Leo Versola
Well-known member
True... And that's where Home Depot has Coollights, and well, ARRI and pretty much all the other vendors beat hands down no question!
Cool Lights: BEWARE
- Thread starter gabrielflorit
- Start date
Every light I purchase gets a full 10 hours burn in before I use it on a job, I also do this if I am replacing a bulb between jobs. I will turn it on and off multiple time during that period, move it, leave it on for extended periods. On top of always carrying the number of a place I can rent from 24/7 in my pocket.
Gabriel maybe your intention wasnt to cause an issue etc. But I think the thread title is way overcooked. But, this has nothing to do in the slightest with me.
Gabriel maybe your intention wasnt to cause an issue etc. But I think the thread title is way overcooked. But, this has nothing to do in the slightest with me.
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gabrielflorit
Well-known member
Today the second CL-MF0150 stopped functioning. I can't tell if it's the ballast or the actual fixture. Good thing I was renting a Joker, otherwise I would have had no lights on location.
I know the Joker is almost $5K, and the CL-MF0150 is less than a tenth of that. So there is no comparison. However, after both lights failing within the week I have lost any confidence in these lights. I am sure that there are many satisfied Cool Light owners. I can only assume to have been blessed with the worst of luck.
I know the Joker is almost $5K, and the CL-MF0150 is less than a tenth of that. So there is no comparison. However, after both lights failing within the week I have lost any confidence in these lights. I am sure that there are many satisfied Cool Light owners. I can only assume to have been blessed with the worst of luck.
Chris Santucci
Veteran
The CL-MF0150 has been out awhile now, and by most accounts has been a fabulous performer. For reference, Barry Green once gave a fairly poor review of the Cool Lights studio flouros, but I have to say none of the problems he reported (namely with the build quality) have surfaced with me. I think it's safe to say that sometimes isolated incidents happen. I've had them happen with major manufacturers as well. The CL-MF0150 I recently bought has worked wonderfully thus far, knock on wood...I hope it continues this way after your report.
This said, my guess is that if your ballast was replaced, it's probably the light itself. I recently had an Arri 650 serviced that would turn on and off in the middle of shoots. As it turned out, the bulb seating needed to be replaced. The problem was that a grip had replaced the bulb for me once and not seated the bulb in quite all the way, which more or less fried the receptacle over time. Sometimes things happen. You replace it and move on (Arri was kind enough to give me the replacement part free of charge and let me install it myself).
I've read about the Cool Lights barn doors not holding properly and having to be taped by one member, never happened to me...live and learn.
Sometimes things are just slightly off, a maching tolerance is slightly off, etc. Take a batch of C-stands I bought awhile ago. One of them, the machining tolerance was off on the allen bolt threading ever so slightly causing it to occasionally slip-out...well the part it held in slipped out all the way and now that stand is useless as I can no longer find the part. It happens. I've had two Beachteks in a row poop out on me years ago. The first one was DOA straight out of the box, and I remember the guys at B&H just as puzzled as I was (I was on the job in New York, flown in from Cali); needless to say it was a hectic time.
...the third one, however, was a charm.
By and large, every manufacturer has a few lemons. Often times all it takes is a little bit off this way or that or something got rattled during shipment or whatever, and that's that. I once bought a batch of several brand new identical Yonex rackets...one of them collapsed and warped out of nowhere during play in the head. I use the safest mounting system on the market to string my frames...yet there you go. It happened, comopletely weird and unheard of but it happened. My other "identical" frames never had the same happen to them. In fact, of the millions of rackets I've used through the years, what happened to me with that one Yonex frame never happened to me.
The thing to note is that Yonex has a reputation that's strong enough and most of all ESTABLISHED enough to withstand the occasional minor lemon. To me, it's understandable why Richard would have preferred that this be handled privately at first. He works hard to remedy any problems that arise and by and large has shown that when problems do arise, he acts to solve them. You have to understand that by and large, these small fledging "indie" companies are doing US more of a service than we are them, or at least that's how I look at it. As another poster alluded to, the difference in cost between these indie company products and the "professional" stuff is MANY times the magnitude the difference in actual performance in my opinion. So while there are occasionaly some hiccups along the way, I'd rather place my trust in the companies that are always actively trying to improve and works all the kinks out than the companies that bail on their customers and decide to abandon ship (like Nuangle).
