Captain Gsxr's Observations: Halo recessed lighting installation clips: the secret to mounting them

So once again I am contributing the body of knowledge of the internets. If you have a Halo Recessed Lighting fixture and cannot got the clips to hold it to in the ceiling here is the secret.

I got the lights in to the (1/2 inch) ceiling and pushed up on the clips. They would not lock into place. I would push the bottom of the clip and one would hold, but as soon as I went to push on the next one it would slip out of place. I did a search online and saw there were references to this same problem. At first I thought my ceiling was the wrong thickness, but a check of the datasheet showed it was within the range it should work. One post mentioned pre-flexing the clips. I tried this spreading them out from the fixture. This made the situation worse (wouldn't hold at all). I then flexed them down toward the housing. This actually got one of the 4 to lock in place, but this wasn't the solution (the other 3 didn't hold). Finally, I noticed with my repeated attempts at locking the clips in had worn the foam off of the surface of the clip (see the gray foam in the pictures below) and there was the secret. In the second photo you see a raised rectangular bump on the face of the clip. This was hidden by the foam. I placed a screw driver on this bump and pushed up. This push may have been more of a whack with the end of another driver, but this did the trick. Now I reread the documentation and there is no mention of this bump as the place to push this clip into place, which I don't understand why it isn't. Maybe this is an easier way to do it. The bump did it for me. So there is no need to flex the clips. Just push the fixture into place with the clips folded inside the housing. Once it is against the ceiling in place place screw driver on the "bump" and push (or it they are stubborn whack the end of the driver) the clips up, locking them in.

The screw driver pushing up on the bump: