Originally Posted by
discussmith
You see this is why it is difficult to help people here. Someones ego always seems to get bruised because they take offense when the help being offered disagrees with their opinion. I accuse no one of sin only a lack of understanding which I wanted to correct but expected it would possibly not be received as intended. So I will explain. And again I will never revisit this thread as I have no need for the insults or assumptions as to my motives. So do with it whatever you wish.
There have been statements made that are not accurate. I mean nothing personal but will disagree with them. Dropping a glass heater plugged into a properly wired receptacle into your aquarium is not the same as using this device. This device is not classified as double insulated when you add wiring to it that is not part of the original manufacture. The problem lies specifically in not using a polarized plug and then wiring the device switching the neutral and not the hot. This allows current to always be in the heater without the presence of the return neutral. If the heater leaks or ruptures this allows the entire water column to become energized because the electricity has no place to go until you stick your hand in the water and potentially complete the circuit through your body ,or the controller switches making the neutral available. This is not the case when you plug the heater directly into a properly wired receptacle and use the heater internal control. The neutral is always present and will provide a path for the energy should the heater rupture or leak. If you use a polarized connector or better yet a three wire grounded connection and then switch the hot conductor you will always have the neutral present at the heater and only have electrical energy there when the controller sends it. This is why we switch the hot in this country and not the neutral anymore like it was decades ago. In the cause of making things as safe as possible I would recommend a three wire grounded connection with three wire grounded receptacles because then when you get a three wire grounded titanium heater like I have you can plug it in and use it. It will also force the proper polarity when using two wire heaters. Also telling someone to cut off and remove the ground connections even though they may not be currently needed is a deceptive practice and not legal electrically because one assumes when the third terminal exists it is connected, and who knows when someone may actually have a connection that needs it and it's not actually there. I have been on this site since a couple months after its inception and have learned that if you let people make mistakes they will lose some fish but will learn what they need, but electricity does not always give you that second chance. I know electricians who did some simple things , the wrong things, things they should have known better and are dead now because of it. So understand, anyone can get it wrong. If you are going to do this then do it right and do it the safest way you can.