ReefKeeper 2 or AC Jr. ?

P.Kelly

P.Kelly

New member
See title... Who has either? I'd love to come play with one, or at least get a first person demo of each unit.

Price being pretty much the same and me having no current use for an ORP controller.

Feeding timer, lighting controls and heater/fan temp control are the 3 biggies for me. I have a nice chiller with integrated temp control with .1 degree specificity and my primary water movement source will be a closed loop, so power head wave making is unnecessary.

Thanks in advance,
Pete
 
I have AC Jr. I haven't hooked it up though. If you're interested, you're invited to come over and figure it out with me.

I know Brian has one that he's been using for a while.
 
I have the ACjr and have no complaints. Just about everything on my tank is connected there including my JBJ chiller and Sfiligoi MH ballast computers as secondary failover in case they fail.

My ACjr controls the actinics sunrise/sunset, kalk reactor 15 minutes 4 times a day, skimmer and main pump feed timer, heater control, chiller and MH failover in case my tank over cools or overheat below 77.5 or over 83 degrees then it either power off the chiller of MH.

HTH.
 
umm,,,,,, I love my home made controller best :)
PLC Logic controller with INFINITE possibilities!!!
But on the spendy side
 
ac jr is what i have as well and works great. i've yet to figure out how to set the feed time out but eventually when you get one and figure it out... you'll let me know. ;)
 
I like the manual override on the RC2, I hate not being able to turn lights on or off out of cycle on my AC jr. OR maybe I can do it and I just haven't figured it out yet?
 
You have to set a pump or skimmer to the feed timer:

If Feed Cycle
Then PM1 Off

From there you go into the Feed Cycle and set how long you want the pumps to stay off. Up to an hour I think. Then to activate it you press the down arrow at run mode and select to manually turn back on.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10599226#post10599226 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wpnorton
I like the manual override on the RC2, I hate not being able to turn lights on or off out of cycle on my AC jr. OR maybe I can do it and I just haven't figured it out yet?
Click to expand...

Ah, this would really suck. Anyone with an AC know how to do this?

-Pete
 
Yes, you can manually override.

Press: Select, Control/Status, Manual Control. THere you can toggle Auto/On/Off...
 
I feel like a need to take a class before I can set my AC Jr up. I looked at the instructions briefly when I got mine and realized it would take a while to plow throw it. I haven't had a block of time big enough to sit down and tackle it yet.

Maybe we should have a MARS AC Jr class.
 
It can be a pain in the begining without the serial port where you can set it up on a PC. But what I did was type out what I wanted it to do first then did the inputting on the ACjr after cutting/pasting everything around. :)
 
well i've got the acjr with serial port which i use for ato switch works like a champ. i'll try the command when i get home to see if it turns off the pump for feed time.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10599488#post10599488 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Fragmented
Maybe we should have a MARS AC Jr class.
Click to expand...
This is a great idea. I plan on getting an AC Jr. when my system is up and running. A group class would be a great idea. Everyone can bring their AC Jr (if possible) and I'm sure a few people can bring laptops and necessary cables. We could go through the language basics and even tweak/create some programs during the class.
 
See my thread on reefchili.com groub by if you're looking to buy one. They give a 30% off one time discount if we get 10+ people to buy from them during a one week time period. It all must be coordinated in advance.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10601992#post10601992 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by petes97
See my thread on reefchili.com groub by if you're looking to buy one. They give a 30% off one time discount if we get 10+ people to buy from them during a one week time period. It all must be coordinated in advance.
Click to expand...
Pete, If you are talking to me, I don't think they sell the AC Jr. I just looked through their entire product listing. I wish they did, because 30% off would be a great deal. That would be sweet.

Are you sure their 30% group buy discount extends to hardware? There usually isn't that large of a margin on hardware.
 
I am versed with the Ac Jr. and its bigger brother the AC3. I can program them both either through serial/Ethernet and/or manually from the screen. The latter is just a PITA because you have only 3 buttons to play with. The good news is that once you set it up, you pretty much let it run. The AC programming language is rudimentary at best and leaves much to be desired, but it can easily handle 90% of what you can think of. :)

Manual override is indeed a feature of both Jr. and AC3. Its pretty easy to do. The auto feed timers come in handy for automating this - I use it to turn off main pump, activate all powerheads, and disable the skimmer for about an hour before it auto engages. It has 5 different feed timers, so I hijack the unused timers for weird stuff like illumination for an hour should I be playing with stuff at night. Think of the feed timers as simple macros for common tasks and you can activate them with about 2 buttons or less. ;)

If you all need some help with these guys, I would be more than happy to walk you through it - for a fee. "Fees shorty, fees!" :D j/k...just happy to help.
 
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