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According to customer support - they are trying to get orders placed when they said '6-8' weeks processed within that period.
Neptune Trident OR Mindstream
- Thread starter Kendrick Kemp
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According to customer support - they are trying to get orders placed when they said '6-8' weeks processed within that period.
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I talked to them in person (in a complaint - rather than a complimentary mode) - I agree with you - but then I heard their side - which is 'they made a mistake' - didnt realize that people would give up their MACNA codes to some and not others, etc etc.
IMO - the people that gave up their MACNA codes are the ones that caused the problem - and I think its unethical. Thats my opinion. I think the company learned from this (i.e. - consider - 1 code - 1 person - once its used - it cant be reused).
U
User1
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Yup - I can see both sides and thanks for bringing it up. I think someone else may have said something about in person / convention discounts on the spot so to speak. I honestly get all sides/views/opinions which is why I've always said asking doesn't hurt then you go from there.
Something things may irk me a bit or ruffle a feather if you will when the company or representative of said company gives a marketing reply but hey, that is just a personal issue of mine I guess. I totally respect those who buy the product for their reasons and by no means pushing one over the other. If or when it is applicable to give what I went with I'll always try to be unbiased.
Clearly there is a market for products like these, right?
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I just got an oxydator (since several people here recommended them) - I'm waiting to install it - until I get the Mindstream - to see the difference *(if any) - etc - I just dont trust or like ORP
I love my trident! Wait for it, get your name on your LFS rather than BRS. BRS has too long of a waitlist compared to a LFS. Took me around a month to get mine from my LFS. Its well worth the wait! Also get yourself a set of neptune DOS pumps and its so easy to have your trident dose for you!
ca1ore
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Accuracy is incredibly hard to get at, precision is easier.
This is an excellent point …. and one that I suspect many people may fail to fully grasp. Absent a number of independent test points, accuracy is a function of proper calibration (and then requires assuming that the calibration solution is accurate LOL). Buddy of mine who works in a test lab says that they calibrate testing equipment daily. The only way, really, to improve the accuracy of something like a trident is to do calibration much more frequently - but who is going to do that, really, when good enough is good enough. Precision is much easier because you can eyeball when measurements diverge from the mean.
U
User1
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Interesting enough as I read this something passed through my mind from my previous life. You mentioned proper calibration and here is a little nugget somewhat related but to a torque wrench.
Previous life anytime you use a torque wrench you check the calibration date. Easy way to get a write up from QA if you don't. One time I was saying to myself that yeah, like this really matters. Team members went out and replaced some chaff and flare units one one of the birds. I was at EOR at the time and as they passed over I noticed something falling off one of the birds and proceed to bounce down the runway.
Said people didn't check the calibration date on the torque wrench. Said wrench was used to install the chaff and flare unit. Wrench was over a year and a half since last PMEL inspection and was the actual finding in the incident. People. Equipment. Training.
Who would have thought....anyway that is what I thought as I read your post. No idea why...
Edit 2: Here is my trident so far running since Thursday last week. Maybe time to dose a little:
Hi, I am new here but just wanted to add a few answers to some of the questions poised and to add some personal perspective to the title of the thread.
As far as the Trident vs MindStream argument goes I have looked at that in great detail and came to some personal conclusions. Disclaimer, I don't own an Apex system, I am an Aquatronica controller user but given the price of both systems i could have bought an Apex and Trident just for the monitoring and have spent about the same amount of cash.)
I was one of the first people to buy the Hanna Test Kits when they came out. I had a problem with one kit and was lucky enough to talk to the manager of the Chem dept. (This was long before the Trident was announced). During my discussions I asked him why hasn't Hanna come out with an integrated system to automatically test all these parameters. I was asking why cant you build these all into one black box and use peristaltic pumps to bring in water samples and Ro water to clean the chambers etc. His response to me was that they tried a system like that and found that the internal vials that would be read by the light sensors would not stay accurate over any great length of time. The glass would slowly get stained and residual matter would build up in the chamber in sufficient quantities over time to slowly throw off the readings. He said re-calibrations could compensate but the condition would always be getting worst.
Moving on to the subject of cost of the MindStream. I was very skeptical about paying out this amount of money but when I started to crunch the numbers on how much reagents I use every two years plus the cost of a pH probe, Salinity Probe and Oxygen Probe. I came to the conclusion that If I was only testing 2-3 times a week like I do now then the MindStream is a lot more expensive. If I was to check my parameters 2-3 time per day it would be pretty much a break even point and believe me if testing was easy I would be doing it 2-3 times a day. When I then calculated out testing every 15 minutes the MindStream became insanely cheaper than my current setup.