To me, it's like this, when Nuangle and Kessler Crane were both starting out, they both had their pluses and minuses, but at the time, I felt that Nuangle had the greater pluses. Now, that situation has changed and Kessler Crane continued to work to improve and never stand still and work out all the kinks whereas Nuangle bit the dust.
I own a Nuangle NX2, and I have to say that there are still some big pluses to their design, it's tooless, it has a a great way to fine tune the counterbalance effortless, has a good weight capacity for a jib of its length, but most of all it is swappable between different lengths and setups up VERY quickly and effortlessly for a jib of its length. Still...it had many little issues that I'm almost shocked made it to the assembly line without being resolved. Why? Because they could have been resolved sooo easily. How do I know? Because I resolved them myself with just a few minor adjustments.
That's what I mean. These minor adjustments EASILY could have been remedied and turned a good product into a great one...but they were never resolved.
Cool Lights isn't like that. It's the companies who have tireless perfectionists behind them that I want to encourage. Companies like Kessler Crane and Cool Lights and Glideshot are the true definition of the "indie revolution." I'm incredibly thankful and grateful that we have companies like this around who are run by people and not voice answering machines.
If every now and then, something pops up, I prefer to go private first simply because I know how damaging a bad report can be to fledgeling companies. These companies really rely on postive word of mouth to keep moving forward in their development (i.e. they can't fall back on their established "presence" the way a company like Yonex can, and which I'm sure has absolutely nothing to worry about people suddenly fearing that all their rackets are going to snap/warp on them too for no reason after only just one string job). The other thing to consider is that the indie company products don't have as much long term reliability data as does an ancient company like Mole. Every product, it sometimes takes time for the kinks to surface. I know this from working on my own private "indie" stuff. Some of which I have got down to a science by now (and work better than anything else out there), and others still a work in progress but getting there.
All in all though, all I can say is that I'm waiting very patiently but very, very eagerly for the Cool Lights 575w HMI's to hit the market. Why? Because I know I could never afford nor justify the cost of the name brands knowing how much else there is to buy in this business (...and there ALWAYS is...and the beat goes on).
This said, my guess is that if your ballast was replaced, it's probably the light itself. I recently had an Arri 650 serviced that would turn on and off in the middle of shoots. As it turned out, the bulb seating needed to be replaced. The problem was that a grip had replaced the bulb for me once and not seated the bulb in quite all the way, which more or less fried the receptacle over time. Sometimes things happen. You replace it and move on (Arri was kind enough to give me the replacement part free of charge and let me install it myself).
I've read about the Cool Lights barn doors not holding properly and having to be taped by one member, never happened to me...live and learn.
Sometimes things are just slightly off, a maching tolerance is slightly off, etc. Take a batch of C-stands I bought awhile ago. One of them, the machining tolerance was off on the allen bolt threading ever so slightly causing it to occasionally slip-out...well the part it held in slipped out all the way and now that stand is useless as I can no longer find the part. It happens. I've had two Beachteks in a row poop out on me years ago. The first one was DOA straight out of the box, and I remember the guys at B&H just as puzzled as I was (I was on the job in New York, flown in from Cali); needless to say it was a hectic time.
...the third one, however, was a charm.
By and large, every manufacturer has a few lemons. Often times all it takes is a little bit off this way or that or something got rattled during shipment or whatever, and that's that. I once bought a batch of several brand new identical Yonex rackets...one of them collapsed and warped out of nowhere during play in the head. I use the safest mounting system on the market to string my frames...yet there you go. It happened, comopletely weird and unheard of but it happened. My other "identical" frames never had the same happen to them. In fact, of the millions of rackets I've used through the years, what happened to me with that one Yonex frame never happened to me.
The thing to note is that Yonex has a reputation that's strong enough and most of all ESTABLISHED enough to withstand the occasional minor lemon. To me, it's understandable why Richard would have preferred that this be handled privately at first. He works hard to remedy any problems that arise and by and large has shown that when problems do arise, he acts to solve them. You have to understand that by and large, these small fledging "indie" companies are doing US more of a service than we are them, or at least that's how I look at it. As another poster alluded to, the difference in cost between these indie company products and the "professional" stuff is MANY times the magnitude the difference in actual performance in my opinion. So while there are occasionaly some hiccups along the way, I'd rather place my trust in the companies that are always actively trying to improve and works all the kinks out than the companies that bail on their customers and decide to abandon ship (like Nuangle).
