Mastertronic Essential - New tester coming soon?

[Texasnano]

Still no date and price?

 

[CasperOe]

Still no date and price?

Haven't seen anything.. Went with the RF Smart Tester instead, lost patience :face-with-tears-of-joy:

 

[parclife]

Haven't seen anything.. Went with the RF Smart Tester instead, lost patience :face-with-tears-of-joy:

How are they doing for you? I was torn between those and the Mastertronic. Went Mastertronic in the end

 

[CasperOe]

How are they doing for you? I was torn between those and the Mastertronic. Went Mastertronic in the end

Having two units, it's a bit of a mixed review so far - but it could come down to the reagents being used as I have not swapped around to fully determine the errors I am seeing on one of them.

Phosphate - This unit has been running perfectly and like clockwork since I installed it. It is consistently within 0.1 PPM +/- off the Hanna HI736 checker. I am very please with this unit and while I don't fully trust an automated tester, I have allowed this one to somewhat control phosphate dosing on my DT using a Reef Factory Pro X1 dosing pump.

Magnesium - I have experienced a variety of issues with this unit, most of which I (as well as RF support) expect to be related to dodgy reagents. I have replaced reagents three times, done numerous calibrations and verifications and a variety of other fault finding. The first couple of measures were well within what I test with my Red Sea test kit as well as my Trident - since then it started to drift landing abt. 300 ppm off before failing completely.

I did have faulty reading of constant 3010 ppm before it started giving me a number of different error codes. After working with RF Support for about two weeks, I am awaiting a new unit and new reagents.

It is worth noticing that the second unit has been bought to test for Nitrate - reagents have not quite been released yet so as for the functionality on Magnesium, I don't really dare! :-)

I do run two of the dosing pumps controlling my nutrients levels and I am very, very happy with these. Probably the best dosing pumps I have ever used.

 

[Texasnano]

Yeah. Guess still working out bugs. I was gonna pull the trigger on rf but will give it a little while longer

 

[Superlightman]

I saw that kamoer also bring up and automatic tester

 

[smartwater101]

MUST. HAVE. THIS. SOON.

 

[tmccaff]

Kamoer Reef Master Spa looks better. I owned a Mastertronic way too much maintenance.

 

[ssster2020]

Not sure if this is relevant but I just bought an Alkatronic for an approximate 20% price reduction, does this mean that they are attempting to get rid of stock prior to release of Mastertronic Essentials?

 

[Superlightman]

Not sure if this is relevant but I just bought an Alkatronic for an approximate 20% price reduction, does this mean that they are attempting to get rid of stock prior to release of Mastertronic Essentials?

could be

 

[tmccaff]

Why buy the mastertronic essentials over the Reef Spa curious?

 

[tmccaff]

The Reef Spa can dose as well with added dosing pump. The essentials can't without added equipment. I wouldn't buy anything from Focustronic again, To get parts is ridiculous.

 

[Solo McReefer]

Now they're using creepy computer generated spokespeople? Maybe everyone who works there is ugly...I dunno.

I'd be interested to hear more since my system is coming online here shortly...

That is creepy × 2

 

[Cool tangs]

Why buy the mastertronic essentials over the Reef Spa curious?

Mastertronic essentials build looks really interesting and the fact that they have gone with the drop counters. In my eyes that's a huge deal in consistency with testing results as well. Plus the ability to use either the reagents they supply or 3rd party.

Kamoer does have pros as well. They are a well known brand in the medical industry and make very accurate pumps. I wonder if that will give them an upper hand on the spa.

The Reef Spa can dose as well with added dosing pump. The essentials can't without added equipment. I wouldn't buy anything from Focustronic again, To get parts is ridiculous.

They can both dose with there own brand of pumps. Kamoer on the other hand, the spa only works with one model of there kamoer doser. As a owner of a kamoer dosing pump this actually annoys me in a way.

My other concerns with kamoer(don't get me wrong I love there dosing pumps) they just can't make apps that work. The dosing unit I have has a temp probe on it. The graph in the app takes time to load from the cloud and if you want to see trends over a month. Goodluck it will load forever. For simple dosing, it's great. As a smart tester storing data in the cloud, I have doubts.
Edit: Let's not forget about the alerts that don't work either when your containers are low or empty.

Now I don't have hands on experience with focustronic. People I talk to in person speak highly of the units, but I see them get bashed a lot online. But as mentioned earlier the design of the mastertronic essentials is quite innovative in a way and to test 5 parameters at once almost makes the alk tester pointless. Personally I like titration tests, I don't want to stuff about with a PH probe and calibration. I just want to plug and play. This is where the mastertronic essentials and kamoer reef master spa win the market in my eyes. The other good thing is it looks like the mastertronic is compatible with all there dosers, they even have power bars to control pumps and reactors, so you could get really creative.

The other concern I have is customer support. I reached out to kamoer directly a few times with no reply. Nothing and this concerns me if issues were to happen with the spa. Now we are lucky in Aus as we have a great distributor here. I reached out to them directly and they responded literally the next morning! They also followed up on my email extremely fast. Now Parker's reef also did a interview and they offer video conferencing to customers. For me as much as I love kamoer and think the spa will be good. Focustronic has built my trust more then kamoer when it comes to the support side of things. At least in Aus anyway.

I'm curious how people are going with there mastertronics and alkatronics? Any odd app issues we should know about? I understand the older version of the mastertronic can be a little more challenging. Although sounds great when it works. I work in tech, I build and troubleshoot all day, so complexity is not a obstacle for me personally. Genuinely curious to hear people's thoughts, reviews, concerns

 

[Cool tangs]

How are they doing for you? I was torn between those and the Mastertronic. Went Mastertronic in the end

How is this going for you?

 

[parclife]

How is this going for you?

It’s good, needs a fair amount of maintenance now and then though but what doesn’t in this game. Would recommend for sure

 

[beesnreefs]

It’s good, needs a fair amount of maintenance now and then though but what doesn’t in this game. Would recommend for sure

You have the original Mastertronic, not the Mastertronic Essentials, correct?

 

[Cool tangs]

You have the original Mastertronic, not the Mastertronic Essentials, correct?

You could safely assume it's the old one, mastertronic essentials is supposed to land at our doors mid this month.

The new design is supposed to be less maintenance with 2 pumps, drippers, etc they got rid of the syringe style. I think that was a good move from them

I know because I pre-ordered one :)

 

[Cool tangs]

It’s good, needs a fair amount of maintenance now and then though but what doesn’t in this game. Would recommend for sure

Thank you! Appreciate the feedback, soon to get some focustronic experience with the essentials

 

[beesnreefs]

You could safely assume it's the old one, mastertronic essentials is supposed to land at our doors mid this month.

The new design is supposed to be less maintenance with 2 pumps, drippers, etc they got rid of the syringe style. I think that was a good move from them

I know because I pre-ordered one :)

Where did you preorder?