Neptune Trident failed after 6 months.

[Badilac]

Well my Trident finally took a dump and I am now waiting for my replacement to arrive. Below is a dairy of my issues over a 10 day period (the time it took Neptune to issue me an RMA). Maybe this info can help someone else.

I have been running my Trident since Aug. flawlessly until 2/8/2020. On that day it gave error on test A at 617am, when I woke up that morning I started trouble shooting it. I checked reagents, then reset the trident, after that it gave a "no sample error" even though it was filling the vial with water as I was watching it. I checked the sample line, disconnected it from the trident and blew canned air threw it. Everything was clean and clear. Yet I still had the error until 14:31 when the error cleared out of the blue and for no reason.

On 2/9/20 at 19:52 I ran a calibration on the trident, after that I ran a combined test and the ALK jumped way higher than it should have. It was 8.45 before cal. and 8.73 after. So me thinking it was high I stopped manually dosing to let it drop down to my target of 8.4-8.5.

Then on 2/11/2020 at 00:00 I got another error "reagent A" So in the morning before 06:00 I checked the reagent which still had more than 1/3 left, but I changed it anyways and reset reagent A and the error was cleared.

On 2/15/2020 at 00:19 ALK was at 8.5 but then at 06:19 for some unknown reason it dropped to 8.21 (it never drops like that at night). When I woke up that morning I manually dosed to get back to 8.5 thinking it was low for some reason and it was back to 8.43 by the test at 12:24. Then all of a sudden it just kept climbing even though I was not dosing. On 2/15 18:19 it was 8.67, 2/16 00:19 it was 8.87, 2/16 06:10 it was still 8.87, then it started going down until 2/17 at 06:10 when it all of a sudden went back up to 8.76 from the prior test of 8.69. There was no way my tank wasn't consuming ALK even though for days it was over 8.6.

On 2/17/2020 at 12:40 I got the "error on test A" again. I let it be and did nothing while I replied to emails from my previous help ticket. I got no replies and at 18:00 the error cleared during its scheduled test. The test results at 18:21 showed my ALK was way low at 7.82 which made sense to me since I haven't been dosing because it was reporting high on all prior days. So I thought is must be working now and I need to dose. I dosed enough ALK that should have gotten me to 8.5, I then waited until 19:52 (1.5hrs after I dosed) and ran the ALK test again which resulted in 7.78. NO way I dosed 130ML and it went down..... Then guess what, now it says "no water sample" once again even though it has a sample. I power cycled the unit and videoed it pulling samples yet it still showing no sample. Also I have noticed the light on the front is now Purple instead of red or blue.

From then on it never ran another test as it was stuck on the error "no water sample". No matter what I did this error would not go away and it would not run any of the 3 tests.

On 2/18/20 Neptune asked me to pay a deposit to process the cross ship RMA which I did that same day.

On 2/19/20 Neptune sent me an email stating "We shipped a replacement Trident to you"

On 2/24/20 (5 days later) I still had no tracking so I emailed them again they replied Apologizing and stated it would ship that day.

On 3/2/20 The replacement is out for delivery. Almost a month since the unit started failing. I hope this one will last longer than 6 months...

Lately I have read a few posts about no sample / priming issues so I hope this thread can be useful to someone as that is my only reason for posting this. Neptune has taken care of me although a lot slower than I had hoped but I will live. I will keep everyone posted once I get home and set up the replacement unit.

 

[reef lover]

Yikes! Hope the new one lasts longer!

 

[robbyg]

I don't understand why he did not have another test kit like A Hanna to check the results. It seems like he took a lot of guesses at what was the right reading from a wrong readings before the unit crapped out completely.

 

[User1]

Well my Trident finally took a dump and I am now waiting for my replacement to arrive. Below is a dairy of my issues over a 10 day period (the time it took Neptune to issue me an RMA). Maybe this info can help someone else.

