How has your Apex 2016 experience been?

csb123 · Jul 2, 2016

I'm in the market for a controller and was about to pull the trigger on the new Apex. Unfortunately, there have been a bunch of negative experiences posted on the forums by new owners. Particularly about bad head units and crappy wifi connectivity. I was wondering if these are just anomalies or are they common problems.

I'm very interested to hear about your experiences.

Elder1945 · Jul 2, 2016

don't do it :)

jasonamyers · Jul 6, 2016

I got the new apex yesterday. Started following the getting started guide: plugged it in, setup the network, started the firmware update... Unit completely stopped responding and now I sit waiting on them to handle my support ticket. It's my first aquarium controller, and now i kinda wished I would have spend that $800 (like a second tank :)) on something else entirely. If they can get it working, I'm sure I'll enjoy it but the out of the box experience has been terrible for me a new reefer and totally new to controllers.

eg8r210 · Jul 6, 2016

Considering this is a highly complex piece of hardware being released by a company that has very little experience with major releases like this you have to expect some major speed bumps along the way. I am sure they will get things figured out especially considering they are branching into new territory they know nothing about (wireless) and have chosen to implement fairly old technology (seriously, wireless N?) nonetheless there will be problems along the way. Early adopters are their beta testers and it will be a while before things get better.

jasonamyers · Jul 6, 2016

I guess I should have known better, but I naively assumed that they would have this mostly figured out from their prior product launches. X feature not working, or Y thing being off is different than bricked.

jasonamyers · Jul 6, 2016

As an update, I'm having to ship mine back as they were unable to fix it because the memory wasn't writable in the state it was in. Their support was very nice on the phone, and it did make me feel like they where going to get it right.

slief · Jul 6, 2016

Keep in mind that people are much less likely to post a thread regarding how well their new Apex worked. You are far more likely to hear about the issues. That said, I have been following the threads here as well as the other forums including the Neptune forum and while there have been some issues, there aren't what I consider to be an excessive amount. Most were about the dropped Fusion connections (a bug) and a handful of hardware related issues that may have been the result of a bug, firmware or an update that went sideways. Some people who were offered replacements were able to fix the issues with a remote session which leads me to believe that many of the replacements that went out could have been addressed with a remote session. I don't think that there have been many truly defective units. Instead some that got boogered as a result of firmware or bugs that could have been fixed remotely but instead were swapped to keep customers happy.

I have one that I setup for a customers new tank. I had one of the first that shipped. I've had it since a day or two after they first started shipping and set it up and programmed it immediately. That makes about 2 weeks now that it's been up and running in what I call a virtual aquarium (my floor).
I immediately did a firmware update upon receipt as a new update was available. The only real bug I encountered was the probes becoming disabled after disconnecting the system and mounting it to a board. Once powered back up, I noticed the probes were no longer showing. I had to re-enable the probes through the probes page which I quickly figured out on my own. That bug was identified and apparently fixed in the latest firmware update which I applied this weekend. I ran wired for the first week and switched to wifi last Friday. I've only had one drop wifi connection and that could have been the result of my DSL service dropping off. Gotta love ATT Uverse. I restarted the Apex and it came right back up on the network & Fusion so that could have been bug related or router related since it didn't reconnect immediately on its own after my DSL service dropped.

I've also had a constant Fusion connection through my Amazon Fire tablet which I kept open and powered (no lock screen) so I could verify constant Fusion connectivity. I have been using Fusion daily via my iPad and computers. I know some reported Fusion connection issues but I am thinking that was a wifi related issue that was addressed in the most recent firmware update which would explain why I hadn't seen any issues there since I ran a wired network connection up until this last weekend. I am sure there may be some other minor bugs which will be addressed in the coming days. From my standpoint, it's stable near as I can tell and 100% stable with a wired LAN connection. I have been testing the heck out of it over the last couple weeks and everything is working well. I know some of you are reporting Fusion issues which assuming you are running the latest firmware would lead me to believe there must still be a kink or two to work out.

