Anybody have their ACIII temp probe fail on them?

[cwegescheide]

First of all let me say I love my ACIII. I've had it for about 4yrs now and never had any problems. Yesterday all of the sudden my temperature was fluctuating erradically (from 78-89 degrees) within a couple minutes. Today the temp is stuck about 120 degrees according to the ACIII.. This caused fans to kick on and lights to come off etc..

The reason I'm bringing this up is because I am away from home m-thurs every week and only have an opportunity to diagnose/resolve issues over the weekend. I ordered a new temp probe from neptune and I hope this resolves the issue and I don't have a problem with the unit itself or that will mean my SPS tank will be without a stable environment for two weeks and the outcome of this could be VERY bad..

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Deleted member 143833]

It happens but it is also easily programmed to handle this condition. When temp probes fail you either get a temp around 120 or low near 20. if you unplug the probe you should get a temp near 20 (that will test the controller itself).

I keep one in the closet since they never get old and just for the case that something goes bad.

 

[schwaggs]

I had one fail by randomly creeping up and down between 60 and 90 degrees. It was one of the small probes they sold with the ACIII for a while. I have 2 probes now and control temp with one and alarm with both to notify me of a failed probe.

 

[cwegescheide]

Yep thats exactly what happened. I got my new probe from Neptune yesterday. Thanks!
Chris

 

[jfruge]

I know this is an older thread but..... my AC Jr. temp proble failed sometime today. Got home from work and the chiller was running. temp said 122F. Tank water temp was sub 64F. Time will tell on how or if everything bounces back.

 

[swearint]

They usually fail low. It is a good idea to add a couple safety checks. One for a high temp failure and another for a low temp failure. The idea is to use a temperature well out of normal range. For instance:

If Temp > 90.0 Then (Chiller) OFF
If Temp < 50.0 Then (Heater) OFF

Todd

 

[jfruge]

They usually fail low. It is a good idea to add a couple safety checks. One for a high temp failure and another for a low temp failure. The idea is to use a temperature well out of normal range. For instance:

If Temp > 90.0 Then (Chiller) OFF
If Temp < 50.0 Then (Heater) OFF

Todd

Thanks for the info. I will add the safety checks to my program once my new temp probe gets here.

 

[ciphros]

Also a good idea (if possible) to have an outside controller for the heater and chiller set slightly beyond the limits of the AC3. That way, tank won't heat or cool more than a couple extra degrees. After living through exactly what you just described (but not due to a temp probe failure, but a socket expansion failure causing the chiller to stick on) - I invested in single stage temp controller for the heater, and as luck had it, upgraded the chiller to one that had an integrated controller when I moved into the new tank 3 years ago.