Reef Factory Temp controller nearly cooked my tank and burnt down my house ..... smoke and fire....do you have one?

[Dukereefnz]

As the title says the Temp controller heated my tank to 31deg - and then started smoking and my stand caught on fire.
If you have one of these controllers I would be worried....

I liked the Reef factory controller as I could monitor the temp on my phone, problem is you can not turn of the power to stop the temp rising as it slowly cooked my tank.

The wife was able to stop the tank from cooking and turn of the power, the cabinet was full of smoke and the controller had started melting. The cabinet was burning and smoking.. left unchecked this could have been very bad. I had 2 x 500watt heaters plugged in.

I contacted Reef Factory and they asked how many watts were my heaters.... I said 1000watts - they said it is rated for 1000watts but my heater may have drawn more than 1000watts and caused this problem. So I am told it could be my fault.

As I purchased this from overseas... RF said they do not support New Zealand.
I paid $70 to send the unit back so they could see what was wrong with it... you would have thought they would have sent me a new one correct? NO... they have not decided if they will replace it yet. Why did I waste $70 sending this back. I actually liked RF and wanted to do good by them but multiple emails and I have got no where.

This controller cost over $350 NZ dollars plus the cost to send it back, so I am out of pocket a lot of money.
An inkbird temp controller cost $70 NZ.

On a positive note RF have replied to my emails - they just do not agree that this should be replaced under warrantee.
Did I mention it has only been in use 6 months and is about 12 months old.

I am not happy with how this has been handled. I have purchased a lot of RF gear, not sure what I will be doing moving forward. But I will keep this post updated.

 

[Tim'sReef]

That sucks. Glad youre tank or even worse house didnt burn down. I have the d&d temp controller and while it doesn't connect to the internet I'm very pleased with it.

I'm no electrical expert but shouldn't there be a protection build in the software so when there is more power drawn that it's rated for it turns of by default. Seems like something that could be easily done on the programming part but as stated not an electrical expert so don't know how that would work with the device and wiring.

 

[Dukereefnz]

I agree the unit has built in fuses, but they did not work, looks like they melted and did not blow.
The unit was mounted well away from water - so there was no possibility that this was caused by water.

The only thing I could have done wrong was plugging in 1000watts of heaters (2 x 500w) and they drew more than 1000watts and the thing melted. That's what RF say. They said when they receive it IF they think it was not my fault they will send my a replacement. That means I will not have a temp controller for months.

Would you trust another RF unit?
Maybe they need to change the advertising from 1000watts too 600watts so the unit can handle the extra draw?
I would have thought the engineering team would have built in some safety margin? If it drew over 1000watts the fuse should have blown? Very strange.

I am looking at the

Temperature Controller ITC-308-WIFI unit.​

This can be monitored on your phone - costs bugger all - does the same thing.
Rated for 1100watts. My only concern is the stainless steel temp probe... I am told you can get a plastic replacement.

 

[Dukereefnz]

d&d temp controller... what is this option?

 

[byront]

D&D looks to only have UK plug options and so may not play well with Nz fused sockets.

Pretty sure the Inkbird 306A is the one you want with the two temp sensors and is still Wi-Fi enabled

 

[findingsimple]

oh no that sucks.

I’ve got one with 2*600w - I’m thinking I need to rethink this

 

[Tim'sReef]

d&d temp controller... what is this option?

This is the one I use. Would use it on any of my tanks. Mine has a EU plug and reading above there are UK options as well. Don't know if there are plugs for New Zealand available. If not I heard good things about the inkbird but have not used it myself.

 

[mtraylor]

Wow. Sad to here that. If the the unit is rated at 1000w then there has to be some form factor built in you would think. How efficient is the unit rated? Is there a power factor rating? What does it say on box besides 1000w? From consumer perspective. If it's rated at 1000w and you plugged in 2 500w heaters. It's clear you should be covered and not your fault. I wouldn't think they expect a consumer to figure out PF, etc.. from the heater you plugged in etc. I would concentrate my investigation on the fuse in the unit and what size it is to see if it's Engineered correctly. How many amps? Sounds like it should have blown if it had too much current being drawn. If it melted, that's exactly y what the fuse is supposed to do when it gets hot to break the circuit. The whole thing sounds like it's faulty unit and not your fault. I would be scared to use there products and they clearly do not back their product

 

[Dburr1014]

1000w controller powering 1000w heaters... How is this your fault? Were you supposed to monitor the draw?
What is the warrenty on it?


