14 month old Neptune DOS wore out peristaltic tubing and fried itself

[Martingale]

My 14-month old Neptune DOS wore a slow leak in the peristaltic tubing on one of the heads. This DOS did 2part dosing all of its life and then switched to an AWC the last week as I was testing the concept.

The unit was upright hanging on a wall when it tore the peristaltic tubing and began to drip leak. This slow leak caused maybe a half gallon of water (due to positioning of the inlet/outlets) to back siphon, fill the pump head, and leak to the floor.

It seems water penetrated the unit during this leak and fried the board, which is disappointing for how little water it would have been exposed to. The DOS will not function on a 1link port now and only flashes green on aquabus and a power supply. Given it was likely fried due to water damage and it’s over a year old, I figure a warranty repair is out of the question.

Altogether I’m pretty disappointed having to go out and buy another $330 unit to replace one that is barely a year old and hardly touched by water caused from its own tubing failure. I don’t expect Apex to be much help here, but I did reach out this weekend. I’ll probably try fixreef.com, as they seem pretty reliable for repairs.

Any other advice or suggestions on an AWC setup with the apex would be appreciated.

 

[_AV]

The main board of the unit is positioned inside on the bottom of the enclosure. The water dripping from the head down would certainly cause a short... The unit is not sealed from the head. You are certainly welcome to send it in.

 

[Martingale]

Neptune said the repair could be $35-$300 (depending on if the board was fried), and I had to go buy another DOS just to have one on hand.

Definitely mounting these things face down from now on, but a little confused how the electronics are not protected from the pump head in the slightest.

Here’s what the tubing looked like when I took the head apart. It wasn’t dried out or stiff either.

 

[Gtinnel]

I had a similar problem with a trident that the cuvette overflowed and fried a board that was beside the cuvette. It amazes me that as expensive as these devices are they don’t do any thing to try to prevent water from destroying the boards. It’s almost like they want them to get destroyed so you have to buy new ones.

My dos is over two years old and I have never replaced the tubing or heads. It’s guess it time to order some new ones.

 

[rtparty]

It’s good practice to replace tubing yearly. Even sooner if being used for AWC.

Neptune drastically needs to redesign their entire lineup to be more water resistant. I won’t hold my breath though. This has been known for years with no change in direction from them. I thought Ryan and BRS would have a much larger impact on fixing many of the known issues but that isn’t happening.

 

[Pntbll687]

How many hours were on the tubing? 14 months seems like a long time to go for a set of tubes, unless they were dosing small amounts of two part

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

I had a similar issue with a brand new dos several years ago. The tubing was pinched between the roller and housing and squirted liquid out into the head housing and then down into the dos below (I had three mounted on a wall, each one about six inches higher than the one below) shorting it out. I wasn’t happy and Neptune refused to replace it even though it was only a couple months old but did sell me one for half price. Thier response was that yes they can be stacked but that each one should be on its own shelf so that it can’t drip on the one below. They also said that the heads are purposely tilted at an outward angle so that the dosing lines exit away from any units below. I had all my lines neatly organized and have since rerouted them so there are no drip loops above others. As far as your back siphon issue, mount the dos higher than the liquid levels. That way if this happens again the fluid drains back down and can’t siphon.

 

[bushdoc]

I had similar issues with AWC using DOS, leaking in various points and drifting calibration, so I do manual water changes now.
I also feel that mechanical quality and design of some Neptune products is sub-par.