australia...they will have my puck to my by the end of this week.
So...great service after all. Just a slight mistake.
He replied to my post above by saying that because I had an international warranty they could not make an exception on shipping since costs were so high to ship internationally. He explained with a US warranty it would be a different story.
I asked, "Why do I have an international warranty? I'm in Arizona."
So...turns out there are two people with my name in their system, the other is in Australia...they will have my puck to my by the end of this week.
So...great service after all. Just a slight mistake.
tcamos
Reef, Crustacean, Puffers
Yup, it's all up hill from here.
I actually have the new light hanging over my tank. Since it was working rather than put the old one back together I just hung it. So it works. All in all I'm happy and buying refurbished saved me a little over $100. So even factoring in the issue, it wasn't $100 worth of trouble.
I actually have the new light hanging over my tank. Since it was working rather than put the old one back together I just hung it. So it works. All in all I'm happy and buying refurbished saved me a little over $100. So even factoring in the issue, it wasn't $100 worth of trouble.
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