Coralife Power Center.

sps

sps

Reefing newb
This review is for the digital and analog style timers. I bought the digital one about 6 years ago and it instantly went bad. I figured it was just a fluke. Well I bought an analog style last month and it has been running for 2 weeks and it crapped out today. It will not shut my halides off at all. The center dial doesnt even work. The only way to shut it off is to press the main power button. Junk I tell ya. I researched troubleshooting on it and a lot of people have the same issue. One person posted a pic showing the back of the timer states "not for aquarium use". I havnt checked mine yet but the box shows how to use it with a wavemaker. Hmmm... trying to dodge a lawsuite????
 
There are plenty of threads on this forum about their poor performance. I bought one and it didn't even work on day one. One of the members here actually spoke with the company and they said that the digital ones were not made to run MH lights. They can't handle the amount of power going through them.
 
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Ya, I may do that but I am also looking into the RKL form Digital Aquatics. I just dont want 9 small timers under my stand, takes up alot of room.
 
BL1 said:
There are plenty of threads on this forum about their poor performance. I bought one and it didn't even work on day one. One of the members here actually spoke with the company and they said that the digital ones were made to run MH lights. They can't handle the amount of power going through them.
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So do the digital ones perform better now or are they all still junk?
 
sps said:
So do the digital ones perform better now or are they all still junk?
Click to expand...

Sorry I edited my post, The digital ones can't handle MHs plugged into them. To my knowledge they haven't fixed any of the problems with them.
 
sps said:
Ya, I may do that but I am also looking into the RKL form Digital Aquatics. I just dont want 9 small timers under my stand, takes up alot of room.
Click to expand...

OMG yes, why can someone make a timer that doesnt take up more than the space of one plug!!!
 
Only one side of my timers really work and the one that does work is constantly off(time wise). But it does work for my mh, which I guess is good. :)
 
BL1 said:
One of the members here actually spoke with the company and they said that the digital ones were not made to run MH lights. They can't handle the amount of power going through them.
Click to expand...

Okay, that was me. But you have it backwards Brian. I initially had the dual timer power strip. Those are not made to run 250 watt MH. Coral life sent me (free of charge) 2 single digital timers. I have my MH plugged into one, and my T5's plugged into the other. Lunars are running opposite on the T5's on that power strip.

I've had them in place for a year now with not one single issue.

SPS, you need 3 digitals to run your lights, unless you have T5 actinics, then you will need a 4th timer.
 
Ya, I have 3- 250's, power compacts and a fan on the fixture. Total of 5 cords. They really need to state the limitations of these strips. Thanks for the info.
 
sps said:
Ya, I have 3- 250's, power compacts and a fan on the fixture. Total of 5 cords. They really need to state the limitations of these strips. Thanks for the info.
Click to expand...

You're right, they do. I went through 2 of the dual timer powerstrips before calling them and saying "WTF". :frustrat:

But I honestly have had no issues what-so-ever since they sent me the 2 digital power strips.

I plan to install an Apex controller, so that will eliminate the need for these here in a few weeks.
 
I just talked with Coralife and they are sending me 2 digital power centers. They said that the analog has a physical switch that becomes hot and does not function properly when hooked to halides. The digital timers are just that and will not malfunction due to heat transfer. Hope this works.
 
Awesome. That is exactly what they said and did for me. Then I took the bad powerstrip back to the LFS and got credit, lol. Wait, aren't you running 3 MH fixtures?
 
Yes and that is what I told them and she said to hook 2 halides up to one strip and 1 halide up to the other. Oh well, I have learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
 
I purchased the single analog timer power center recently and it seems to work well so far. Under the current instructions they say they corrected some of the issues that were common with them. The outlet covers are now the turning kind versus the sliding kind, I guess to assist with keeping water out and they clearly instruct you to have a drip loop with all of the cords. They also state that the power center is not suitable for use with the MH fixtures. I have two powerheads, skimmer, T5 acentic lighting and the led's on it and with exception of me messing up the settings, it does what it says it would do.
 

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