I have been running my Trident since Aug. flawlessly until 2/8/2020. On that day it gave error on test A at 617am, when I woke up that morning I started trouble shooting it. I checked reagents, then reset the trident, after that it gave a "no sample error" even though it was filling the vial with water as I was watching it. I checked the sample line, disconnected it from the trident and blew canned air threw it. Everything was clean and clear. Yet I still had the error until 14:31 when the error cleared out of the blue and for no reason.

On 2/9/20 at 19:52 I ran a calibration on the trident, after that I ran a combined test and the ALK jumped way higher than it should have. It was 8.45 before cal. and 8.73 after. So me thinking it was high I stopped manually dosing to let it drop down to my target of 8.4-8.5.

Then on 2/11/2020 at 00:00 I got another error "reagent A" So in the morning before 06:00 I checked the reagent which still had more than 1/3 left, but I changed it anyways and reset reagent A and the error was cleared.

On 2/15/2020 at 00:19 ALK was at 8.5 but then at 06:19 for some unknown reason it dropped to 8.21 (it never drops like that at night). When I woke up that morning I manually dosed to get back to 8.5 thinking it was low for some reason and it was back to 8.43 by the test at 12:24. Then all of a sudden it just kept climbing even though I was not dosing. On 2/15 18:19 it was 8.67, 2/16 00:19 it was 8.87, 2/16 06:10 it was still 8.87, then it started going down until 2/17 at 06:10 when it all of a sudden went back up to 8.76 from the prior test of 8.69. There was no way my tank wasn't consuming ALK even though for days it was over 8.6.

On 2/17/2020 at 12:40 I got the "error on test A" again. I let it be and did nothing while I replied to emails from my previous help ticket. I got no replies and at 18:00 the error cleared during its scheduled test. The test results at 18:21 showed my ALK was way low at 7.82 which made sense to me since I haven't been dosing because it was reporting high on all prior days. So I thought is must be working now and I need to dose. I dosed enough ALK that should have gotten me to 8.5, I then waited until 19:52 (1.5hrs after I dosed) and ran the ALK test again which resulted in 7.78. NO way I dosed 130ML and it went down..... Then guess what, now it says "no water sample" once again even though it has a sample. I power cycled the unit and videoed it pulling samples yet it still showing no sample. Also I have noticed the light on the front is now Purple instead of red or blue.

From then on it never ran another test as it was stuck on the error "no water sample". No matter what I did this error would not go away and it would not run any of the 3 tests.

On 2/18/20 Neptune asked me to pay a deposit to process the cross ship RMA which I did that same day.

On 2/19/20 Neptune sent me an email stating "We shipped a replacement Trident to you"

On 2/24/20 (5 days later) I still had no tracking so I emailed them again they replied Apologizing and stated it would ship that day.

On 3/2/20 The replacement is out for delivery. Almost a month since the unit started failing. I hope this one will last longer than 6 months...

Lately I have read a few posts about no sample / priming issues so I hope this thread can be useful to someone as that is my only reason for posting this. Neptune has taken care of me although a lot slower than I had hoped but I will live. I will keep everyone posted once I get home and set up the replacement unit.

During this debugging window did you ever run a manual test sampling the water a minute or two before the Trident kicks off? Seems it would have been a whole lot easier to verify what the tanks ALK was and let your dosing continue while working with Neptune.

Actually brings up a issue I had and support actually suggested a manual test then continue dosing as normal. Just take the trident controlled aspect off line while we worked through it. In my case it was my sample / draw line placement and a brightwell marine block that was disintegrating and clogging up the line.

In any case glad they took care of it. I've had pretty good, no - actually great, response from them.

 

[Badilac]

I did not run any manual tests in conjunction with the Trident. I was very trusting of it, as it ran flawlessly for 6 months. I figured It was just having some intermittent issue and when a test did run I was thinking it was right because the numbers weren't unrealistic. I don't have a ton of coral but I do have some expensive pieces, but hindsight is 20/20 right? The good news is nothing suffered, the bad news is I think 4 weeks to get a replacement is a little long.

