If your considering a Coralife Digital Power Center...

[livebait]

If you are looking into getting a timer for your lights or other equipment and are considering the Coralife programmable power center save yourself $10-$20 bucks and pick up a GE digital 7 day programmable timer instead. It's the exact same unit @ half the cost in most cases. I bought my Coralife timer at PetcSmart for $41 last month. Yesterday while shopping for DIY project parts I found the GE timer for $20.
GE 7 Day, 8 Outlet Power Saving Strip Timer - 15077 at The Home Depot
Coralife Aqualight Digital Power Center - Lighting & Hoods - Fish - PetSmart
These are essentially the exact the same unit and really the only difference is the brand name. Even the instruction booklet is formatted the same. I'm betting that Coralife is licensed to use GE products and all of thier lights are driven by GE ballasts as well. But that is purely spectulation on my part.
As the time I've spent in this part of the hobby increases I'm learning to shop around more and to put in the time to research equal replacements or DIY.

 

[kospaintball]

actually the GE one has 2 features that the coralife doesn't... Ge has rotating outlets and has 4 independantly timed outlets where as the coralife has 4 always on and then the 4 programable are 2 for day time 2 for nights. As far as i know (i had one ) if the daylight outlets are on, the nighttime outlets are off

 

[BobBursek]

My Coralife timer lasted about 6 months and I have read about fires with them, but I do not know if they where the cause of the fires or just happened to be the PS in use at the time.

 

[kospaintball]

i got water spilled on mine and it light up and started to catch fire... thank god i was right there and was able to unplug it

 

[livebait]

i got water spilled on mine and it light up and started to catch fire... thank god i was right there and was able to unplug it

That would likely happen to any power supply not plugged into a GFI wouldn't it?

 

[livebait]

My Coralife timer lasted about 6 months and I have read about fires with them, but I do not know if they where the cause of the fires or just happened to be the PS in use at the time.

I read about the fires as well but all of the cases I read had to do with the power center that had the turn dial and most of those authors were passing on second/third/fourth hand stories.

 

[livebait]

actually the GE one has 2 features that the coralife doesn't... Ge has rotating outlets and has 4 independantly timed outlets where as the coralife has 4 always on and then the 4 programable are 2 for day time 2 for nights. As far as i know (i had one ) if the daylight outlets are on, the nighttime outlets are off

My point..a little better function at half the cost but still basically the same unit.

 

[1Reefer]

Thank you livebait! I use the coralife units and jut spilt water on both of them.... it killed the timer asspect but they still have constant power to all outlets (even. The timed ones are constant now). And kospaint is right.... on corallifes if your "day" or yellow plug slot is on your "night" or blue plug WILL NOT turn on. The blue slots just auto turn on after whatever is plugged into the yellow slots turns off...... those home depot models will work way better for me and I like the black better! Lol thanks again livebait

 

[BobBursek]

Correction/better info, the Coralife timers I had a problem with and read others may have had too were not the digital ones, they where the analog ones.

 

[kospaintball]

im sure if you spilt water on most outlets they would pop lol but i was just saying what happened to mine haha.

 

[WVUReefer]

I had the coralife and it did only last about 6 months before the timers quit working..

 

[kospaintball]

did you try replacing the battery? the timer isn't ran from electricity via the plug. on the bottom there is a spot you can open up, and in there is a battery that powers the timers