I need one of those for my 8 gallon!This was just announced today and will be showing off at RAP Cali. Newest controller in the lineup. $329 and comes with temp probe. Basically a Launch without a few things. Great entry controller. Reminds me a lot of the OG Apex JR, but with a few more things.
Have they reengineered the Sense ports so one failed connected device doesn’t disable all Sense ports?This was just announced today and will be showing off at RAP Cali. Newest controller in the lineup. $329 and comes with temp probe. Basically a Launch without a few things. Great entry controller. Reminds me a lot of the OG Apex JR, but with a few more things.
I would think that it is still one 5v supply to all the sense ports, but it should be a rare occasion that a device will load down the 5v supply. I have had Hydros controllers for over 4 years and have 15 controllers in my main collective and it may have happened only one time years ago to me. It has not happened in the last year or so. Since I do have 15 controllers I have things spread out so that backups are not on the same controllers. I have 2 temp sensors, 2 pH probes and 2 salinity probe each one on a different controller. I even have 2 full sensors in the sump on 2 different controllers but normally one does not control anything but if I am out of town I can switch the ATO control full sensor to the other one if I eve need to do that. I have even setup a second ATO pump that 8 can switch over to when out of town. I turnoff the AWC and RODI systems when I am out of town. The ATO reservoir is 20 gallons so it will last for ATO longer than I will be gone so no need to leave the RODI auto fill running while gone.
What he's talking about is if 1 Sense port gets fried or shorts out, it affects all of the Sense ports on that controller.
I imagine the target audience for this controller are not going to have multiple redundancies built into their system. They are going to have just this one controller.
For this specific failure mode would it detect the sensor as unavailable and revert to that setting?
The 5v dropping out when overloaded is a safety feature to prevent damage to the 5v supply. I would rather it so this than burn up circuitry and have to send in the controller for repair when a sensor goes bad in a way it overloads the power supply. To reset the 5v supply the controller or collective just needs to be powered down for about a minute and powered back up. If you suspect this is your issue unhook all the sensors from the sense ports before you power it back up. Then connect them back one at a time making sure everything already connected to the sense port is still working. I would start with the temp sensor if there is one on the ports for that controller since it will show unavailable if it looses the 5v so you will know after hooking up each of the rest of the sensors back up. Any of the sensors connected that use the digital interface on the sense port will show up as unavailable since they would have no power for the processor in the sensor to communicate with the controller. The temp sensor happens to be one that uses the digital interface. The triple level sensor also uses the digital interface. A float switch would not but would default to the wet state. There is a maximum on time and maximum off time in the ATO output that you can set to send an alert if it takes longer than normal to top off or it does not top off in a given amount of time so that would be a backup for the ATO water level sensor in case there is a failure there. Those are easy enough to setup but the times you use would depend on your specific tank.
I cannot remember if I have had this happen, but I do make a lot of my own cables and have non CoralVue sensors hooked to my controllers. Hydros replaced my other controller and I already had a lot of the sensors in place from my old controller. I did comment on what I would do if it did happen so I could find the offending sensor and replace it. I got my first Hydros controller almost 5 years ago. I now have 15 of them and use a lot of sense ports and the 5v for the sense ports dropping out has not been an issue for me. I also discussed how I use redundancy by choosing a different controller for any backup to a sensor or output I have in place. If you only have one controller then that would not be possible but if you do have more than one then doing it that way is a good idea since losing a single controller would not kill both your primary and backup since the backup is not on the same controller with the primary. Also if you loose the 5v for the sense ports you should be getting several alerts. I can unhook a temps sensor and I get an alert. That is the same as one loosing power. I always have my phone with me so I would get an alert if it were to happen.