They did email me saying "Your RMA has been received and diagnosed by our team" "we have issued a credit in the amount of 99.95". So since they said they got my bad unit back and diagnosed it I asked what was wrong with it. Their reply "We have not had a chance to look at your unit and will not get to it for awhile". ????? Really ???? The email before that said they got it and diagnosed it. Guess that was BS or they didn't want to tell me what the failure was.

So far the replacement unit has been working fine however I do not feel it is as good as the first unit. It could just be my trust has went down. IDK. I don't have any hard feelings towards Neptune I just think things went a lot slower than they should have.

 

[robbyg]

Their reply "We have not had a chance to look at your unit and will not get to it for awhile". ????? Really ???? The email before that said they got it and diagnosed it. Guess that was crap or they didn't want to tell me what the failure was.

When most companies get back stuff under warranty they just throw it into the heap with the other models like it, that also had problems. So I think you got a very honest reply! Typically they will either scavenge the defective units for parts to do repairs on other units or refurbish them when they have a slow period or just throw them out and write off the losses for tax returns.

 

[User1]

When most companies get back stuff under warranty they just throw it into the heap with the other models like it, that also had problems. So I think you got a very honest reply! Typically they will either scavenge the defective units for parts to do repairs on other units or refurbish them when they have a slow period or just throw them out and write off the losses for tax returns.

Back when I was wrenching on F-15's in Okinawa we had designated canned birds for this very reason . Logistically speaking we could only keep on hand so many major parts outside the wrisk / war kits we deployed with. So these birds waiting for those parts became targets for other parts to pilfer and keep the rest up in the air... Frowned upon but hey - mission comes first and overseas that is real world

 

[Badilac]

Not sure how I got an honest reply when they emailed me saying the diagnosed the unit then they said they haven’t looked at it. It can’t be both.... they either diagnosed it or they didn’t. Also I work in a major manufacturing plant in the service center doing warranty and non warranty work. We don’t throw anything into heaps, but maybe they do.

 

[User1]

Not sure how I got an honest reply when they emailed me saying the diagnosed the unit then they said they haven’t looked at it. It can’t be both.... they either diagnosed it or they didn’t. Also I work in a major manufacturing plant in the service center doing warranty and non warranty work. We don’t throw anything into heaps, but maybe they do.

Can't speak for you but when I RMA'd my energy bar they replied back in a couple days to say the 1-link card was toast. Link with repair cost and that was it. Made the payment and the unit was back in no time.

Now to be fair to everyone the world is in a different place at the moment as we all know. Who is working where and shipping priorities are all different across most if not all states.

 

[Miller535]

When most companies get back stuff under warranty they just throw it into the heap with the other models like it, that also had problems. So I think you got a very honest reply! Typically they will either scavenge the defective units for parts to do repairs on other units or refurbish them when they have a slow period or just throw them out and write off the losses for tax returns.

As someone who worked as a electronic tech for almost 20 years, for many companies both large and small. I have never worked for one that just threw anything into a heap or threw things out and wrote them off. What typically happens is when your unit breaks and you send it in, they give you a refurbished one, then they fix yours, and use it to replace someone else's broken unit. And I am unaware of a tax write off.

 

[Badilac]

Can't speak for you but when I RMA'd my energy bar they replied back in a couple days to say the 1-link card was toast. Link with repair cost and that was it. Made the payment and the unit was back in no time.

Now to be fair to everyone the world is in a different place at the moment as we all know. Who is working where and shipping priorities are all different across most if not all states.

Wish I could say the same. True about the current world status but this all transpired well before the Virus in my case.

 

[NeptunePaul]

I wouldn't read too much into the response you got regarding the diagnostics. The refund/diagnostic email was our standard canned response email for a refund for a deposit- i'll agree it could have been better edited to address you specific scenario. Likely it was checked to make sure there was not user abuse and your were credited the full amount back. The unit will likely be refurbished at some point , but right now (well at least before the mandated shut-down) our Tridents builders and technicians are focussed on building new Tridents to continue to work on meeting the continued demand on the Trident.

Sorry you had some trouble with your unit but happy to hear you are now back up and running.

Thanks for being a great customer and working with our team through your issue.