To me, it's like this, when Nuangle and Kessler Crane were both starting out, they both had their pluses and minuses, but at the time, I felt that Nuangle had the greater pluses. Now, that situation has changed and Kessler Crane continued to work to improve and never stand still and work out all the kinks whereas Nuangle bit the dust.
I own a Nuangle NX2, and I have to say that there are still some big pluses to their design, it's tooless, it has a a great way to fine tune the counterbalance effortless, has a good weight capacity for a jib of its length, but most of all it is swappable between different lengths and setups up VERY quickly and effortlessly for a jib of its length. Still...it had many little issues that I'm almost shocked made it to the assembly line without being resolved. Why? Because they could have been resolved sooo easily. How do I know? Because I resolved them myself with just a few minor adjustments.
That's what I mean. These minor adjustments EASILY could have been remedied and turned a good product into a great one...but they were never resolved.
Cool Lights isn't like that. It's the companies who have tireless perfectionists behind them that I want to encourage. Companies like Kessler Crane and Cool Lights and Glideshot are the true definition of the "indie revolution." I'm incredibly thankful and grateful that we have companies like this around who are run by people and not voice answering machines.
If every now and then, something pops up, I prefer to go private first simply because I know how damaging a bad report can be to fledgeling companies. These companies really rely on postive word of mouth to keep moving forward in their development (i.e. they can't fall back on their established "presence" the way a company like Yonex can, and which I'm sure has absolutely nothing to worry about people suddenly fearing that all their rackets are going to snap/warp on them too for no reason after only just one string job). The other thing to consider is that the indie company products don't have as much long term reliability data as does an ancient company like Mole. Every product, it sometimes takes time for the kinks to surface. I know this from working on my own private "indie" stuff. Some of which I have got down to a science by now (and work better than anything else out there), and others still a work in progress but getting there.
All in all though, all I can say is that I'm waiting very patiently but very, very eagerly for the Cool Lights 575w HMI's to hit the market. Why? Because I know I could never afford nor justify the cost of the name brands knowing how much else there is to buy in this business (...and there ALWAYS is...and the beat goes on).
still your premature negative post is a bit too tough IMO! You could have kept this private until some REAL issue appears. the quick reader who doesnt want to go through all the posts is getting some BAD impressions. No Matter what you write now and how you try to make up for it, the initial post should have been less SPECTACULAR dont you think?
I wouldnt want to have you as a customer thats 4 sure
Cool Lights
DVXuser Sponsor
I wouldnt want to have you as a customer thats 4 sure
Hmm. I know what you mean! My instincts had been to get all the equipment back last week and refund, and he refused. I had a bad feeling more of this realtime drama was in store for us here. Whatever this is though, it doesn't have the desired effect and orders are still coming in as normal.
If you're a fan I'm sure you'll have your own theories what all this means. If you're not a fan, I'm sure your heartened. If you are new to all this, just remember, we've been a sponsor here for about 21 months now. This sort of thing has happened by my count about 3 times to this point where someone that seemed to need a bit more attention than most posted something in what usually looks like some vague attempt to hurt our business or get a mob kind of thing going. You can see there's no real momentum here for that as in the last couple of times.
Mostly friends and customers chimed in as usual to defend what we're doing and give their experiences. A couple of supporters who aren't customers usually chime in too. Then there will be a couple of people who have no real experience with us that show support for the negative review but since they have no real data of their own, they usually just mention things about me personally or say something deep like "ditto".
So, hopefully we'll be sending this particular customer on his way now to find a solution elsewhere. Thanks everyone for your comments and your part in this episode of "Cool Lights BEWARE--Episode 1: Attack of the Ballasts". Join us again soon for "Episode 2: Revenge of the LEDs"!
MattinSTL
Sound Modulator
Richard... I was just on the site looking at your stuff... did the ballast always use that nylon strain-relief or is that new?
Wasn't the issue an IEC type connector... at the point where the power cord goes into the ballast... the problem the OP had? So you replaced that with a strain relief... correct? That's the new white (or light gray) plastic part at the power cord connection to the ballast?
