Apex powerbar failures

[LadyTang2]

I have read about some powerbar failures but wanted to ask what you guys have heard of/experienced. What I mean by failure here is something is off when its supposed to be on or vice versa

When a powerbar fails, does it more often fail on or off?

Is it usually just one of the plugs or the whole strip?

Thank you

 

[Snoopy 67]

I run one of the old Aquacontrollers.
After a power outage anything on Manual Control would be affected since Manual control has to be reset again.

 

[robbyg]

That’s a hard question to answer, it all depends on how it fails. Assuming the control circuitry completely dies the relays that most PB use would lose power and deactivate. So the plug would go off.
There are a ton of other scenarios like the data connection being lost to the controller, in that case the plug will go to whatever state you set the plug to go to in a disconnected state. Sometimes the PB can go haywire and leave plugs running.

your best defense is redundant systems for all critical devices like heater, chillers and return pumps.

 

[User1]

I've had an energy bar fail. Sort of an odd case but here is the short story and summary of it. I'd like to second what @robbyg said above about the best defense being redundant systems for critical devices. With that being said I know have a backup / standby unit after my failures.

In a nutshell car accident took out a power line, then started a fire, then in the process the utility company had an issue which sent in 3 times the normal power into our neighborhood. A surge I guess. Power goes out, I hear loud pops in the garage, check it out, see a few more plus electrical arcs visible from the solar power inverter. Darn thing almost started a fire. Anyway related to the energy bar failure once power was restored the energy bar didn't come back online. Tank was fine more or less because I have a Cor 20 return pump a different outlet for this reason. I took that time to assess the house, fix what I could, note what I couldn't, and then the next day get back to the bar.

Ended up that I needed to reset the breaker on the energy bar or the thing that is tripped when this sort of thing happens. I guess like a normal surge protector. After I did that power and stuff worked but the 1link module wasn't working or responding. So 2 cor 15 return pumps and the Trident - 1 link connectivity. I tried a few more times, reset it again, and power finally came back. Few months later after cleaning one of the Cor 15 return pumps it failed again. Created a ticket with support and they asked me to try a few things.

In the end and reading some conversations about automated testing here and controllers, @robbyg above took part who has a pretty extensive background, I said to myself I'll just buy a new one, swap it in, and if it fixes the problem RMA it to neptune to fix. They did and 50 bucks later I now have a spare.

So yeah, I had a failure but I believe it may have been caused by something unrelated to the product and a side affect a power surge into my home. We lost the solar inverter, dishwasher, 2 refrigerators, thermostat, etc. Crazy, huh? But with regards to backups, spares, I'm a believer now.

 

[robbyg]

I've had an energy bar fail. Sort of an odd case but here is the short story and summary of it. I'd like to second what @robbyg said above about the best defense being redundant systems for critical devices. With that being said I know have a backup / standby unit after my failures.

In a nutshell car accident took out a power line, then started a fire, then in the process the utility company had an issue which sent in 3 times the normal power into our neighborhood. A surge I guess. Power goes out, I hear loud pops in the garage, check it out, see a few more plus electrical arcs visible from the solar power inverter. Darn thing almost started a fire. Anyway related to the energy bar failure once power was restored the energy bar didn't come back online. Tank was fine more or less because I have a Cor 20 return pump a different outlet for this reason. I took that time to assess the house, fix what I could, note what I couldn't, and then the next day get back to the bar.

Ended up that I needed to reset the breaker on the energy bar or the thing that is tripped when this sort of thing happens. I guess like a normal surge protector. After I did that power and stuff worked but the 1link module wasn't working or responding. So 2 cor 15 return pumps and the Trident - 1 link connectivity. I tried a few more times, reset it again, and power finally came back. Few months later after cleaning one of the Cor 15 return pumps it failed again. Created a ticket with support and they asked me to try a few things.

In the end and reading some conversations about automated testing here and controllers, @robbyg above took part who has a pretty extensive background, I said to myself I'll just buy a new one, swap it in, and if it fixes the problem RMA it to neptune to fix. They did and 50 bucks later I now have a spare.

So yeah, I had a failure but I believe it may have been caused by something unrelated to the product and a side affect a power surge into my home. We lost the solar inverter, dishwasher, 2 refrigerators, thermostat, etc. Crazy, huh? But with regards to backups, spares, I'm a believer now.

Sorry to hear the extent of your damages! I also had a power surge that lasted about 3 minutes. Long enough for me to break out a voltmeter and read a cool 160 volts on the 110 outlets. Luckily I was in my whole tank UPS phase and the systems aquarium electronics survived. The UPS was not so lucky! The rest of the house was pure carnage! TV blown ,two satellite receivers and the fridge compressor, other smaller items gone. I now have At least 6 small UPS's systems in the house but I removed the one from the tank because it was creating more on going problems than what it was solving.

@saf1 you keep on stocking those aquarium controller parts, they really do come in handy when something goes out.

 

[User1]

Sorry to hear the extent of your damages! I also had a power surge that lasted about 3 minutes. Long enough for me to break out a voltmeter and read a cool 160 volts on the 110 outlets. Luckily I was in my whole tank UPS phase and the systems aquarium electronics survived. The UPS was not so lucky! The rest of the house was pure carnage! TV blown ,two satellite receivers and the fridge compressor, other smaller items gone. I now have At least 6 small UPS's systems in the house but I removed the one from the tank because it was creating more on going problems than what it was solving.

@saf1 you keep on stocking those aquarium controller parts, they really do come in handy when something goes out.

Wow. Any chance you put on a whole home / house surge protection device on the main? I was considering one but still doing some research on them. In any case thanks. You really do provide great information on controlling and automation while leaving out brands. I think that is pretty cool. Oddly enough last night I was thinking maybe you work for NASA In any case thanks and have a great Sunday!