 

[Badilac]

I wouldn't read too much into the response you got regarding the diagnostics. The refund/diagnostic email was our standard canned response email for a refund for a deposit- i'll agree it could have been better edited to address you specific scenario. Likely it was checked to make sure there was not user abuse and your were credited the full amount back. The unit will likely be refurbished at some point , but right now (well at least before the mandated shut-down) our Tridents builders and technicians are focussed on building new Tridents to continue to work on meeting the continued demand on the Trident.

Sorry you had some trouble with your unit but happy to hear you are now back up and running.

Thanks for being a great customer and working with our team through your issue.

Thanks for taking the time to chime in to the thread! I do appreciate you guys taking care of the issue and I hope the new unit last for years to come.

 

[robbyg]

As someone who worked as a electronic tech for almost 20 years, for many companies both large and small. I have never worked for one that just threw anything into a heap or threw things out and wrote them off. What typically happens is when your unit breaks and you send it in, they give you a refurbished one, then they fix yours, and use it to replace someone else's broken unit. And I am unaware of a tax write off.

I think you took the throw on a heap thing too literally LOL
As I said, we often scavenged the old units for parts, mainly boards that can pass through the test jigs and used those boards to do swap outs on other defective units to create refurbished units. All the inventory that is a loss is written off in the COGS for tax purposes and is disposed of.

 

[ArmyReefer]

I wouldn't read too much into the response you got regarding the diagnostics. The refund/diagnostic email was our standard canned response email for a refund for a deposit- i'll agree it could have been better edited to address you specific scenario. Likely it was checked to make sure there was not user abuse and your were credited the full amount back. The unit will likely be refurbished at some point , but right now (well at least before the mandated shut-down) our Tridents builders and technicians are focussed on building new Tridents to continue to work on meeting the continued demand on the Trident.

Sorry you had some trouble with your unit but happy to hear you are now back up and running.

Thanks for being a great customer and working with our team through your issue.

Robby

Im having issues with my trident. I cant find a support number or webpage for support for the trident. Only apex. Can you point me in the right direction please.

 

[NeptunePaul]

Robby

Im having issues with my trident. I cant find a support number or webpage for support for the trident. Only apex. Can you point me in the right direction please.

The Apex and Trident are both products of Neptune Systems. Sorry to hear you are having trouble, all contact information and entering a support ticket to assist you can be found here:

https://neptunesystems.com/gethelp

If you are specifically looking for help with your Trident, then I would recommend going to our Trident Troubleshooting form. If the troubleshooting does not resolve your issue, then you can submit a ticket right there to us (and we already know what you have done to try to fix it now. You can navigate to that form at:

https://neptunesystems.com/troubleshooting

Thanks!

Paul

 

[Johnmy]

Well my Trident finally took a dump and I am now waiting for my replacement to arrive. Below is a dairy of my issues over a 10 day period (the time it took Neptune to issue me an RMA). Maybe this info can help someone else.

I have been running my Trident since Aug. flawlessly until 2/8/2020. On that day it gave error on test A at 617am, when I woke up that morning I started trouble shooting it. I checked reagents, then reset the trident, after that it gave a "no sample error" even though it was filling the vial with water as I was watching it. I checked the sample line, disconnected it from the trident and blew canned air threw it. Everything was clean and clear. Yet I still had the error until 14:31 when the error cleared out of the blue and for no reason.

On 2/9/20 at 19:52 I ran a calibration on the trident, after that I ran a combined test and the ALK jumped way higher than it should have. It was 8.45 before cal. and 8.73 after. So me thinking it was high I stopped manually dosing to let it drop down to my target of 8.4-8.5.

Then on 2/11/2020 at 00:00 I got another error "reagent A" So in the morning before 06:00 I checked the reagent which still had more than 1/3 left, but I changed it anyways and reset reagent A and the error was cleared.