Wasn't the issue an IEC type connector... at the point where the power cord goes into the ballast... the problem the OP had? So you replaced that with a strain relief... correct? That's the new white (or light gray) plastic part at the power cord connection to the ballast?
Cool Lights
DVXuser Sponsor
Generation 1 had a strain reliefed power cord attached directly to ballast--16 feet long. I just didn't change the picture on the site yet to the new version.
Generation 2 (current) has an IEC adapter which allows our 16 foot IEC adapter to go into the ballast and be removed and replaced with another IEC power cord from whatever country you may choose. It appears the IEC adapter locking tabs didn't expand properly on some models when inserted into the rectangular punched hole on the ballast chassis.
Generation 2 (current) has an IEC adapter which allows our 16 foot IEC adapter to go into the ballast and be removed and replaced with another IEC power cord from whatever country you may choose. It appears the IEC adapter locking tabs didn't expand properly on some models when inserted into the rectangular punched hole on the ballast chassis.
I think that "Bad experience with Cool Lights" would have been a more appropriate title for this post. But let me add my voice to the chorus saying that I value posts like this from actual users of products. If an experience is good, I'd like to know. If bad, I'd like to know that, too. I think most people here are smart enough not to infer too much from a "sample of one," as the scientists say.
The OP actually would have done a disservice to this community by not posting his experience. We're supposed to cover these things up?
The OP actually would have done a disservice to this community by not posting his experience. We're supposed to cover these things up?
Richard,
I really can't let your kind of, er, astonishing comments go unremarked. Emphasis added to draw your attention to what you actually published in a public forum:
A customer of yours posted what is by all appearances an honest account of his experiences with your product. Kudos on offering a refund, and it was smart of you to let us all know that you did make that offer. You appeared to be doing your best.
But then you publicly attacked the motivation and character of your customer. WTF? Leaving aside the borderline paranoia in imagining an actual plot against you and your business...do you really want to be seen mocking and attacking your customers when they complain about your product?
Is this what I can expect from you if I have a problem with one of your products and have the audacity to actually tell my peers about my experience?
I really can't let your kind of, er, astonishing comments go unremarked. Emphasis added to draw your attention to what you actually published in a public forum:
A customer of yours posted what is by all appearances an honest account of his experiences with your product. Kudos on offering a refund, and it was smart of you to let us all know that you did make that offer. You appeared to be doing your best.
But then you publicly attacked the motivation and character of your customer. WTF? Leaving aside the borderline paranoia in imagining an actual plot against you and your business...do you really want to be seen mocking and attacking your customers when they complain about your product?
Is this what I can expect from you if I have a problem with one of your products and have the audacity to actually tell my peers about my experience?
Cool Lights
DVXuser Sponsor
Thanks for your comments. It sounds like you don't understand small companies and the competitive environment, the need for rules, procedures to follow, etc. Every company has their own procedures and if you don't agree with them, you're always free to choose another solution. Plus, you can try to second guess and tell someone how to do things; until you're in the position of doing the things they do, you can't really assume you know better than them. For instance, if its so easy to bring down the cost of HMI, why isn't any other company doing that besides mine?
Again, this is not Coollights.biz and you don't get your support here from us in realtime and in public because I refuse to give it here--that's the policy like it or not. Otherwise, chaos ensues and that's not how we run our business. Any professional reviewer would never publish the results of a product before the final outcome whatever that is. So, if you're going to do a review, do it right. Gather all the facts, see the final outcome, then publish.
You're free to disagree, you're free to support another company, but thats the way we do things, we know what we're doing and we do things in the way we feel necessary to bring cutting edge lighting products at an affordable price. If you want to offer opinions on how we should do things, fine go ahead, but you'll excuse me if I continue as we normally do since we do know a couple of things about it based on actual experience.
By the way, this thread and all comments both good and bad was made possible by a sponsorship from Cool Lights of DVXUser. Sites like this don't run themselves but are paid for by sponsors like us. That's the way the world works. So we pay for both kudos and getting slapped too. No one was censored, not one post was deleted, but I do reserve the right for public rebuttals if someone wants to skip the normal process, do a public realtime review as issues happen and even before we have a chance to respond.