It's expectable to have some bugs in the early stages of a hardware release like this. The good thing is that Neptune is on top of them and from what I understand, they were even doing tech support and remote sessions through the holiday weekend which is very impressive and telling of just how good their support is. Fortunately for me, I am a long time Apex user so I had it setup in no time and it's been quite stable for me. I just disconnected everything, wrapped the board up and loaded it into my car. I will be heading to the customers tomorrow to install it on their new cylinder tank. With the Apex pre-programmed, setup will be a breeze.

As you can see from the setup below, this is a fairly complex install with 2x VDM's, ALD, LSM, PM1, a custom breakout box and an additional EB8 and EB4.

jasonamyers · Jul 6, 2016

That's great to hear!

slief · Jul 9, 2016

I figured I would provide an update on my 2016 Apex install. I finished up the install at the customers house on Thursday and it's been rock solid. Keep in mind that I had the system running here at my house for about 2 weeks prior to setting it up onsite on the customers new system. I am pleased to say that it's working just as I would expect it to. I still need to install the LED lights and connect them to the VDM modules. That will get done once they get their canopy done. I also need to clean up the wires in the sump shed. I was too tired to monkey with that on Thursday. I will do that when I go back to install the LED's.

All went well though other than some interesting network issues due to their crazy WiFi setup. Their IT guy had to install a WiFi bridge due to the way their network is setup. Their Wifi is setup like a hotel where you connect to the WiFi then have to log into it through a web page to gain access to the network. It's not your typical WPA secure connection like most home WiFi networks. Instead we used a commercial grade WiFi bridge with a 2' tall antenna and set a static IP with a direct connection to their firewall. It's about the most reliable connection one can use short of a wired connection. It was kind of a pain as it kept me onsite for a couple extra hours while we worked through their network issues to get the Apex online and reconnected to Fusion. I had asked for a wired connection well prior to the install but it seems they overlooked that. Both their IT guy and I agreed that was a shame as I much prefer wired connections where ever possible but at least we are using a high end WiFi bridge and not your typical consumer grade one. It would have been nice to use the Apex's integrated WiFi but their crazy hotel like secure connections that need constant re-authentication prevented that as did their dual firewall. We could have worked around that on the Firewall side had I had the MAC address of the Apex but he couldn't pull it from their firewalls and I didn't think of capturing it from my firewall and bringing it along. Truth is that this particular bridge is about as reliable of a wireless connection as one could have so I'm really not dissapointed. Other than that, all went well and the system is now running off the new Apex. Some pictures of the carnage.

The controller board I made (also shown in photos above) attaches to the steel stand with magnets. On the controller board we have the Base unit, EB8-32, two VDM modules, LSM, display unit and 4 Tunze 6255 controllers. The Tunze's are connected to one of the VDM's. The other VDM is for the 9 Reefbrite XHO strips that will be illuminating this tank. You can see the WiFi antenna on the right side of the controller board. It's that tall 4" diameter pipe looking thing. I asked if we could add some plumbing fittings to the antenna thinking it could serve double duty as a fluidized sand filter but no luck.

There is a lot going on the filter shed. We have 2 heaters in there. Each has it's own dedicated controller with the Apex serving as the failsafe. The chiller is in its own compartment in there. It uses a Ranco controller and again the Apex serves as the failsafe. The chiller has ducting in the front and rear of the shed so it pulls air from the back and pushes through a vent in the front. It's completely enclosed and isolated from the rest of the shed so as to not heat the sump area. Also in the shed is an EB8, EB4, ALD and PM1. The PM1 was used so we had some I/O ports in the shed for the custom breakout box that I made. The breakout box supports the float switches that serve the ATO pump as well as the "Too High" and "Too Low" float switches that serve as failsafes and alarm notifications in the event that the sump is ever too low or too high.