On 2/15/2020 at 00:19 ALK was at 8.5 but then at 06:19 for some unknown reason it dropped to 8.21 (it never drops like that at night). When I woke up that morning I manually dosed to get back to 8.5 thinking it was low for some reason and it was back to 8.43 by the test at 12:24. Then all of a sudden it just kept climbing even though I was not dosing. On 2/15 18:19 it was 8.67, 2/16 00:19 it was 8.87, 2/16 06:10 it was still 8.87, then it started going down until 2/17 at 06:10 when it all of a sudden went back up to 8.76 from the prior test of 8.69. There was no way my tank wasn't consuming ALK even though for days it was over 8.6.

On 2/17/2020 at 12:40 I got the "error on test A" again. I let it be and did nothing while I replied to emails from my previous help ticket. I got no replies and at 18:00 the error cleared during its scheduled test. The test results at 18:21 showed my ALK was way low at 7.82 which made sense to me since I haven't been dosing because it was reporting high on all prior days. So I thought is must be working now and I need to dose. I dosed enough ALK that should have gotten me to 8.5, I then waited until 19:52 (1.5hrs after I dosed) and ran the ALK test again which resulted in 7.78. NO way I dosed 130ML and it went down..... Then guess what, now it says "no water sample" once again even though it has a sample. I power cycled the unit and videoed it pulling samples yet it still showing no sample. Also I have noticed the light on the front is now Purple instead of red or blue.

From then on it never ran another test as it was stuck on the error "no water sample". No matter what I did this error would not go away and it would not run any of the 3 tests.

On 2/18/20 Neptune asked me to pay a deposit to process the cross ship RMA which I did that same day.

On 2/19/20 Neptune sent me an email stating "We shipped a replacement Trident to you"

On 2/24/20 (5 days later) I still had no tracking so I emailed them again they replied Apologizing and stated it would ship that day.

On 3/2/20 The replacement is out for delivery. Almost a month since the unit started failing. I hope this one will last longer than 6 months...

Lately I have read a few posts about no sample / priming issues so I hope this thread can be useful to someone as that is my only reason for posting this. Neptune has taken care of me although a lot slower than I had hoped but I will live. I will keep everyone posted once I get home and set up the replacement unit.

Well my Trident finally took a dump and I am now waiting for my replacement to arrive. Below is a dairy of my issues over a 10 day period (the time it took Neptune to issue me an RMA). Maybe this info can help someone else.

I have been running my Trident since Aug. flawlessly until 2/8/2020. On that day it gave error on test A at 617am, when I woke up that morning I started trouble shooting it. I checked reagents, then reset the trident, after that it gave a "no sample error" even though it was filling the vial with water as I was watching it. I checked the sample line, disconnected it from the trident and blew canned air threw it. Everything was clean and clear. Yet I still had the error until 14:31 when the error cleared out of the blue and for no reason.

On 2/9/20 at 19:52 I ran a calibration on the trident, after that I ran a combined test and the ALK jumped way higher than it should have. It was 8.45 before cal. and 8.73 after. So me thinking it was high I stopped manually dosing to let it drop down to my target of 8.4-8.5.

Then on 2/11/2020 at 00:00 I got another error "reagent A" So in the morning before 06:00 I checked the reagent which still had more than 1/3 left, but I changed it anyways and reset reagent A and the error was cleared.

On 2/15/2020 at 00:19 ALK was at 8.5 but then at 06:19 for some unknown reason it dropped to 8.21 (it never drops like that at night). When I woke up that morning I manually dosed to get back to 8.5 thinking it was low for some reason and it was back to 8.43 by the test at 12:24. Then all of a sudden it just kept climbing even though I was not dosing. On 2/15 18:19 it was 8.67, 2/16 00:19 it was 8.87, 2/16 06:10 it was still 8.87, then it started going down until 2/17 at 06:10 when it all of a sudden went back up to 8.76 from the prior test of 8.69. There was no way my tank wasn't consuming ALK even though for days it was over 8.6.