So, if you think thats the way things should be done and you need an HMI, then buy a K5600 or Arri HMI if you don't see the value here or like the way we go about things. Thanks.
Again, this is not Coollights.biz and you don't get your support here from us in realtime and in public because I refuse to give it here--that's the policy like it or not. Otherwise, chaos ensues and that's not how we run our business. Any professional reviewer would never publish the results of a product before the final outcome whatever that is. So, if you're going to do a review, do it right. Gather all the facts, see the final outcome, then publish.
You're free to disagree, you're free to support another company, but thats the way we do things, we know what we're doing and we do things in the way we feel necessary to bring cutting edge lighting products at an affordable price. If you want to offer opinions on how we should do things, fine go ahead, but you'll excuse me if I continue as we normally do since we do know a couple of things about it based on actual experience.
By the way, this thread and all comments both good and bad was made possible by a sponsorship from Cool Lights of DVXUser. Sites like this don't run themselves but are paid for by sponsors like us. That's the way the world works. So we pay for both kudos and getting slapped too. No one was censored, not one post was deleted, but I do reserve the right for public rebuttals if someone wants to skip the normal process, do a public realtime review as issues happen and even before we have a chance to respond.
So, if you think thats the way things should be done and you need an HMI, then buy a K5600 or Arri HMI if you don't see the value here or like the way we go about things. Thanks.
Taylor Rudd
Veteran
More importantly he is defending the company's good reputation for quality (economic) products and killer customer support. I am glad to have known about the OP's issues, though I'd rather not wade through 4 pages to see what the outcome is. As Richard said, realtime reviews are not the way to go.
It makes me nervous when sponsors get involved in these types of posts, but Richard has the right to defend his company. All these companies are competing for our business, and Richard's confidence in his business practice and products have made me that much more interested in purchasing from Cool Lights.
gco
Veteran
This is all very unfortunate.
Nobody was attacking anyone's reputation.
Somebody experienced a product failure and over-reacted by posting here instead of contacting the business directly. That was immediately obvious in the initial post. Based on reputation, anyone would expect the situation to be fully taken care of. No reason to think otherwise.
When any business publicly attacks the motive and character of a person making a complaint, that is a different story.
Brian had a valid question.
I wonder if it was answered.
Nobody was attacking anyone's reputation.
Somebody experienced a product failure and over-reacted by posting here instead of contacting the business directly. That was immediately obvious in the initial post. Based on reputation, anyone would expect the situation to be fully taken care of. No reason to think otherwise.
When any business publicly attacks the motive and character of a person making a complaint, that is a different story.
Brian had a valid question.
I wonder if it was answered.
MattinSTL
Sound Modulator
This is kind of a fubar thread with some good points made on all sides... and bad points made on all sides.
I don't think this is the best way for the OP to have handled this, but if I bought an arri fresnel I wouldn't think that I had to give it a thorough testing before a shoot to be sure it worked. (one of the bad points that a poster made... to criticize the OP for not testing his new gear.) Testing is the job of the manufacturer, not the buyer. To have something fail at some point in the first 30 days isn't unreasonable... that's why everybody has return and warranty periods... but to have something fail immediately isn't cool.
But it's also not cool to put this thread up in the spirit that it was posted... with the "beware" and all that... that's a little much... and so I don't think you can blame Richard for having an emotional reaction to an emotional attack.
Whoever thought of "when the sh*t hits the fan" was a genius... that is the most perfect analogy for a cluster-F* situation... which is what this is.
I don't think this is the best way for the OP to have handled this, but if I bought an arri fresnel I wouldn't think that I had to give it a thorough testing before a shoot to be sure it worked. (one of the bad points that a poster made... to criticize the OP for not testing his new gear.) Testing is the job of the manufacturer, not the buyer. To have something fail at some point in the first 30 days isn't unreasonable... that's why everybody has return and warranty periods... but to have something fail immediately isn't cool.
But it's also not cool to put this thread up in the spirit that it was posted... with the "beware" and all that... that's a little much... and so I don't think you can blame Richard for having an emotional reaction to an emotional attack.
Whoever thought of "when the sh*t hits the fan" was a genius... that is the most perfect analogy for a cluster-F* situation... which is what this is.
