Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is my second Malibu/Intermatic light set, and I have found both to be very difficult to keep lit. I'd love someone who considers this to be an easy-to-use set to tell me what I'm doing wrong. The device used to connect each light to the central cable requires squeezing two spiked halves together to pierce the cable, and hoping the spike on each half makes AND holds contact with the wire beneath the outer insulation. I'm pretty good with my hands but getting this connection setup to work - AND hold - has proven next to impossible. Once connected, if the light is moved or knocked over there's a good chance the connection will have to be redone. Often it is difficult to tell whether the light bulb is burned out or if you just haven't made connection exactly right. I started to invest the time this spring in getting the set going again (only its second season) and after half an hour without getting ANY of the four lights to work I realized this just isn't worth the trouble... even thought when it works the lights are really nice. I'd love to know if there are wired 4-light sets out there with a more reliable connection device.
PS - I contacted Intermatic/Malibu via email to ask what 4-light sets they make that do NOT have this type of connection device... after receiving a canned reply promising a response within 3 days, they failed to follow up within even 5 days and to date they have continued to ignore my inquiry. I guess they either don't have any or have more business than they can handle. Another 'customer service' failure...
PSS - After the above I called Intermatic/Malibu but my only option (even during business hours) was leaving a message, which no one returned. On another attempt I reached someone who surprisingly admitted to me she also had lots of trouble with the connection device. She suggested stripping away insulation on the main cable to help those spikes make contact with wire, or after stripping the cable removing the connection devices and hard-wiring the light unit. Although willing to give either a try, as I stripped away insulation I began thinking "what's wrong with this picture...?"
By the way, when I opened the light units to try changing bulbs, two of the four units were corroded in the bulb chamber... after being outside about a year.
Speaking of bulbs, I had forgotten to mention that when trying to replace bulbs last summer, nothing in the owners' manual that I could find tells you what kind of bulb it takes. Two had burned out LONG before any reasonable bulb life. I bought what appeared to be the right type (the commonly used MR-16, which has a built-in reflector). When I tried to remove the old bulb I found that what looks like an MR-16 bulb in the Malibu unit is actually a bolted-in reflector and a separate tiny Christmas-tree-sized bulb.
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Intermatic CL10304T Malibu Outdoor Four-Light Lighting Kit with 300-Watt Power Pack/Timer, Black
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