We use Mega Ray's on all three of our dragons, 1 160, and 2 100's. We have been using them for about 18 months and they are great. We rescued a dragon that was 3 years old and never had any UVB. His xrays showed very little bone structure as you can imagine. He has improved 100 fold since the Mega Ray. I have had one bad light and they were great at shipping another right away. Great customer service. But I guess it's not bad if some people get turned off of them because then we won't have to wait for them to produce more!!
I really like the Solar Glo's. I am running 8 of them and have only had a minor issue with the contact on the side wearing down and not touching the socket so I have to play with it to get it to come on. I've sent them back and had them replaced once before and their service was very fast, around a week turn around time. My Mega Ray only lasted 7 months and the Repti Suns are small and don't put out enough heat. Best part about the Solar Glo's is that they only cost $25 at Reptile Supply. Nice.
I have been hearing about people with this issue. It seems to be fixed when you get a ceramic base fixture rated for at least twice what the wattage of the bulb is. This is also the general rule for MVB's. Ill find out soon enough when my new megaray gets here.
I have a question to those that have had issues with the Megaray,are you purchasing direct for reptileuv.com or a secondary source? I ask this because I wonder if maybe that could be the issue.I have been using Megarays for years ,replaced them at the year mark for all my tanks and have never had even a hiccup with them.I know for a fact that each bulb is supposed to be tested before it gets shipped and I have to say I am totally shocked to hear that they even made you pay shipping for the new replacement.I hate seeing people upset by these bulb situations because truthfully I have never come across any other UV bulb that holds a candle to the output these bulbs do.Hopefully its a simple case of buying from a secondary vendor because at least it might explain it a bit.
I personally have gone through several mega ray bulbs between myself two reptile enclosures and I have never had a problem with them at all and Bob from ReptileUV has always been extremely helpful.
I'm pretty sure that you can only get the Mega-Ray through ReptileUV.com Its likely that whatever problems people are having are due to broken filaments which would be because of damage during shipping or improper handling. Has anyone who has had problems contacted Bob about the fact that the bulbs burnt out right away? I trust the Mega Ray bulbs. I have never had a problem except one broken filament which was my fault because gave the bulb a good shaking by dropping the dome light.
I had a 100w SB Mega Ray, it lasted about 9 months. I just replaced it with a Solar Glo because Mega Ray's are back ordered currently and I needed a MVB asap.
a bit off topic, but from the replies i've read amongst various topics, solarglo seems to be a dependable MVB. so does the order go: 1)megaray , 2) trex, 3) solar-glo, 4)powersun?