Hi everyone - so I've been having issues with my Apex where it's needed to go in for repair a couple of times this past year for different reasons. Neptune has been great so I have zero complaints about their product or their company. Just had wierd things happen like not syncing with my WXM, gradually drifting PH probes, EB8's to go offline, plugs that read "On" from a status but are off in real life. Like I said - Neptune has been great and diagnosed the problems to the base unit and it's off for repair. In the meantime I ordered another Apex controller to replace the "being repaired" one and will put the fixed one away as a back up in case I ever run into the need for a backup controller.
The whole thing made me wonder about backups and more backups. While I had these problems going on - I realized how vulnerable I was. When I got home last night - I realized that my vortechs weren't running and neither were my lights for a seperate inline tank. I went over to the status screen in the web application but the apex is telling me that everything is on.
Another issue - my temp probe graph shows my temp is bouncing between 74 and 78. Luckily I have my heaters on a Ranco Controller not connected to my apex or else my heat would have been kicking on when it shouldn't have.
I love the Apex which is why I immediately without hesitation bought another and also why I would recommend it to anyone who asks. I love how you can have a myriad of alerts in case anything registers too hot, too cold, not enough of this, too much of that, etc etc.
My question is - how to you minimize or prevent being so reliant on your Apex that you don't run into other issues by blindly being dependent on the probes, heaters, pumps, dosers, etc etc that are all being controlled by a master product? Especially considering the fact that the apex like any other technology can (and eventually may) fail while telling you everythings just fine. Is there a way that you can let the Apex run the tank as it should - but have a secondary system/solution in place to alert you if the Apex fails in one way or another?
I travel for work a lot and i'm dependent on the apex to be my lifeline for my tank from time to time. I'd hate to come home one day to see that my chiller ran all day and my tank is frozen because my temp probe was reading 82 when in reality the tank was only 78 when it kicked on.
I've talked to friends who say - "Oh, just write an a statement in your program that either limits the on or the off time". That would work fine, but I have had one of my EB8's go offline (still powered), and the lights attached to that EB8 were off even though I had a statement to "Fail On" in case the EB8 loses connection with the controller. So obviously - programs fail as well.
Ok - I might be too paranoid here - but my day job involves Risk Mitigation for my company - so this is how I end up seeing the world (and now my tank).
The whole thing made me wonder about backups and more backups. While I had these problems going on - I realized how vulnerable I was. When I got home last night - I realized that my vortechs weren't running and neither were my lights for a seperate inline tank. I went over to the status screen in the web application but the apex is telling me that everything is on.
Another issue - my temp probe graph shows my temp is bouncing between 74 and 78. Luckily I have my heaters on a Ranco Controller not connected to my apex or else my heat would have been kicking on when it shouldn't have.
I love the Apex which is why I immediately without hesitation bought another and also why I would recommend it to anyone who asks. I love how you can have a myriad of alerts in case anything registers too hot, too cold, not enough of this, too much of that, etc etc.
My question is - how to you minimize or prevent being so reliant on your Apex that you don't run into other issues by blindly being dependent on the probes, heaters, pumps, dosers, etc etc that are all being controlled by a master product? Especially considering the fact that the apex like any other technology can (and eventually may) fail while telling you everythings just fine. Is there a way that you can let the Apex run the tank as it should - but have a secondary system/solution in place to alert you if the Apex fails in one way or another?
I travel for work a lot and i'm dependent on the apex to be my lifeline for my tank from time to time. I'd hate to come home one day to see that my chiller ran all day and my tank is frozen because my temp probe was reading 82 when in reality the tank was only 78 when it kicked on.
I've talked to friends who say - "Oh, just write an a statement in your program that either limits the on or the off time". That would work fine, but I have had one of my EB8's go offline (still powered), and the lights attached to that EB8 were off even though I had a statement to "Fail On" in case the EB8 loses connection with the controller. So obviously - programs fail as well.
Ok - I might be too paranoid here - but my day job involves Risk Mitigation for my company - so this is how I end up seeing the world (and now my tank).
