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

[shadyraro]

Did you plug the heater into the correct plug? Because if you accidently plugged it into the cooler plug it would cook your tank.

 

[gbroadbridge]

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.

If the device is unsafe or does not meet mandatory electrical standards lodge a complaint with:

Product appliance complaint form · WorkSafe New Zealand - Energy Safety

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

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.

Idk about your heaters, but mine never pull whay they are rated for. My 300s pull about 180, but heat at the expected rate and this seems consistent across brands. Maybe I just have bad luck with heaters, but at this point if I got one that actually pulled what its labeled to, I might be worried about using it.

 

[KevEv]

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.

I think the power handling claim is a little grey from Reef Factory. I have read the specs for the Thermo Controller on their web site and they claim that the operating voltage is 100 - 240VAC with a maximum power consumption rating of 1000W.
If you use a power factor of 0.9, which is about average at 1000W, then at 110VAC (USA) that would be a load current of 10.1 Amps, Which should be ok on a 13 Amp supply, but is still much higher than if you were using 230VAC (UK), where the load current would then be much lower at 4.8 Amps.
So, depending on your supply voltage, you could be running at quite a high load if you were pushing the power to the suppliers maximum rating. They should be more informative about this when selling equipment with such a wide supply voltage rating.

 

[Borat]

I think the power handling claim is a little grey from Reef Factory. I have read the specs for the Thermo Controller on their web site and they claim that the operating voltage is 100 - 240VAC with a maximum power consumption rating of 1000W.
If you use a power factor of 0.9, which is about average at 1000W, then at 110VAC (USA) that would be a load current of 10.1 Amps, Which should be ok on a 13 Amp supply, but is still much higher than if you were using 230VAC (UK), where the load current would then be much lower at 4.8 Amps.
So, depending on your supply voltage, you could be running at quite a high load if you were pushing the power to the suppliers maximum rating. They should be more informative about this when selling equipment with such a wide supply voltage rating.

This makes perfect sense!