 

[ca1ore]

I have a whole house surge suppressor outside after the main feed to the house. I was fortunate that the utility was willing to do it for me.

I have not had a power bar fail on me yet, though sometimes power losses to the brain causes it to readdress power bars .... potentially a significant problem. I now runthe brain off an UPS.

 

[Tastee]

I haven’t had an EB fail however like others I do run it off a UPS.

 

[robbyg]

Wow. Any chance you put on a whole home / house surge protection device on the main? I was considering one but still doing some research on them. In any case thanks. You really do provide great information on controlling and automation while leaving out brands. I think that is pretty cool. Oddly enough last night I was thinking maybe you work for NASA In any case thanks and have a great Sunday!

Thanks for the kind words. I have thought about a whole home system but they are pricey and the wife keeps an eye out for all new Devices. It certainly did not help sell my position when I fixed most of the stuff myself. Any way if you can afford it they can be lifesavers

 

[LadyTang2]

Which UPSs are you guys using and do they have surge protection built in? Why else use a ups? WHy a powerbar at all if you can program ups.

 

[Tastee]

I use a Cyberpower 1500VA pure sine wave UPS and yes it has surge protection - I expect considerably higher quality than surge protected power strips. This powers my Apex which in turn powers the key equipment. The rest however is connected to a power strip in turn connected to mains. I do use a good quality power strip with it’s own surge protection however.

 

[LadyTang2]

I use a Cyberpower 1500VA pure sine wave UPS and yes it has surge protection - I expect considerably higher quality than surge protected power strips. This powers my Apex which in turn powers the key equipment. The rest however is connected to a power strip in turn connected to mains. I do use a good quality power strip with it’s own surge protection however.

Can this UPS be programmed to turn on off plugs at certain times, I have heard of high end strips that can do that.

 

[SuncrestReef]

I have 2 EB832's, 2 EB8's, and 1 EB4. I have never had any problems with them. I understand some people have experienced problems, but I doubt there's a rash of failures.

I play it safe by keeping all my electronics on the dry side of my cabinet where there's little to no chance of splashing water on anything. I plug by EB's and regular power strips into surge-protected outlets. I use a small UPS and have the Apex programmed to shut down high-powered devices during any power outage to preserve the UPS battery life:

This diagram is from my tutorial on Apex Power Monitoring where I describe how to set up the Apex for UPS integration: https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/neptune-apex-programming-tutorials-part-4-power-monitoring.698/

 

[Tastee]

Can this UPS be programmed to turn on off plugs at certain times, I have heard of high end strips that can do that.

No, this UPS can’t control the outlets like that. The Kasa powerstrip however does this and has good reports from others on the forum.

 

[Reef man 89]

I have a eb832 problems now. Outlets 4 and 6 are stuck on and can’t be shut off. Just bought it on Black Friday not happy. I opened a ticket and was told I need to recalibrate the energy bar with a computer which I don’t have. Plus when they sent me the instructions on how to do this it’s all a different language to me that I don’t understand. So pretty much even if I get a computer or laptop I don’t understand how to do it. Idk what to do. It’s only 4 months old.

 

[Reef man 89]

what really makes me mad is that so I’m 4 months in with it and I have bought brand new the full apex,pmk,wxm plus a trident it’s like 2 grand so far

 

[robbyg]

I have a eb832 problems now. Outlets 4 and 6 are stuck on and can’t be shut off. Just bought it on Black Friday not happy. I opened a ticket and was told I need to recalibrate the energy bar with a computer which I don’t have. Plus when they sent me the instructions on how to do this it’s all a different language to me that I don’t understand. So pretty much even if I get a computer or laptop I don’t understand how to do it. Idk what to do. It’s only 4 months old.

What the heck do they mean by re-calibrate? Anyone with more Apex experience know what this is about?

 

[Reef man 89]

What the heck do they mean by re-calibrate? Anyone with more Apex experience know what this is about?

It does not make sense to me what so ever. So this all started when The outlet that runs my heater got stuck on. So pretty much there was nothing I could do to shut it off until I manually unplugged it from that outlet. Like most people that have an Apex the temp probe controls the heater running on and off cycles all day long as the temperature rises and falls. It came to a point where my temp probe was reading 80.2. Which was where the internal heater thermostat was set to. So now I have 2 outlets that are stuck on Until I can “recalibrate” the amp/voltage meter. The thing that makes me mad is you need a comp/lab top to complete this task which I don’t have. I only have my iPhone and tablet.

 

[Reef man 89]

I do have a support ticket open with JOHN at Neptune. I will say he has been great with me where he saw one of my posts on hear About an issue and he personally called my cell phone which I thought was great. I just wish they could login to my account and reset everything themselves

 

[Ahogue21]

So i got an apex setup from a buddy 2 months ago i bought him out of the hobby and it included a full blown apex setup, eb832,atk,core 15 ext

So im building a new tank and decided last week to start setting stuff up so i plug the 832 in and into the apex and get nothing...i changed outlets, checked breaker on back ext and still nothing

So at this point i plug the apex into 12v power get it started and setup and then hook the 832 up i show incoming power now, outlets controlable ext so then plug the core in and no power so i updated the firmware ext then try it again on its own power and still nothing

Contacted neptune and sent it in but looks like i wont be getting it back for some time im not an electronics guru but im under the thought the 12/24v power supply went out

Between this and the other issues ive read about with apex setups im having a hard time not just selling it off i dont want to add another failure point to the tank so far i sold off the corr15 and atk and those will definitely be replaced by stand alone units but part of me still wants to buy another power bar even just the eb4 to control simple functions like the heater ext and keep tabs on the tank