JBJ ATO and my APEX

[reggiepe]

Hi all. I just hooked up my new APEX this weekend and am loving it. Tonight I wanted to tie my JBJ ATO into one of the outlets. My thoughts were to have my topoff (w/ kalk) only take place during the daylight hours. I only want it to turn on the outlet every 2 hours and if top off is needed it will run. This is a quasi safety mechanism just in case something were to stick. How does this program look? Or maybe there is a better idea out there.

Fallback OFF
OSC 000:00/005:00/115:00 Then ON
If Outlet LED = OFF Then OFF


Thanks

 

[swearint]

Change Fallback to ON, otherwise you would have no power to the outlet in the event communication with the base unit is lost. Also, it is common to dose kalk during the night time rather than daytime. This helps to offset the pH drop that occurs at night.

Todd

 

[reggiepe]

Thanks Todd. Good advice. Forgive this question please as I am a newbie to the Apex's fallback command. The fallback setting doesn't turn the device on when losing communication...right? I assume that from your statement but want to be absolutely clear. I was thinking that if communication is lost, it automatically turns on. Which sounds absolutely ridiculous now that I type it out.

 

[swearint]

Fallback ON/OFF will cause the Outlet to change to the indicated state when it loses communication. Each Outlet can have it's own Fallback state. Since your JBJ ATO has it's own independent control, it needs to be ON. Otherwise it will have no power until communication is restored. If you were relying on the Apex to perform the ATO control, then Falback OFF would be appropiate.

Todd

 

[reggiepe]

Thanks again Todd. That clears that up. Some of our stuff we program with a SET line in the code. This one for example doesn't use that line, nor has anyone suggested it. I read that it is to put the device in it's default start state. But why do we have it on some devices and not others?

 

[aquamanic]

Sometimes the code has both the ON and OFF conditions. The oscillate command for example has (implied) OFF as well as ON. There's no need for SET but if you had it , it's not going to hurt. Same is true with the SUN and MOON statements.

However, sometimes it does matter.

Consider the following:

Set ON
If Temp < 70 Then ON
If Temp > 75 Then OFF

In the above example, as soon as the temp gets to 74.9 the outlet will turn back ON. that may not be what you want - lots of bouncing between 74.9 and 75. However, if you remove the SET:

If Temp < 70 Then ON
If Temp > 75 Then OFF

when the temp drops below 75 nothing happens until it gets to 69.9.

So it depends on what you want to have happen as to whether you need or want the SET statement or not. In the above examples it makes a difference.