Marineland PA0401 Aqua-Timer with 24-hr Cycle, Grounded

I was using these timers to control my 9W UV sterilizer and T5 HO lights. The timer with the UV sterilizer caught fire. I have posted some pictures in the customer image section. I am really fortunate that my house did not burned down due to this incident. But there was soot everywhere and it took us hours to clean this up. And the burned plastic smell lingered around the house for days. And my poor wife, who did most of the cleaning, complained of sore throat for couple of days. When I contacted Marineland about this incident, they told me that they would gladly replace the timers but nothing more. You have to be kidding me. If you decide to buy one of these, make sure you have at least a smoke detector near the fish tank.

I have just started to use this timer, and I see from some of the reviews that there is a quality control issue that is possibly a problem. I will report later on it after I have used it awhile. But first impressions out of the box are a full 5 stars. I will also say that am I not using it for an aquarium purpose, but instead to run a fractional horsepower domestic hot water circulating pump in my house. The three pronged grounded outlet, and relatively high amperage rating of 15 amps enables this device to be used for a much greater load than aquarium lights, so with the excellent design of the face and plug-in receptacles, I decided to use it for my hot water circulator.

I was first impressed with the layout of the plugs and timer face. It is very well thought out and the timer can be inserted into an electrical outlet without encroaching on the other outlets. The next feature that I appreciated was the use of highly visible black markings with a very crisp font against a white face. This makes reading and setting the timer the easiest I have ever encountered. The "time of day" indicator is a bold black triangle which is highly visible. In addition to clearly showing the times of day on the universal 0-24 scale, it also shows the night time hours as shaded for additional clarity, and has a large directional arrow to tell you which way the dial is rotating. This, and the time of day marker, are visible on the face of the dial from some distance.

Time increments are 15 minutes, and are set on or off by depressing small gray tangs which are located around the rotating clock face. The tangs are very easy to set with a pointed object like a pen, and have a large range of movement when depressed, so again, very easy to see what times you have selected. With the 15 minute interval between tangs, you could conceivably have many on-off cycles per day (one every 15 minutes), or as few as 2, or none. It also has a manual override switch on the top, which enables the user to bypass the clock feature and have it always "on".

Which brings me to the only thing so far that I do not like about this timer the marking on the manual override switch on the top. The switch slides between the right and the left, and when moved to the right it reveals a symbol of clock, and to the left a symbol of solid black line (presumably for a completed circuit to be always on). But when the switch is moved to the right and the clock symbol is displayed, the timer is actually on a manual "always on" setting. To the left with the continuous line displayed, the timer operates on the time clock. So the markings are exactly opposite from what the user would expect. I will fix this by marking the sliding switch with a permanent marker to indicate which state it is in.

The timer has a UL stamp, which means is has undergone strict testing in a lab for electrical safety, but of course this is no absolute guarantee against poor quality control from the manufacturer.

On balance, and for the price, I would highly recommend this product.

UPDATE, June 3, 2011: The timer has now been in use for some time now, and has performed flawlessly. No problems to report, and the above review comments still stand.

UPDATE, February 12, 2012: No problems, review comments still stand.

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I needed a timer for the light above my turtle's aquarium and I'm glad I chose this one. It has the fittings for a three-pronged plug, unlike other timers I've seen. It works great and it's silent. In fact, I thought it was broken at first because it didn't make any noise. Lastly, it doesn't block the other plug, unlike other timers I've seen.

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I had this crappy timer for one day. It worked just fine for the first day, then the next it ended up blowing out my aquarium light (the aquarium was a brand new setup.) And, the timer stopped working the second day.

The directions are confusing and it is not a well made product. Do yourself a favor and buy a Brinks timer instead.

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My experience could be a rare one, but each of the four timers I bought constantly shut off. These timers work with pressure switches instead of toggle switches, so there must be constant pressure on the switch to engage the electricity and turn on the light/pump/whatever. On the center rotating piece, there are little pins, each indicating 15 minutes of "on" time when they are pushed down. In my situation, each of the pins that I pushed down wiggled a lot. They all did this, so I thought nothing of it. Anyway... as the timer ran, and the center timer rotated, rubbing the 'engaged' (pushed down) pins it somehow wiggled the pins apart just enough to disengage and turn my light off. EVERY 15 MINUTES! It would eventually turn itself back on, but only after about 10 minutes, and after about 15 more minutes, it would do it again for ten minutes. It keeps time well, which is unusual for inexpensive timers, but it just wouldn't stay on for me. I will be returning and expect a full refund (as is consistent with Amazon return service).

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