I have two MistKing misting systems, a starter driving 6 heads on my 120 gallon display vivarium, and an ultimate that drives 20 heads on my main display wall. I use cheap Exo Terra nozzles since I started with Monsoons and just replaced the pump and reservoirs. Despite being quite happy with the performance of the misting systems, I was looking for an improvement in the timer, both from a programmability perspective, as well as providing an easier way to manually trigger the pump. After discovering that MistKing was offering a new timer in the fall of 2015, I bought two of their new RCT-24 timers, a “repeat cycle timer”.

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Unpacking the MistKing RCT-24

The retail packaging is really nice. Here’s the box:
 

 
When you open the box, you find the directions up top:
 

 
Under the instructions is the misting timer and two velcro pads:
 

 
The misting timer is constructed nicely, as a single proprietary connector, power supply, and misting timer unit:
 

 
The instructions are double sided, and fairly detailed:
 
 
 
The legend was helpful getting situated with the controller icons:
 

Installing the MistKing RCT-24

Here’s the original power connector that leads from the power supply to the misting pump on one of my units:
 

 
And here is the connection after installing the RCT-24 timer:
 

Programming the MistKing RCT-24

Since this was my first RCT unit I had a bit of a learning curve with programming. The directions were fairly clear, but they still left me confused on the first pass. The confusing part for me was setting (1) the duration of the misting cycle and (2) the time between misting periods. For this unit, “start” is the duration of the misting cycle, while “stop” is the time between misting cycles. In my example I set a 30 second misting cycle, and a four hour period between misting cycles. Here you can see a test running at the 22 second mark on the misting cycle:
 

 
When the misting cycle completes, the “start” value returns to the full cycle setting of 30 seconds, and the “stop” value starts counting down until the next misting cycle:
 

 
Cool stuff. It was pretty easy to setup once I got past the confusion between “start” and “stop”. I installed the unit on my display vivarium right out front for all to see:
 

 
Right on the front bezel of my hood:
 

 
One of the coolest features of the new RCT-24 is the ability to trigger a manual misting cycle. Press and hold the up arrow for 5 seconds and the mister turns on. Continue holding the button and the mister keeps running until you release it. Here’s an image of the unit while in a manual misting cycle:
 

 
Very cool. No more reaching into the depths of my cabinets to unplug the mister from the old timer and then plugging it into a wall outlet to get it running. This is really, really awesome.

Initial RCT-24 screen observation

I was initially worried that I may have received a damaged unit at power up. I noticed white streaks at the top and bottom of the screen that looked like a cracked LCD. They faded over time. Here’s an intermediate photo of the lower portion of the screen that had white tooth like marks in the bottom center, and two diagonal lines on the lower right:
 

 
After a few minutes, they were gone:
 

Concerns alleviated!
 

Final thoughts on the RCT-24

Overall I am very happy to have a major upgrade to my misting timers. These are much easier to program as I shift seasonal watering cycles, hence my interest in the repeat cycle timer instead of the seconds timer. This will allow me to quickly adjust the durations of my misting cycles as the RH in my house shifts over time. I also appreciate the manual cycle feature, which was a major selling point for me.
 
Marty at MistKing is immensely helpful with any questions you may have – he patiently answered all my questions on the new timers and worked out the details on the pre-order. I highly recommend his misting systems and these new timers.