C.A.P. MLC-4X failure?? Anyone else have this issue

[turtle farmer]

My CAP MLC-4X seems to have gone haywire,I'm just not sure.
Has this happened to you?? What do they do when going bad?
My ballasts and bulbs plugged into the left side are dead. One bulb looked like it was welding itself for a few seconds before it died.
No burnt smells. And I've checked everything from the panel to the controller. No loose wires or grounds.

 

[DAVES NOT HERE]

Did you open the controller and check the connections inside? CAP went out of business. I presume you have it wired 220v. How many amp 220 breaker is feeding it. I remember rives saying that the internal components are suspect and o only feed with a 20 amp circuit.

 

[MR_Falcon]

I had one that fried & melted. very lucky I was there to flip the breaker. low grade components, company is now long out of business. replace it w/ a sentinel or an autopilot or the likes ASAP. good luck.

 

[noone88]

The relay is broken.

I've had many of these power centers fail on me. And the first sign of failure is the outlets do not energize. I have had 4 sentinel hph-8's fail (out of 10ish). Seems to happen around year 3-5. I don't know if it's a quality issue.

Replace immediately. The whole unit will stop working and you will have a short.

 

[hvac guy]

Another reason for failure is "chattering". Small particles get trapped inside and don't allow the contactor to fully close when energized, try and take the contactor apart and clean like in this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3PKU96Qw2U. A good way to remove any residue inside the contactor is to use some 99% Isopropyl alcohol and clean all the surface areas.

In the future find a sparky who will build you a lighting controller that is NEC/CEC compliant. The ones from Sentinel, CAP, Titan, etc are not compliant and will fail a ESA inspection.

 

[turtle farmer]

First off,,a huge thank you to the four of you for responding.
I was smoking with a lot of people at the Emerald Cup and have been very sick since then.
I did open the CAP controller...no loose wires or connections and no burnt smell. I have not pulled any components that far.. It's dated 11/09 inside,Quite old...
It's wired 220 on a 30 amp breaker...(might swap out for a 20 amp)
I did swap the CAP controller out for a Titan...Until a lighting controller can be made.
All is well for now and thanks again you guys..

 

[hvac guy]

Just find a sparky to build you a lighting controller into a 50A or 60A loadcenter, then you can have separate breakers rated for each receptacle, unlike CAP, Sentinel, Titan, Powerbox, Autopilot etc, they all daisychain the multiple 15A receptacles in their lighting controllers to 40A, 50A, or 60A main breaker, this is a violation of NEC/CEC criteria, even with a UL/CSA listing, the NEC/CEC supercedes that.

 

[northstate]

C.R.A.P! I had one on a 30A and walked in and smelled burning electrical, turned off the breaker and the front was melting. Just glad I was there too. hvac guy is telling some truth and it shouldn't cost much to have a "friendly" electrician set you up.

 

[hvac guy]

You can send me a PM and I can build you a NEC/CEC compliant lighting controller.

 

[KONY]

Wish I saw this thread 6 months ago. Bought one of these and finally getting around to installing it.

 

[_tessarecting]

Return it...this company went out of business...their stuff sucks

 

[clown baby]

CAP used to be the cheapest gear out there. Also the lowest quality. I remember working retail and CAP gear was always being returned. I have PTSD of people yelling at me on the phone because their cheap ass CAP ebb n grow control buckets would fail all the time.

you get what you pay for.

 

[TreehouseJ]

Ugh.. I've been using the mlc-4x for a couple years. Guess it's time to throw it out before it fails. Thank god someone dug this one up.

 

[KONY]

Ugh.. I've been using the mlc-4x for a couple years. Guess it's time to throw it out before it fails. Thank god someone dug this one up.

Yup... dont really know what to do with mine, it's brand new, but 6 months old so i cant return to amazon. I feel like its wrong to sell it to someone. I guess I could sell it to them but make sure they know its not safe/ideal, but then who's going to buy it.

 

[TreehouseJ]

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=234099&page=8

Saw this today. These things just melt apparently. I wonder if the mlc-4x was straw that broke the horses (c.a.p's) back. I'm not all that happy with my xgc-1e either. The thermostat and humidistat are total garbage, and I'd be real surprised if the co2 monitor was worth a damn. I'd be surprised if it wasn't also a fire hazard. Back to the drawing board..