On the Subject of the MidStream production delays and in particular the delays over the last 3-4 years when they actually had working units. The reason was that the long term tests showed problems. The Plastics that they made the housings out of would attract too much biological growth and the seals allowed slight bits of humidity to develop inside the unit. So they switched to an even higher tech grade of plastic and better seals and that solved the problems. The last hurdle was the optical noise levels that they were getting through the sensors. It was 5% which they thought was good enough but in the end they needed to get it down to 1% if they wanted Lab Grade Accuracy. So a lot of tweaks were done to get to 1% but they did it, so then the units needed to be retested again for many months to make sure they worked properly long term.
Lastly the Monthly Subscription plan etc. Well I am just as nervous about this one as the rest of you. If the company folds then my money would have gone down the drain. This is also true of the Trident and probably even more so now as they are probably wondering if a reagent solution to this problem might not be the way of the future. Trident 2 using optical disks may be something they are looking at. Anyway back to the subject of MindStream. The owner is not some poor guy with a dream. He is actually a wealthy guy with a dream. For 20 years he owned a very successful company that made Flash synchronization systems for professional photographers. I believe he sold off the company for a very tidy sum as he wanted to try his hand at something new. This was the start of MindStream.
So I while I am cautious I am not overly worried about the company going under. Being an EE and developing products for industrial applications I think I have developed a good nose for knowing when a product is being developed properly as opposed to when it is being done improperly. Given the amount of time they have spent ironing out the smallest of issues I would say that I think they have gotten this one done properly.
As for the big Question of Accuracy. Well check out this video. It was one of the videos that made me pull the trigger on the MindStream.
I like his candor, it makes me feel comfortable that he's not into BS or sales pitches.
Rob
As far as the Trident vs MindStream argument goes I have looked at that in great detail and came to some personal conclusions. Disclaimer, I don't own an Apex system, I am an Aquatronica controller user but given the price of both systems i could have bought an Apex and Trident just for the monitoring and have spent about the same amount of cash.)
I was one of the first people to buy the Hanna Test Kits when they came out. I had a problem with one kit and was lucky enough to talk to the manager of the Chem dept. (This was long before the Trident was announced). During my discussions I asked him why hasn't Hanna come out with an integrated system to automatically test all these parameters. I was asking why cant you build these all into one black box and use peristaltic pumps to bring in water samples and Ro water to clean the chambers etc. His response to me was that they tried a system like that and found that the internal vials that would be read by the light sensors would not stay accurate over any great length of time. The glass would slowly get stained and residual matter would build up in the chamber in sufficient quantities over time to slowly throw off the readings. He said re-calibrations could compensate but the condition would always be getting worst.
Moving on to the subject of cost of the MindStream. I was very skeptical about paying out this amount of money but when I started to crunch the numbers on how much reagents I use every two years plus the cost of a pH probe, Salinity Probe and Oxygen Probe. I came to the conclusion that If I was only testing 2-3 times a week like I do now then the MindStream is a lot more expensive. If I was to check my parameters 2-3 time per day it would be pretty much a break even point and believe me if testing was easy I would be doing it 2-3 times a day. When I then calculated out testing every 15 minutes the MindStream became insanely cheaper than my current setup.
On the Subject of the MidStream production delays and in particular the delays over the last 3-4 years when they actually had working units. The reason was that the long term tests showed problems. The Plastics that they made the housings out of would attract too much biological growth and the seals allowed slight bits of humidity to develop inside the unit. So they switched to an even higher tech grade of plastic and better seals and that solved the problems. The last hurdle was the optical noise levels that they were getting through the sensors. It was 5% which they thought was good enough but in the end they needed to get it down to 1% if they wanted Lab Grade Accuracy. So a lot of tweaks were done to get to 1% but they did it, so then the units needed to be retested again for many months to make sure they worked properly long term.
Lastly the Monthly Subscription plan etc. Well I am just as nervous about this one as the rest of you. If the company folds then my money would have gone down the drain. This is also true of the Trident and probably even more so now as they are probably wondering if a reagent solution to this problem might not be the way of the future. Trident 2 using optical disks may be something they are looking at. Anyway back to the subject of MindStream. The owner is not some poor guy with a dream. He is actually a wealthy guy with a dream. For 20 years he owned a very successful company that made Flash synchronization systems for professional photographers. I believe he sold off the company for a very tidy sum as he wanted to try his hand at something new. This was the start of MindStream.
