Kessil Failures

[saltwaterpicaso]

yes it is daisy chained off my apex I really never thought of the voltage drop will also try the rotaion

 

[Eric Miller]

I was afraid to use a compressor for fear of too much power

don't forget the moisture from the tank :-(

 

[Eric Miller]

air compressor tank

 

[truepercs]

I would contact Kessil to see if the light can be repaired... If not they may offer you to purchase another at a discounted rate.

 

[shoggoth43]

Have 2 A160WE Tuna Suns. Both were replaced ~2 years just under warranty due to flicker of some LED channels. I had some nasty power failures due to storms and not everything was on a surge protector at the time as I was troubleshooting a problem where the lights would dim when the CO2 solenoid cut out. They were also purchased early on in the model's life so they may have been early units, but I'm sure the solenoid spike did not help. I generally use a quick blast of canned air on them whenever I do a major water change, so at least monthly.

I have noticed a weird issue with these using an Apex classic controller in that if I cut the power to my Tunze 6095s, the Kessils dim and Tunze confirmed it is because the 6095s are draining the 0-10V line when the AC power is off. There's a weird dimming and brighter cycling thing while the power is off which is probably something charging/discharging in the 6095 control box. I only mention this as you can get some odd behavior with different equipment like the classic Apex controller which does not seem to fully isolate the 0-10V outputs. Just pulling the 0-10V plug controlling the 6095s brings the Kessils right back to the proper brightness.

I noticed the other day that one of my A160WE lights has a cracked top plate. I use a Halo arm for it and the crack is likely because the adapter I used went in too far, and I likely bumped the light and over stressed it. Despite the fact that it's probably well out of warranty, Kessil did quote a reasonable repair cost given the labor involved, but once I factor in shipping both ways I'll probably leave it unless I get to a point where I think the light might break off the mount and go swimming.

Basically I've been happy with their customer service. As for the A360X, given past experience I might wait until I think they've had the first runs out and are maybe using V2 hardware inside and they have their wireless control dongle out. But the 360X is definitely on my upgrade list.

 

[robert]

Bought 5 Ap700s when they first came out. Three years later (out of warranty), I've had two with fan failures and two with controller failures (network issues). One had both fan and controller issues, so three of my five had issues. No LED or optic problems. They would simply overheat and cut out. Despite being out of warranty Kessil evaluated my lights and repaired (replaced) them free of charge. Absolutely no hassles.

With a 4k investment, three failures was concerning - I know I got the earliest production run - but even out of warranty, Kessil stood by their product. To me this means everything. I love the lights and have nothing but good to say for their product and support.

Eating a little crow here...five months after the above post the remainder of my lights began cutting out and I contacted Kessil for an RMA. In the process I spoke with a very knowledgeable representative who listened and offered to do an in-depth look at my lights in particular. His manner dashed any suspicion that there was an inherent flaw in the lights as he described some of the more unusual failure analysis they had performed on the AP700, and we went through a number of potentials which did not fit my situation.

Long story short - he indicated that heat-sink contamination had been at the root of most failures of my type and based on that I opened them up one last time and used a plastic scraper on the top of the heatsink. Sure enough - the surface was covered with a thin, uniform crust which was easily removed. Problem solved - no overheat.

I now think this was the likely issue with the lights kessil replaced for me earlier. It was not sufficient to blow and brush out the dust as I had previously done - I think, the cold temperatures in my garage coupled with the moisture over the tank caused a transient condensation layer that glazed the heatsinks with contaminates. Removed - my lights work perfectly again.

So I feel stupid but wanted anyone reading this thread to know the whole story.