help with coralife power center.

[thecodfather]

Hi everyone, i just bought the coralife powercenter and im having difficulties with it. i put my 10k daylight first then my atinic then my lunar lights, in that sequence. i put the 10k from 7:30a.m. to 9:00p.m. in time cycle 1, i put the atinic from 7:00a.m to 10:30p.m. in time cycle 2, and my lunar lights from 10:30p.m. to 7:00a.m. in time cycle 3. i know i have 7 time cycles but i only need it for 3. Can somebody tell me what im doing wrong?

[usmcsgt]

That is because those are for setting up different lighting cycles you set it to one of the settings and the on time turns the yellow outlets on and the off time turns the blue sockets on (i.e. for the lunars). Oh by the way those coralife power centers are known to malfunction and catch fire.

[jmorgret]

I'll chime in here, I got one recently as well. There are two yellow outlets and two blue outlets. You set the time "on" and "off" for one cycle and that is what time the yellow outlets come on, when the cycle ends the blue automatically come on. The problem is you can't have one of the yellows come on first (for actinics), they just come on at the same time. So I have my two day lights in the yellow and my moon lights in the blue. For awhile what I did was ran a second regular timer in one of the always "on" outlets and plugged in my actinics there, then had that turn on about an hour before the regular lights. It's a pain. What makes mine worse is whenever the power is interupted and I have to reprogram it, it won't turn the daylight lights on until the following day (so if it is 2pm and the cycle is 9am-9pm, it won't turn back on until 9am the next day), unless I program the clock for one minute before the cycle starts, let the minute go, the lights come on, then I reprogram the clock to the right time. I was very disappointed with this thing.

[cubber]

Every one of these things that I buy ends up getting hosed in a few months. The original ones with the dial would break if you adjusted them after a power outage, and the digital ones just stop working right for some reason or another. They are supposed to have a one year warranty but I have never been able to get ESU to replace one for me. I have stopped wasting my money on them and just buy outdoor timers at the hardware store for 8 bucks now. They are much more durable, waterproof, and easy to set.

[papagimp]

I have had one for over a year now, and I have to agree with everyone here. I got it thinking I could set the time on each of those plugs. Nope. The "7" times you can adjust are for setting up different times for the on and off feature for different days of the week, or different times of the day. But it's always going to be yellow outlets on, blue off . Or vise versa. Wasted money in my opinion. I'll be getting the cheaper outdoor timers in the future.

[jgoodrich71]

Originally posted by thecodfather
Can somebody tell me what im doing wrong?

Originally posted by thecodfather
i just bought the coralife powercenter

Isn't it obvious!

[mikeandjenn99]

yeah, not a very good design. Pretty much wasted money. I do think we should all stop bashing them for catching on fire though. Pretty much any power strip can and probably will catch on fire when saltwater runs down into it. Doesn't have anything to do with it being a Coralife one. Now if they just tended to burst into flame, we'd have a different story.

[ashrem]

Hate bashing a product but gotta agree, the coralife is not worth the money. After about 3 months my lights would not come on on time, they would go off at the right time. About 3 months later they wont go off. As for the fire hazard, luckily I havent experienced it but try a search on reefcentral and some threads on it.

[cubber]

These are what I use:

http://electrical.hardwarestore.com/...er-153502.aspx

Can usually find them at most hardware stores and the evil walmart for around 8-10 dollars. They got a protective cover and the outlet is located on the bottom of the timer. Very nice design! 3 of these will cost you about the same or a bit less than the coralife one.

[dippin61]

Originally posted by mikeandjenn99
yeah, not a very good design. Pretty much wasted money. I do think we should all stop bashing them for catching on fire though. Pretty much any power strip can and probably will catch on fire when saltwater runs down into it. Doesn't have anything to do with it being a Coralife one. Now if they just tended to burst into flame, we'd have a different story.

there are stories of them just catching on fire, without having water go into them.

and if they had a built in gfci, they wouldnt have those problems..

[usmcsgt]

Originally posted by jmorgret
I'll chime in here, I got one recently as well. There are two yellow outlets and two blue outlets. You set the time "on" and "off" for one cycle and that is what time the yellow outlets come on, when the cycle ends the blue automatically come on. The problem is you can't have one of the yellows come on first (for actinics), they just come on at the same time. So I have my two day lights in the yellow and my moon lights in the blue. For awhile what I did was ran a second regular timer in one of the always "on" outlets and plugged in my actinics there, then had that turn on about an hour before the regular lights. It's a pain. What makes mine worse is whenever the power is interupted and I have to reprogram it, it won't turn the daylight lights on until the following day (so if it is 2pm and the cycle is 9am-9pm, it won't turn back on until 9am the next day), unless I program the clock for one minute before the cycle starts, let the minute go, the lights come on, then I reprogram the clock to the right time. I was very disappointed with this thing.

Isnt that what I said but in simpler terms!!!

[Krazy]

I've been wanting to get rid of mine as when it switches the lights on or off it doesnt sound right inside the unit, I'm gonna go with the one they sell at home depot, its digital and around 15 bucks