So I while I am cautious I am not overly worried about the company going under. Being an EE and developing products for industrial applications I think I have developed a good nose for knowing when a product is being developed properly as opposed to when it is being done improperly. Given the amount of time they have spent ironing out the smallest of issues I would say that I think they have gotten this one done properly.
As for the big Question of Accuracy. Well check out this video. It was one of the videos that made me pull the trigger on the MindStream.
I like his candor, it makes me feel comfortable that he's not into BS or sales pitches.
Rob
I use to treat the problem exactly like you. If everything is thriving and my test kits give me a reading of XY and Z and those numbers seem within reason then all I need to do is keep XY and Z steady and all will be well. It actually works really well for me for a couple of years and then I got a batch of new reagents that were evidently not reading the same as the previous batch by a wide margin. This was of course unknown to me at the time so I started to adjust the dosing in larger amounts. Probably if I was doing three tests a day I would have realized it was the reagent, but testing calc and alk three times a week I just figured something had gone wrong with the dosing after the last test.
After several adjustments things started to look off in the Tank even though my reading were the same as they had been for years. The Corals took a bit of a beating before I realized what was wrong and a couple of years later they took another beating when I switched over to Hanna Test kits because now I had a new set of numbers to deal with and a new set of observations vs readings had to be developed.
This is one of the reasons why Mindstream is looking so good. The individual disks are pre tested and the calibration offsets are already in their computer system. Once you install a new disk the NFC code is read and so their servers know exactly what offsets to use for that disk to take it's readings with lab grade precision.
Anyway I am beginning to sound like an MM salesman so let me keep stop now.
U
User1
Guest
Anyway I am beginning to sound like an MM salesman so let me keep stop now.
I wouldn't say that. You like a product, can say why, but also know at the end of the day that you are a fan of the product. Nothing wrong with that.
It isn't until we can no longer communicate in a forum such as this when it becomes a problem. I think many of us here with similar feelings to other products usually warn some folks that hey - this is coming from someone who has a bias towards said product...
For what it is worth Seneye does something similar (and probably before MS) with regards to discs, etc. When I see this side of the debate I just ask why are reagents so bad? I get the human factor (measuring, color, eye, etc) but when automated similar to the bot or Trident some of those talking points go out the window.
Thanks for the kind words
I will have to take a closer look at the Seneye. It's been awhile since I took a look at what they are up to. As for the reagents, it is certainly is a big issue with color matching but it is also all the adding of drops and pouches of powder etc. The Hanna checkers take the color matching out of the equation but I still hate messing around with the tiny measurements of reagents and SW and trying to get everything right.
Rob
Jexrod
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Yup, same here 10 weeks and counting. Placed order on July 1st...
Darrell Brady
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still waiting myself also placed order july !st
Darrell Brady
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what is a oxydator?
Hamada
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40$ a month is nothing for accurate measurements, how much do you pay monthly for hannah or apex or any other way you test and is it as accurate as mindstream?
Wow it's like a freaking zoo on the Trident forum.
Trident Forum
I think they really messed up releasing it without enough testing. I suspect the reason for the delays is that they don't want too many generation one units in the hands of users. The problems seem to be plentiful and the responses by the die hard fans are pretty harsh. I suspect they are trying to modify the hardware to get rid of some of the issues. The one that I know they are never going to solve is the reagents staining the internal vials and throwing off the reading until calibrations will no longer be possible. Then your going to have to send it back and let them strip her down and change the vials and the hoses.
Trident Forum
I think they really messed up releasing it without enough testing. I suspect the reason for the delays is that they don't want too many generation one units in the hands of users. The problems seem to be plentiful and the responses by the die hard fans are pretty harsh. I suspect they are trying to modify the hardware to get rid of some of the issues. The one that I know they are never going to solve is the reagents staining the internal vials and throwing off the reading until calibrations will no longer be possible. Then your going to have to send it back and let them strip her down and change the vials and the hoses.
I'm all-in with Neptune Apex (2016 Controller, DOS, Wav, E-Bar 8, redundant probes....all of it), but I just ordered a Mindstream last week and am really happy that the Trident has been out of stock. Besides the fact that the Mindstream tests more than the Trident, I think that there is a substantial advantage to having another eco system sending me redundant info. If my Neptune fails to alert me with an out of temp alert, I should get one from the Mindstream. Redundancy is key to long-term success in this hobby.
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