On 2/17/2020 at 12:40 I got the "error on test A" again. I let it be and did nothing while I replied to emails from my previous help ticket. I got no replies and at 18:00 the error cleared during its scheduled test. The test results at 18:21 showed my ALK was way low at 7.82 which made sense to me since I haven't been dosing because it was reporting high on all prior days. So I thought is must be working now and I need to dose. I dosed enough ALK that should have gotten me to 8.5, I then waited until 19:52 (1.5hrs after I dosed) and ran the ALK test again which resulted in 7.78. NO way I dosed 130ML and it went down..... Then guess what, now it says "no water sample" once again even though it has a sample. I power cycled the unit and videoed it pulling samples yet it still showing no sample. Also I have noticed the light on the front is now Purple instead of red or blue.

From then on it never ran another test as it was stuck on the error "no water sample". No matter what I did this error would not go away and it would not run any of the 3 tests.

On 2/18/20 Neptune asked me to pay a deposit to process the cross ship RMA which I did that same day.

On 2/19/20 Neptune sent me an email stating "We shipped a replacement Trident to you"

On 2/24/20 (5 days later) I still had no tracking so I emailed them again they replied Apologizing and stated it would ship that day.

On 3/2/20 The replacement is out for delivery. Almost a month since the unit started failing. I hope this one will last longer than 6 months...

Lately I have read a few posts about no sample / priming issues so I hope this thread can be useful to someone as that is my only reason for posting this. Neptune has taken care of me although a lot slower than I had hoped but I will live. I will keep everyone posted once I get home and set up the replacement unit.

Hello everybody. Maybe I'm looking at this writing late but I was surprised that it is almost the same time that mine gave problems, I bought it in August 2020 at BRS and with the alk it was also my problem. Normally I have the controlled dosage ppr trident and the tests 8 times a day, normally those of us who have trident know that the dosage amount of Alk and CA goes up or down depends on what I need when it is controlled by Trident, so I have the configuration for keep it close to 8.5 the alk, I got tired of explaining to them by email that I have never had problems with Alk because it is the parameter that I watch the most for the big problems it can cause and that apart from the trident from time to time I did the test with Hanna to make sure everything was fine, they were always close to each other. As of April 8, 2021 the problems began when I realized that it dropped to 7.98, I did almost the same as you, I changed the reagent, calibrated, cleaned the cuvette, did the complete reset of the trident, etc, then I gave authorization to them to connect to my fusion, and they only told me that they saw everything well, that there were no problems. Either I'm stupid or I don't know what was going on with Neptune support. And I would like someone to tell me if I am right or not. If until now I have had it set to 8.5 for alk and it has always remained close to that range, how is it possible that overnight it will drop to 7.98, then to 8.96, and then below 7 again, and that is keep the dosage at 45 without moving anywhere when in the months that I have had the equipment I constantly see that it goes up or down according to the dosage that the Tank wants. I opened the ticket on April 12 if I'm not wrong, after so many emails sent and received from them, I received the appointment for the call and they told me it was not safe but they were going to try to replace the Trident, but surely the thing was going to happen. Even in about 6 months because of the dirt in the water and I don't know how many more things, I even asked them if they had any maintenance kit for sale, it was not a problem for me to buy it, and they told me no, that I had to send the Trident And they did not know how long the process took due to the Covid situation (Now everyone relies on the Covid for any problem), in the end they sent me an email to make the deposit and send me another Trident. This was April 20. On the 26th I wrote again because they had not sent me an email that the Trident had been sent, they replied that the Trident was sent 7-10 days after receiving the deposit (Incredible), On the 27th they sent me an email that the trident was sent (What a coincidence they sent it right after I wrote). And here I am, waiting for the new Trident and praying it lasts much longer too. I love the Apex in general and especially for the time you save on this Hobbie. But I really would like to know how such an expensive product has so many problems and such poor support and so much delay for a solution when Neptune more than anyone knows that in this Hobby, great disasters can happen in a short time. I love Apex but am very disappointed. (A simple example that has nothing to do with this case. I gave up salt so much that I keep the salinity at 35 with my Hanna and I have to have it at 38 on the Trident to get 35 on Hanna. Really incredible. Thank you very much and excuse so many words but it's maddening