Inkbird stainless steel probe can be wrapped in shrink tubing. It rusts where the water meets air. This is why I used shrink tubing.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

I agree the unit has built in fuses, but they did not work, looks like they melted and did not blow.
The unit was mounted well away from water - so there was no possibility that this was caused by water.

The only thing I could have done wrong was plugging in 1000watts of heaters (2 x 500w) and they drew more than 1000watts and the thing melted. That's what RF say. They said when they receive it IF they think it was not my fault they will send my a replacement. That means I will not have a temp controller for months.

Would you trust another RF unit?
Maybe they need to change the advertising from 1000watts too 600watts so the unit can handle the extra draw?
I would have thought the engineering team would have built in some safety margin? If it drew over 1000watts the fuse should have blown? Very strange.

I am looking at the

Temperature Controller ITC-308-WIFI unit.​

This can be monitored on your phone - costs bugger all - does the same thing.
Rated for 1100watts. My only concern is the stainless steel temp probe... I am told you can get a plastic replacement.

This is what I use. But you need to find the plastic probe model

 

[Captain_Pugwash]

Looks like you dodged a bullet on this one! Wouldn't touch their controllers again, clearly a major design flaw if this can happen. Would have expected a better response from them considering their potential liability if your house burn down!

I've used Inkbird for years, both freshwater and salt, never had any issues or failures. Also the metal probe hasn't rusted after several years in salt. Bought a plastic probe and never got around to changing it over as it's a bit of a hassle.

 

[fodsod]

I run the Ink Bird unit with the dual plastic temp sensors (blue one). It works pretty good but the alerts that should be coming to my phone if there is an issue have never worked for me reliably for some reason. YMMV.

 

[Borat]

Question is : have you learnt your lesson? If you need to use 1000w - split it into 3-4 smaller heaters and connect them to multiple controllers (not to a single one) - if one fails to switch off, it wont cook your tank.

 

[Dukereefnz]

Borat... that is a very good question.
And well worth thinking about.
I agree that this is the best approach.

I think 2 x inkbirds and 2 x heaters would be a much better option .

 

[TheBear78]

I think 2 x inkbirds and 2 x heaters would be a much better option .

This sounds like a good plan from a redundancy point of view, especially with the various notifications available from the Inkbird.
Obviously they can be calibrated to match but there's no guarantee that they would operate in harmony and I wonder if that would cause problems.
Is a single 500w heater enough to get to temperature?

 

[Borat]

This sounds like a good plan from a redundancy point of view, especially with the various notifications available from the Inkbird.
Obviously they can be calibrated to match but there's no guarantee that they would operate in harmony and I wonder if that would cause problems.
Is a single 500w heater enough to get to temperature?

They don't need to kick-in both at the same time. You can have a small temp differential allowing one to kick in first, before the second one is triggered by a further small temp drop.

I have once almost fried my tank (I have 200w and 300w - mostly for redundancy) as my DIY controller lost the heartbeat. Previously I thought it's a good idea to turn both heaters on (it is not a good idea) - now my controller turns on heater one and if after 30 mins it fails to bring the temperature slightly up, it switches that heater off and turns another on. It's impossible to significantly overheat my tank with just one heater - and I have 2 heaters just as a redundancy, should one of the heaters simply stop working.

 

[Dukereefnz]

Great Idea... I need to work out the best way to do this....
2 x Inkbird controllers and 2 heaters.

If one heater or controller stops working the other will still work....
If one controller locks the heater on, then the other will turn off and the tank will not over heat... I will test it to make sure 500watt can not over heat my tank.

If 500watt can over heat the tank then I will drop the wattage down to 300watt....x 2

 

[TheBear78]

They don't need to kick-in both at the same time. You can have a small temp differential allowing one to kick in first, before the second one is triggered by a further small temp drop.

No doubt I'm over thinking it but...
If one heater is enough to raise the temp a little then a second might never come on.
If one heater isn't enough to raise the temperature then both would come on but when the first one cuts out the second may never turn off...
I'll say no more until someone tries it!
Promise.

 

[Crustaceon]

That's pretty terrible on their part if they state the controller is rated to 1000w and you're running 1000w worth of heaters. That speaks "false advertising" to me. Sorry company but if you're going to state that, you need to build a margin of safety in your product beyond that and I highly doubt the heaters were pulling much more than the rated 1000w. Odds are they're pulling less than 1000w because THAT company wants to stay safe. I would almost consider swapping out those heaters for a few minutes and testing them on an electricity usage monitor that displays amperage and documenting that. You might be able to get some reimbursement here.

 

[Reefing102]

Even though you’re in NZ @Reef Factory USA is a sponsor here and may be able to help? Possibly. I do agree with others, not seeing how it would be your fault