Otto Controllers??

[discussmith]

I have not used the otto control but have used the jalli brand and have experienced the failures that others mentioned. In one case though the failure was due to a titanium element that was not properly sealed and water eventually got into the line voltage connections and could have taken out the control. I now place a 120 volt relay ahead of the heating load. This isolates the control from damage due to shorts and overloads, while also allowing me to control over 1000 watts of heater load as it is now based on the relays load capacity as opposed to the control. This also allows me to use any crappy type heater I have access to(which seems most all are these days). This is really not as difficult a do it yourself project as one might imagine. Ice cube type relays are readily available in multiple pole configurations and using a 10 amp 3 pole relay one could control 30 amps of heat if needed. That amounts to 3600 watts at 120 volts. I doubt any of us need that much yet. It amounts to using the control to energize the relay as opposed to sending current to the heaters. Thus the control never sees any load other than the tiny load of the relay's magnetic coil. The relay in the control is most likely electronic and very limited to load capacity and the triggering mechanism is susceptable to damage from spikes,surges in the electrical system or lightning. I build my own Ranco controls which are rock solid and the best you can get, but the price of the base unit before adding the power in and out components is more than twice the cost of the regularly priced jalli or otto units. The upgrade cost to the cheaper units is the relay ($8-$15) and a cheap lumber yard extention cord usually <$3 and any electrical box and cover $2-$3. Any 101 type basic electrical instructional book would have the info on how to wire.

[jeep]

I think 10 months of use to date is long enough to highly recommend these units, although you may need to make some adjustments to get the temp much above 91 even with a powerful heater...

[2sybs]

Ok ultralifedirect.com seems to be out of stock now. I can't find them on their site now. I just recieved mine and it seems to work so far. All they had left were the 300w ones (six left when I ordered it) Wish I had gotten 2 of them now.
I was using the Won Pro Heat and wasn't sure which to believe on temp readings, It or my 2 coralife digitals. Now I am more inclined to go with the readings on the coralife ones. The ProHeat always read high as stated earlier but just recently it has gone even higher, reading and shutting off the heat at 96 deg. as I kept adjusting it higher while the others were reading even lower down to about 81 deg.
I am using the Pro heat 300W titanium element with the Otto, plugs right in, no dicing or splicing.
But I do like the idea of the relay so I have the option to add more heat for the winter on my 75gal. and looking at some now.

Ps: This is my first post here and I wanted to thank you all for all the great info.
Ray

[markstr]

Ok,
I just got mine delivered. Unfortunantly, these are only the 300 watters since that is
all they had at the time. Got 5 of them..
Now,
I'm still trying to get this straight, I have an Ebo Jager 200 watter on one..
So, do I set the Ebo on say like 84 degrees and then what on the Controller???
Or, does it make any diff what I set the Ebo on Since it's being run through the Controller and I just set it at the Desired Temp.???

[GC_PAUL]

Markstr
Set the Ebo heater to its highest setting, use the otto controller for your temp set.If nervous about setting the Ebo on full just set it about 90

[markstr]

Thanks GC Paul,
Seems easy enough. I had heard a while back about setting one or the
other to it's Highest temp....