IntermaticCL635R Malibu Low Voltage Metal Capped 20-Watt Landscape Bollard Light, Black

I purchased 20 of these bollard style lights to line our yard. Amazon had the best price by far. I initially liked them because they had a different look than the traditional pagoda style. However, I was more impressed with their construction: die-cast metal bollard with metal screw-on stake and glass lens. These lights are built to last it seems and they were easy to install with the clip-on connectors. So for the short-term they are great but only time will tell if this was a good choice for the long-term. Highly Recommend.

Halper stated it best. Yes, I bought these--about 10 years ago. They were very attractive for my front yard decor. But "Oh dear" how they were going to make me crazy! I bought them one at a time. Maybe two, at one point. Ended up with 5 in my yard but purchased 7 before I just started returning for replacement. TWO major problems. Where the lamp inserted--which was well above ground and enclosed, corroded badly. You could no longer get the lamp bulbs to insert. And the lamps, which were not cheap, would go out way sooner than would be normally expected. As they corroded, the bulb stems would break off. I purchased mine at Lowes and Home Depot. Eventually, they no longer carried the Malibu brand, but still have the same looking lamp, by another company. I would touch it with a 50' pole!! Absolute crap! I don't care how attractive you might think they are.

I have several sets of these metal bollard style low voltage lights. They look great.But perhaps most importantly they stand up to foul weather and heavy traffic. I have them lining my garden walk. Not inefrequently the dogs will run over them, I will kick them, or one will get hit by a wheel barrow. They stand up to the punishment. I note that after a few years the black surface needs renewing.As is true with all low voltage, the weakness in these units is their electrical coonection. Unlike plastic lights, however, once a connection is made, it remains made!

When I first wired my backyard, almost eight years ago, I put in a dozen of these lights. They looked good, but didn't last too long.Pro:- Look great for a while.- Easy to install- InexpensiveHere's what went wrong:- Aluminum corrodes. In some cases, the stake almost completely dissolved an inch underground. In others, the screw thread joining the top section to the post corroded and the sections couldn't be separated to replace a burned-out light. And in still others, the sections could be separated, but wouldn't firmly fasten together again.- The bottom is open for ventilation. Bugs get inside and carry dirt with them. The lamp reflectors serve nicely to push the falling dirt up against the bulb, which then promptly burns out...the lamps run very hot and it's important that the heat pass through glass instead of heating the glass. (Hence the warning not to touch the bulb when installing. The oil from your fingers interferes with the heat transmission.)- If they last, the black paint eventually turns gray and flakes off.A couple of people mentioned that they've had a hard time finding bulbs. That's surprising as they're standard MR-16 bulbs, available in all the big box stores, almost every hardware store (at least those where I looked!) and on-line at here at Amazon. (See  Halogen Light Bulb, MR-16, BAB, GX5.3 Base, 12 Volts, 20 Watt, 36° Flood  for one of many choices.) LED bulbs also work, but you need to be careful that you leave some regular incandescent bulbs on the lamp string...with only LED Lamps, the load is too low and the standard transformer's output voltage can rise and substantially shorten the life of the LEDs.

Purchased 3 of them from Amazon. One didn't work at all. Second one, the lamp burned out instantly. Third one, the lamp burned out within an hour. I purchased replacement lamps ($6/ea) at store, which were clearly of much better quality. Also purchased from Home Depot a replacement bollard for the one from Amazon that didn't work at all (totally not worth the time and expense to return through mail to Amazon). The packaging was better for the Home Depot unit. The Amazon unit packaging appeared cheaper, foreign-source. The units themselves are good (once working), but I question the supply source of the Amazon-shipped units.

After having many different types of landscape lighting over the years, we believe we have finally found the type for us. The lights seems to be sturdy and less likely to break or fall apart when accidently kicked or bumped into. They were much cheaper ($4-5 less)at Amazon then the local hardware/box stores.

We bought these to replace plastic Malibu lights that had lasted for many years but were starting to show their age. We thought that by buying the metal lamps they would last even longer. The two problems that I have with the lamps are the plastic clips to connect them to the wires are very difficult to pierce the wire and the clips can come lose.But my biggest complaint is that the cylinder is separate from the base and screws onto it with little "nubs". These nubs have a tendency to break off if bumped by a foot, ball, lawnmower or even heavy snow. Once these have broken off the lights will no longer stay on the base and fall off.We bought 2 of these systems for our back and front yards. After only a couple years they are almost all broken. I would recommend looking at a different model.

Very well made lights. I bought these as replacements for the low end plastic ones and have been quite happy with them. Of course the bulbs are more expensive.