new aquacontroller, some surprises

[mwood]

I bought Dan's aquacontroller II and got some surprises. I hooked it up and found out my temp is much higher than I thought it was. My finnex heater is set at 79, but the controller said 84. I turned the heater down a degree for now but need to find a way to validate which one is right. Any ideas?

 

[cabenn]

See if you can get another thermometer and check it out.

 

[mwood]

I have a glass P0$ thermometer in the tank that says around 83 (hard to read) so I suspect the acII is right. I just couldn't believe I've been running my tank around 84-85 all this time. If I unplug the heater and re-plug it in after 15 minutes, will it reset or calibrate?

 

[cabenn]

I've got no clue but I'd just buy a new heater if you think that's the culprit. Just cause the heater is at 79 doesn't mean that's the temp of the tank. You got power heads and lights to heat up that tank too

 

[mwood]

This was at 6am when lights are off and heater was coming on. It's a finnex 800w heater so I'll run it off the the ACII before I'll replace it.

Now I know why the heater was coming on while the lights were on in the winter.

 

[sgarrett1108]

Why don't you plug the heater into the aqua controller. Let it control the temp

 

[mwood]

I will once I'm sure the heater is the culprit.

 

[tibbs2]

Yeah, I see my ebo-jaeger heater turn on in the sump sometimes when my tank temp is 84 and the heater is set at 78. Damn unreliable heaters!

 

[leeweber85]

It could be the Aqua controller. I know mine reads about 1.5 degrees higher than all of my other thermometers. There is a way to adjust it for the offset.

 

[mwood]

Those with aquacontrollers, how do you have your probes mounted in the sump? Anything wrong with just tossing them in unmounted?

 

[Coralfreak]

Those with aquacontrollers, how do you have your probes mounted in the sump? Anything wrong with just tossing them in unmounted?

I wouldnt put them completely under water, just take a piece of styrofoam, punch some holes in it for the probes to fit into and float them, if they fall through the holes, put a small cable tie on the probe to keep them in place.

HTH

 

[Coralfreak]

BTW, I would not trust any heaters thermostat setting to be the "actual" temp of your tank. Use the AC2 to control the heater.

 

[bgreenlee]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7646689#post7646689 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Coralfreak
BTW, I would not trust any heaters thermostat setting to be the "actual" temp of your tank. Use the AC2 to control the heater.

Amen.

 

[Satori]

When I first got my AC Jr I had the same difference in readings with my Little Time n Temp thermometer. Everyone pretty much agreed that the AC Jr was more likely to be correct. I have my heaters on the controller now so it's ok if they stick on.

From what I've gathered, you had to keep the older temperature probes from being totally submersed but it's ok for the newer ones. The older ones were much larger and looked kinda like a pH probe. The new ones are small and look like the probe on an Icecap fan.

HTH

 

[mwood]

Does anyone just temporarily hook up the ACII to the pc to download the data? It's going to be tough/expensive to run a cord across the basement. I'm considering just unhooking the probes, and taking the controller over to the pc to hook it to the pc, and download data or adjust settings. Then take it back an hook it back to the tank. I assume the ACII doesn't need to be hooked to the pc all the time.

 

[tibbs2]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7652424#post7652424 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mwood
Does anyone just temporarily hook up the ACII to the pc to download the data? It's going to be tough/expensive to run a cord across the basement. I'm considering just unhooking the probes, and taking the controller over to the pc to hook it to the pc, and download data or adjust settings. Then take it back an hook it back to the tank. I assume the ACII doesn't need to be hooked to the pc all the time.

Well, you could get yourself a wireless router and hook a wireless gateway to the AC2. I think one of the best features of this product is the ability to monitor your system from remote locations.

Chris

 

[mwood]

What's a wireless router? Where would I get one?

 

[tibbs2]

Bestbuy or CompUSA
If you have high speed internet, you just plug the cat5 cable from your internet modem into the router. The router provides security and broadcasts your internet connection via Wi-Fi.

So you hook this up to your computer and cable modem.

And you hook the aquacontroller to the Wireless Access Point

I think the AC2 has a serial port but not ethernet. So just get a WAP with a serial port in it. If you ever decide to do this let me know and I'll help you with the setup.

Chris