Apex Jr and Tunze for backup during power outage

[ianrwesley]

Forgive the cross-post but the Neptune guys said I should follow-up with Tunze.

I have an Apex Jr. with a variable speed controller to use with my Tuzne 6105. I have the Tunze adapter that will allow it to run off of A/C power as well as a battery when power is lost.

The plan was to use the Apex's variable speed controller to set the pump to 0 speed when I want the pump to turn off for feeding and not have the battery kick in. This works fine, however when I actually do lose power the pump does not turn on. I have found the pump doesn't turn on when I lose power and have the cable connected from the variable speed controller. If I unplug this cable then everything works fine.

Any suggestions on how I can get this setup working as expected? Staying off as intended for feed cycles, but switching over to battery when a real power outage occurs?

Thanks,
Ian

 

[rvitko]

The Apex is blocking the operation. If you used one of our controllers, the pump powers the controller so operation continues seamlessly, in this case the Apex is not powered by the pump, so unless you back up the Apex as well the Apex is disrupting the signal, basically their is no signal to run since the Apex is off line.

 

[ianrwesley]

Hmm... That is very disappointing. I was hoping the equipment I had would suffice. Would there be a way for me to tap off the DC output and splice that back into the variable speed port? That way when off battery it would supply the necessary control voltage?

If I didn't pursue the hack above what would my other options be? How would this work with a Tunze controller, and what would be my least expensive option?

btw, I'm a bit confused how this would work with the tunze controller... It would still have the variable speed cable hooked up and wouldn't be providing a 10v signal to control the speed because the tunze controller would have no power. Or, does the tunze controller also have to be hooked up to the battery?

-Ian

 

[rvitko]

Options that come to mind would be a standard UPS for the Apex or seeing what other options Apex has. I have never used one and could not really advise any hacks or work arounds. We use a much beefier 5 pin DIN cable and the pump sends power to the controller, it probably is not enough power to run an Apex though and likely the smaller CAT 5 wiring they use could not handle the current or has too high a resistance for the low 8V power. Any of our controllers 7092, 7095 or 7096 would continue uninterrupted as they would just take the same power the pump is getting.

 

[ianrwesley]

Here is a link to a DIY solution I used to solve the problem. Seems to work great for what I need. Now I no longer need the Apex variable speed module. Hopefully someone is interested in purchasing it from me!

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2312666