Aquacontroller Issues

[Kurt448]

I have had the aquacontroller II for two years with few problems. However, now I am having lots of dificulties with my x-10's randomly turning off my MH lights and not agreeing with my program. I already checked and there are no conflicting programs that would affect the lights. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on what could be causing this problem. I already had to scrap one X-10 because it wasn't working....I am hoping not to have to throw away any more.
A separate problem I am having is with my Temperature probe. It has all of a sudden become pretty eradic and jumps several degrees at a time. Is there a solution for this?

Thanks in advance for the help.
-Kurt

 

[Aquaduck]

I don't have a solution or an explanation all I can do is tell you about my similar experience with X-10 crap.

For a 4 years I controlled the lights on my tank with a Radio Shack X-10 timer control unit and three heavy duty wall receptacles. Then they slowly stopped responding to commands from the control unit. I would come home from work to a dark tank or I would check on the tank at 1 am and the lights were still on. Manually pressing the on/off buttons would work unpredictably. I tried changing the house and device codes and nothing made them work 100%. I figured maybe the control unit was dying so I went and bought a new one. It worked as well as the old one so I took it back and exchanged it for new wall receptacles. The new ones didn't respond to the control unit all the time either. I was not about to replace three receptacles and a control unit for $100. Electrical interference was not an issue because the units acted poorly at my new house as well. My guess is that as the X-10 electronics age they must get out of calibration and no longer respond to the RF signal on the power line.
I have been using some digital timers since then.

Today I just ordered a Aquacontroller JR. with a DC4 direct connect power outlet. Hopefully they don't have the same problem as they get older as the Radio Shack X-10 hardware did.

 

[clp]

I suspect that something has changed electrically around you tank. Have you added any new equipment around your tank? Try to manually turn on/off the problem device through the AquaController's control & status -> manual control multiple times. It should work 100% of the time. If it does not, shut off equipment around your tank and repeat this test. The most likely source of X10 interference is an electronic ballast. Once the interfering device is found, you can either leave it off, or install an X10 noise filter on it.
The other option is to use our hardwire option for control (DC4 or DC4HD), as it does not have electrical noise susceptibility issues.
Try rerouting the temperature cord to reduce the interference. This problem could be also related to the X10 problem.

Curt

 

[original-reefland]

Re: Aquacontroller Issues

A separate problem I am having is with my Temperature probe. It has all of a sudden become pretty eradic and jumps several degrees at a time. Is there a solution for this?

None of the above suggestions seem to address your temp probe issue. Have you fixed that? My temp probe is acting up as well.

 

[Kurt448]

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of room to mess around with re-routing my probes. The wires are a little bunched together, however my AC probe and my chiller thermostat rarely match each other.
The problem with the readings jumping around has stopped, I just worry a little about the accuracy of the readings now.