DC8 acting weird.

madadi

madadi

ReefOG
i been using the same DC8 for almost a year with no problems and i love it compared to the X10s i been using before. over the past week or so, my lights kept turning on in the middle of the night randomly for 5 minutes or so. now, i cant turn anything on or off manually from the controller itself. on the display it shows everything correctly according to the program time as on or off. but things keep getting stuck in the on or off position and don't correspond to what the display is showing. green light is on the DC8. have not plugged anything new in the DC8. fuse has not jumped. is there anything i should be looking for? i have not done any changed to the aquacotroller program. have not moved any cables around.

its an aquacontroller rev 1.1 best controller ever, obviously, i been using it forever! this DC8 is giving me a headache though, please help!
 
Hey sorry I can't help but I am having similar problems. I will send you to the top and hopefully someone can give some insight. I thought I read some where that there is a recall on some DC8s. Not sure where I read it and which ones are being recalled. Maybe someone can help us out.
 
i been using the same DC8 for almost a year and its been working perfect. it was acting weird for a while and i realized it was because i forgot the cable connected to the PC. its not the grounded one. its known to cause interference with stray current, something like that.
if you have your AC connected to the PC all the time you should not unless its the special grounded cable. i just connect it when i need to program it and thats it. now the DC8 works flawless as usual. hope that helps.
 
Does this mean you are working now? Maybe this is a good note to add to the "Best Practices" thread;)
 
ya, works perfect like before. i forgot to disconnect it from the computer after changing the program, and i didn't realize it was connected for almost 2 weeks or so. gave me trouble with things turning on and off randomly and i couldn't override anything to on or off. very frustrating. they do mention in the manual to use a grounded PC cable if you want to leave it connected for an extended period of time.
 
I don't have mine connected to a PC and one of my halides are coming on and off in the morning. Also my actnics are shutting off randomly in the morning. Don't know what the problem is.
 
No when I go into the manual control it changes nothing. Also when I came home tonight at 2145 my actinics were still on. I have a command that goes
if time is > 2100 then LT03 is OFF. I have to completely unplug the actinics for them to turn off. Also this morning when I was feeding I tried to use the feed cycle and the pumps did not come back on after the feed cycle was over.
What gives with this thing. It is very frustrating when you pay so much money for something and it acts up like this.
 
im having the same problems. after i mess with the programming, random stuff completely flips out. i changed the temps on my heater phrases, and the skimmer and halide kept going on and off on and off, and i couldnt manually override anything. the skimmer is on because its new and loud as heck, so i need it off at night for me to be able to sleep (tanks in room) the other way i found to fix it is to unplug the power to the controller, unplug the phone line going to the DC-8, and plug them back in, sometimes it takes 2 rounds of this to work.

BTW this is on my AC jr. (just got it today)

if i change any one setting, the whole system freaks out! earlier i changed my heater temps, now i changed the lights, by only 1/2 hour, and all of a sudden my skimmer turned on/off every 3 or so seconds, MH turned on, off, actinics turned on/ off, pumps turned off/on

could it be that my phone line is right next to the power cord for the DC-8? or maybe the way my plugs are?

they are
1-MH(150w electronic ballast)
2-actinics(2x24w T5HO)
3-pump(koralia 4)
4-pump(koralia 1)
5-heater(200w)
6-fans(2 on a small extension cord, both are on 12v DC converters, maybe move it to a different plug? i hear some of them have problems with low energy devices?)
7-refugium feed pump(mj 400_
8-skimmer(remora pro with rio 2500, 55watts)

another thing i notice with this, is when i unplug the controller as it spazzes out, the clock gets messed up sometimes too....


previous owner had no problems with this. its an older one with blue front and no serial port
 
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I'm pretty sure its caused by electrical interference. same thing happened to me. when i left my controller connected to the PC with an ungrounded cable, i could not turn things on or off manually but they would turn on and off randomly when they felt like it. the only way i would get them to turn off when i needed them off is by repeatedly unplugging them from the DC8.
unfortunately you have to find the source of the electrical interference and thats a pain in the butt. i would unplug things one at a time and see if you can override on and off items plugged into the DC8.
 
i moved the Rj11 as far from the MH ballast as possible, even at night when its not on it messes up. it only happens when i switch settings, just everything goes crazy.

mostly its my skimmer and MH, but the koralias mess up sometimes when the system spazzes out
 
if you are using the free version of aqua notes, its easy to copy and save your program. reset your aquacontrollers internal memory and see if that helps. then copy and paste your program back into the controller with the aqua notes.
 
no aquanotes

i might have to reset it and do it all again tomorrow

right now i have it working how i want. as long as i dont change things i guess it should be fine. feed cycle doesnt mess it up.
 
there is an aquanotes you can download from their website for free. its kinda cool. you can program it much easier and chart stuff.
 
its an old one, no serial port

so i just tried to do some manual things, some didnt work, some did, but then the feed to my fuge cut out and wouldnt come back on, os i took it off he DC-8and plugged it into a separate strip, i cant risk that cutting out. it has all my filtration and heat. also, i have it set so when the fuge channel is off, the heater turns off, so it doesnt get exposed to air, or just sit heating up hat water, and it didnt shut off.

i have no clue why, but my AC jr. refuses to speak with the DC-8. how long does it take for the messaged to get sent? the RJ-11 wire i have is probably 10 or so feet long, wired away from my MH ballast
 
The most common problem for incorrect operation is duplicate timer names or control addresses (see setup->timer setup->timer names->modify names), or incorrect program statements (see setup->timer setup->timer program->modify state). If you can't find the problem please send an email to support@neptunesys.com. Interference issues are very uncommon, and I've never heard or seen any control issues associated with plugging or unplugging the serial cable.

Curt
 
well in that case maybe you should post your program here and see if they can find any problems with it.
 
Does your phone cord have the typical 2 wires inside it, or the NEEDED 4 wires for a controller ??

I know some of the new dc8's with reset buttons are bad, I have one that inputs 4 and 8 are arsebackwards, on is off, and off is on. go figure

Brian
 
it is a 4 wire phone cord

the whole system is old, very old. its the old blue face, and it has the original firmware on it. in the other thread, the rep. told me to order a cable to upgrade firmware, and this will probably do the trick, because as of right now i cant even do a diagnostic check on the system.

cable should be here in a week, but where can i download the firmware?
maybe this cable will let me use aquanotes too?
 
I have had to go from working just fine to compleltely dead. But i was overloading mine. I still don't understand why it worked though for 3-4 months and then just stopped. None of my fuses ever blew it just stopped working.

???
 
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