Apex Controller lost power?

[t5Nitro]

I got up this morning to find the screen black. I looked and everything else was working. The energy bar 8 had a green status light but the apex controller part of it was out. I unplugged the EB8 and plugged it back in and it came back on. However, I have my heaters connected to this system so the issue was tank temperature. Temperature dropped a good amount. As of now I have heaters plugged directly into wall outlets.

Does anyone else not rely on these controllers for heat control? I don't want this to happen again. Any solutions?

Thanks.

edit: I've just found all the other recent complications in these controllers (from this forum). Are these defective and going to be recalled? Obviously it isn't just mine.

 

[bazineta]

Sounds as if you may have had a brief utility power failure during the night; this can happen when the utility company moves load to a different power plant, for example. I have my Apex plugged into a UPS for this reason. There are two common ways to accomplish this.

The first approach is to purchase a second EB8 for your high-wattage loads, which you plug into non-UPS power. The original EB8 is plugged into a UPS, to provide power to the Apex in case of an outage, and to run low-wattage loads; for example, I have my Tunze powerheads on this EB8 so that water continues to move when the power is out.

The second approach is to obtain the Apex 12V power supply. One plugs this supply into non-UPS power, and the EB8 is plugged into a UPS. Then, in the case of a power outage, the power supply losing power will cause the Apex to detect that the power has gone out, while the Apex is still up and receiving power via the EB8 on the UPS, and you then program high-load outlets to shut off until the power returns, while keeping low-load outlets (e.g., my Tunzes) running.

Note that if you just want to run the Apex in the event of an outage, then any UPS will do. If, however, you want to run pumps that use AC (as opposed, to say, controllable Tunzes, which run on DC), then you need a UPS that outputs a pure sine wave, rather than a stepped approximation.

aquamanic's user guide (sticky at the top of this forum) goes over these options pretty well.

 

[t5Nitro]

If the power were out is there a reason everything except the apex controller turned back on?

A UPS is a battery backup, correct? This would just be a temporary fix for any piece of equipment until the power is back on. If the power did go out the only thing that hadn't turned back on was the apex controller.

 

[bazineta]

If the power went out completely, then I'd expect that the Apex would have powered back up upon return of power. However, this being winter, it's very common to see voltage sags around this time of year; these are undervolt conditions lasting typically in the range of milliseconds.

These are commonly caused by storms, wind, squirrels choosing to immolate themselves on high-voltage equipment, etc. Electronics and power supplies are very sensitive to them, and it's not uncommon to see electronic devices become stupid after a brief sag, whereas in the case of a longer outage the same device would stop and restart.