Had a little surprise, a lesson, and a chance to check out Neptune customer service this week. Here's my message to them that explains it..
Controller has been in use for about 2 weeks, yesterday found that lights and heater were off when I arrived home at around 8 p.m.. Panel displayed temp as normal, 78.X degrees, however fusion showed temp of 121, which I later found it had been recording since 5:30 a.m. Stand alone heater (not on Apex outlet) thermostat showed 78 degrees. Reset the unit by pulling power, no change except the panel now also showed 121 degrees. Reset by pulling power and left the unit off for several minutes. On restart the unit functioned normally for a brief period (less than a minute) with lights and heater on, while the displayed temp climbed. Once the displayed temp hit somewhere in the upper 70's, it jumped immediately to 120 and shut off lights and heaters due to the default temp limit. Pulled probe from sump and again reset the Apex by leaving it off for several minutes. Unit read approximate air temp of 71 degrees correctly. However once the probe was returned to the sump it again began to climb before jumping back to 120 degrees. Apex is currently running with temp probe disconnected, showing temperature at 19.5 degrees. Troubleshooting and forum research lead me to believe this is a failed (shorted) temp probe. Please advise.
To their credit, after a few questions back and forth, they sent a replacement temp probe out priority mail which resolved the problem. Lessons learned, stay with the plan of two heaters, both with internal thermostats (Cobalt NeoTherms, so should be fairly accurate), one on the Apex and one on direct power. One alone seems to be able to just keep the temp at 76 - 78 and can't cook the tank. If the temp gets high, the Apex can shut one off, if the Apex fails one can keep the temp close to stable. Also, doing some research I learned about "sanity" statements for the Apex. For example if the temp is above 115 or so (120 is the known failure point of a shorted probe) keep the lights and heaters on.
All communications with Neptune were via e-mail and I would say they did OK. It could have been faster, with a few standard questions that I really don't think were necessary, but overall OK. I do of course realize this is the cheapest possible failure for them. Glad they took care of it though, never want to have a failure on a new toy.
Jason