Richard,
I am honestly trying to help you because a) I believe independent vendors like yourself are of great value to the low-budget filmmaking community, and, b) I believe you are making a mistake in how you are handling criticism, and you are digging the hole deeper with each response.
I do not plan to keep harping on this, but I am going to try just one more time to get you to see how self-destructive you are being: Please take a step back, get some distance, and ask, "How is the public-relations department of my company handling this problem? Is this the very best way Cool Lights could be dealing with public criticism?"
I think it would have been better if you had just posted the following:
"Cool Lights is committed to 100% customer satisfaction. Cool Lights can afford this kind of guarantee because problems with our products are so rare. I deeply regret this customer's obviously difficult experience. This customer has already been offered a full refund -- shipping at our expense -- as well as any other assistance we can provide. In the unusual case that anyone else here on dvxuser has a problem with a Cool Lights instrument, this is the kind of service you can expect from us, no questions asked."
And then said nothing more. No insults, no baiting, no accusations of bad faith. Result? Cool Lights looks like a stand-up guy, above the fray, and best of all -- a thread with the title "Cool Lights: BEWARE" disappears instead of being resurrected for days by repeated petty jabs.
Do you disagree that this would have been a better way to handle the problem?
I am honestly trying to help you because a) I believe independent vendors like yourself are of great value to the low-budget filmmaking community, and, b) I believe you are making a mistake in how you are handling criticism, and you are digging the hole deeper with each response.
I do not plan to keep harping on this, but I am going to try just one more time to get you to see how self-destructive you are being: Please take a step back, get some distance, and ask, "How is the public-relations department of my company handling this problem? Is this the very best way Cool Lights could be dealing with public criticism?"
I think it would have been better if you had just posted the following:
"Cool Lights is committed to 100% customer satisfaction. Cool Lights can afford this kind of guarantee because problems with our products are so rare. I deeply regret this customer's obviously difficult experience. This customer has already been offered a full refund -- shipping at our expense -- as well as any other assistance we can provide. In the unusual case that anyone else here on dvxuser has a problem with a Cool Lights instrument, this is the kind of service you can expect from us, no questions asked."
And then said nothing more. No insults, no baiting, no accusations of bad faith. Result? Cool Lights looks like a stand-up guy, above the fray, and best of all -- a thread with the title "Cool Lights: BEWARE" disappears instead of being resurrected for days by repeated petty jabs.
Do you disagree that this would have been a better way to handle the problem?
RandomHero
Well-known member
A lot of people don't, Richard. However, plenty of people do know what it's like to feel cheated, whether it's based on fact or not. The fact is:
This customer bought some items, and had issues with them.
He made a post in a public forum regarding his experience so far.
You offered the repairs, even refunds, to keep good customer service in mind.
He commended you for your efforts.
Sometimes things just go wrong... it could have been a shipping error instead of a malfunctioning light just as easily.
Everyone on here has seen this all play out.
So in light of all these facts, there's not really a bad guy. It doesn't even appear as though you and the customer have a dispute really, just all these other guys creating the drama based on assumptions.
Business owners have rules in place because, although things can go wrong, you're in business to make money. You're selling yourself as much if not more so than your product. There's obviously plenty of options in your industry, but people should see that you've taken the required actions every step of the way, and leave the drama out of it!
Kudos to Richard for handling this well (in my opinion) and to the consumer for responding again and commending such actions.
There is a conflict of interest. This forum is used by Richard to promote his Cool Lights products. Which is fair since they sponsor DVXUSER. However, it hurts the overall quality of this forum. When someone suggests that there is a problem with a Cool Lights product they are attacked from all sides. I don't think this is fair.
No product is perfect. Cool Lights, Arri, ImageWest will all have weak areas. Some more than others. Trying to deny this is ignorant. I want to know whats going to go wrong, what can go wrong, what to look out for. I want an unbiased review, facts. This broke, this works great.
I do agree that the topic title is a bit much but I found the information here to be helpful and im sure many others did too.
No product is perfect. Cool Lights, Arri, ImageWest will all have weak areas. Some more than others. Trying to deny this is ignorant. I want to know whats going to go wrong, what can go wrong, what to look out for. I want an unbiased review, facts. This broke, this works great.
I do agree that the topic title is a bit much but I found the information here to be helpful and im sure many others did too.