Apex Optical Sensors

Justintegra99 · Jan 28, 2019

Just as a followup in case this thread is referenced in the future. I emailed Neptune and after 3 or 4 emails and a picture of my sensor over the course of about 4 hours, they shipped me a new sensor. I swapped it into the ATK and it works as expected. Service was very quick and easy.

vhuang168 · Jan 28, 2019

isaacalves said:
Wait...figured it out. So in case, this helps anyone...

Access you apex locally...NOTE: I'm on the Classic...and go to your Module Setup Page. Make sure to select the FMM module. You'll see your ports. My ports 3 and 4 were set to "Water on Floor" for some reason.

I selected Optical Sensor on Port 3. And learned that I needed to do this one at a time. So port 3 --> select Optical Sensor --> press "Port 3" button then let it do its swirly load screen. I didn't realize initially it was a button. Now its all working correctly for me.

Read post #16 by @jonmos75

garbled · Jan 28, 2019

I was going to say, any time that I've had to manually set the sensor to a specific type, the sensor was plugged in wrong/badly.

I did have my ATO sensor freak out a little bit, a quick cleaning with a rag got it back into shape though, so, thats something I'll need to put a monthly reminder in for...

ca1ore · Feb 2, 2019

The plugs on the FFM are cheap and flimsy. It’s really easy to knock the plugs loose so inspecting on occasion is good practice.

Sleepydoc · Feb 2, 2019

ca1ore said:
The plugs on the FFM are cheap and flimsy. It’s really easy to knock the plugs loose so inspecting on occasion is good practice.

I had the FMM change the optical sensors on my ATK to flow sensors a couple times. Several places on the Neptune forum I’ve seen them recommend turning off auto detect.

My Optical sensors will get stuck closed (‘submerged’) periodically. They are still solidly plugged in, but if I unplug them and plug them back in, they work normally (for a couple months.) Not the most reliable of sensors...

Engloid · Feb 10, 2019

Mark Gray said:
yes 100% understand this but Neptune says if you are not running auto detect and when you do it switches they say there is something wrong with thwe sensor I want to know how they detect from a water on the floor sensor to an optical sensor

The optical sensors require power to them to run the led inside. The leak sensors are nothing more than a continuity sensor. Therefore, if the module detects an open circuit, as it would with a leak sensor that's not wet, it may "auto detect" it to be a leak sensor.

As a side note....you can use a breakoutbox to run as many as 6 leak sensors if you want to. I bought a couple "water sensors" off amazon and wired them in. They work perfectly.

garbled · Feb 10, 2019

I have the older ALD kit from Neptune, the one with the rj45 sensors. IMHO, the RJ45's are far more reliable than the new FMM leak sensors, so I'm much happier with those, in what I consider to be a critical fail point.

Mark Gray · Feb 10, 2019

Engloid said:
The optical sensors require power to them to run the led inside. The leak sensors are nothing more than a continuity sensor. Therefore, if the module detects an open circuit, as it would with a leak sensor that's not wet, it may "auto detect" it to be a leak sensor.

As a side note....you can use a breakoutbox to run as many as 6 leak sensors if you want to. I bought a couple "water sensors" off amazon and wired them in. They work perfectly.

That's a good thought but the sensors are still working I spent two hours lol on the phone with Neptune messing with two sensors they ended up sending me 2 new one's it was just the auto detect that was not working.