Unfortunate Sequence of Events

[Mike Arnold]

An unfortunate sequence of events (perfect storm) led to a near disaster; I'm still assessing the damage.

I'm not sure what is going on yet, but wanted to share with the community.

In a nutshell, my Finnex titanium heater kicked on at the same time my apex eb8 stopped communicating with the controller. The attached diagram details the sequence of events.

It happen on Easter day while I was out of town (about 45min away) visiting my parents. I got the first alert that the 82 degree threshold had tripped at about 2:00pm; I left for home immediately and by the time I got home, the temp peaked at 83.8 degrees

The fix was simple, but not sure what happen. When I got home, I immediately disconnected the heater from the eb8; after a little analysis I realized that the eb8 wasn't communicating with the controller, although there wasn't any indication of an error; all indicator lights were green on both the eb8 and controller. Once I disconnected and reconnected the auqubus cable, the system reset itself and the fan kicked on and heater port kicked off. Everything started functioning normal.

Note: I did experience some odd behavior the day before, my feed mode wasn't working properly. Since the system had been running uninterrupted for about 4 months, I decided just to reboot the (notice the power outage on the diagram for April 15th) ; I just assumed that it needed a reboot, I didn't really look any closer than that.

Has anyone experienced anything like this before? I'm wondering if there is a bigger issue luming, or maybe there is a little corrosion going on in the aquabus port?

Thoughts?

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

An unfortunate sequence of events (perfect storm) led to a near disaster; I'm still assessing the damage.

I'm not sure what is going on yet, but wanted to share with the community.

In a nutshell, my Finnex titanium heater kicked on at the same time my apex eb8 stopped communicating with the controller. The attached diagram details the sequence of events.

It happen on Easter day while I was out of town (about 45min away) visiting my parents. I got the first alert that the 82 degree threshold had tripped at about 2:00pm; I left for home immediately and by the time I got home, the temp peaked at 83.8 degrees

The fix was simple, but not sure what happen. When I got home, I immediately disconnected the heater from the eb8; after a little analysis I realized that the eb8 wasn't communicating with the controller, although there wasn't any indication of an error; all indicator lights were green on both the eb8 and controller. Once I disconnected and reconnected the auqubus cable, the system reset itself and the fan kicked on and heater port kicked off. Everything started functioning normal.

Note: I did experience some odd behavior the day before, my feed mode wasn't working properly. Since the system had been running uninterrupted for about 4 months, I decided just to reboot the (notice the power outage on the diagram for April 15th) ; I just assumed that it needed a reboot, I didn't really look any closer than that.

Has anyone experienced anything like this before? I'm wondering if there is a bigger issue luming, or maybe there is a little corrosion going on in the aquabus port?

Thoughts?

How is the heater programmed? Are you using the Fallback OFF command?

 

[Mike&Terry]

When an energy bar loses communication with an Apex base, it reverts to default programming for each outlet - FALLBACK ON or OFF depending how you set it. It sounds like yours is set to ON which is how most folks do it. When FALLBACK is set to OFF, the outlet has no power, so the heater would not run.

Does the Finnex heater have a built in thermostat? If so, lower the max temp on the heater. If not, I would look at getting a new heater with a built in thermostat (cheaper option) or add something like a JBJ digital heater controller (a bit expensive, but accurate).

 

[pickupman66]

Man, that is scary. is your return pump by chance on the same EB? If so, can you swap it to another? I ask this because one of the fail safes I use is to have a high temp alarm that will turn off the return pump if it reaches a critical level. this way the sump can just cook and not the tank.

 

[morpheas]

I would be very interested to know also if you have a FALLBACK statement in the beginning of your programming and what is that set to. It's these exact situations where the fallback statements are necessary and if it failed it would definitely be something Neptune needs to look at.

 

[Mike Arnold]

When an energy bar loses communication with an Apex base, it reverts to default programming for each outlet - FALLBACK ON or OFF depending how you set it. It sounds like yours is set to ON which is how most folks do it. When FALLBACK is set to OFF, the outlet has no power, so the heater would not run.

Does the Finnex heater have a built in thermostat? If so, lower the max temp on the heater. If not, I would look at getting a new heater with a built in thermostat (cheaper option) or add something like a JBJ digital heater controller (a bit expensive, but accurate).

No thermostat on finnix. I was planning on purchasing a second heater for fail-over purposes, maybe I'll purchase one with a thermostat. Thanks

 

[Mike Arnold]

I would be very interested to know also if you have a FALLBACK statement in the beginning of your programming and what is that set to. It's these exact situations where the fallback statements are necessary and if it failed it would definitely be something Neptune needs to look at.

Here's my settings. They don't appear to be working:

Fallback OFF
If Temp < 77.8 Then ON
If Temp > 78.0 Then OFF

 

[Mike Arnold]

Man, that is scary. is your return pump by chance on the same EB? If so, can you swap it to another? I ask this because one of the fail safes I use is to have a high temp alarm that will turn off the return pump if it reaches a critical level. this way the sump can just cook and not the tank.

Yes, my pump is controlled by the eb8, but if the fall-back on the heater didn't work, I'm not sure the pump config would work either. That is a good idea though. I was thinking about modifying the configs to shut the lights off with a high temp event; I'll power down the pump too. Thanks

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

You might also consider adding the Set OFF statement to your programming.

 

[Mike Arnold]

I'm thinking that it is probably time to update the microcode. I'm currently running on version 4.40_8G15

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

I'm thinking that it is probably time to update the microcode. I'm currently running on version 4.40_8G15

Yeah, I thought about asking you earlier what firmware version you were running, but I figured one question at at time

 

[morpheas]

You might also consider adding the Set OFF statement to your programming.

I think you put your finger on it. I think theoretically the fallback statement should've worked but the code, in my opinion, should change to:

Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Temp < 77.8 Then ON
If Temp > 78.0 Then OFF

Maybe @Terence can shed his light on this one.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

I think you put your finger on it. I think theoretically the fallback statement should've worked but the code, in my opinion, should change to:



Maybe @Terence can shed his light on this one.

Agreed. I think the Fallback should've worked, but the Set OFF will act as another level of protection.

 

[pickupman66]

@Mike Arnold, if you have another eb8 you could move the return pump to that could help