GHL hands down. i am running their controller, lights and dosing pump.
ive never owned apex, but am constantly seeing people posting about apex issues.
ive never owned apex, but am constantly seeing people posting about apex issues.
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what made you want to move toward ghl a few years back?How can anyone answer this if they have not run both for a while?
In order of importance for me at the time:Ok so Im looking at the GHL, how would I be able to ensure my ato does
what made you want to move toward ghl a few years back?
I have heard the wifi thing is a big issue but never about leaking dosers although I have heard about the heads have various issues.
I have heard the wifi thing is a big issue but never about leaking dosers although I have heard about the heads have various issues.
bummer on the kh director, good tip on the doser to make sure tubes arnt too long, not that one should have to do that! Wonder if they started putting the right size tubing in there now.I'm actually running Apex DOS heads on 2 of my maxi-dosers due to this issue.
I've replaced 2 of the tubes already - GHL support did provide me with the updated, shorter tubes at no cost.
I just want to choose the more reliable option, I know many are happy with either but if all you care about is reliability [*** SNIP ***]
Both are reliable when set up properly and maintained equally. That is why both companies are still in business. Hobbyists who do reply, well, it is their, our, opinion. This is even true if one of us owns A and then switches to B and says B is more reliable. It is just anecdotal at best.
--SNIP--
Nah it's not just anecdotal IMO. There are a lot of things that any design engineer can point out on the Apex that are just problems waiting to happen. One major one I picked up on is the Active cooling inside the EB832 PowerBar. The first issue is that the switching power supply in the EB832 is your typical ***** power supply. It is by no means a "Mean Well" quality switching power supply.
Now couple that power supply to the need for active cooling by a fan and you have an almost predictable range of time for failure. If your lucky the Capacitors will last maybe a year past the time when the Fan stops running (and those fans always stop within a few years). Then the Caps Xc will start to rise and the capacitors will then heat up and swell and the power supply soon burns out in a pretty spectacular fashion. Maybe if you just dont use the 48V ports much you may escape this fate.
A better design would have been if they made the 48V supply a separate power brick that could be plugged into the EB832. That way you could hot swap it out without having your whole Power Bar go out of commission waiting on repairs.
Then you have the really poor choice of using bottom basement Paddle wheel sensors for the FLOW sensor readings. These are flow restrictors and are always going to need a lot of servicing and they are never going to last very long.
The Salinity probe is another bad choice. The Resistance reading between two strips of metal is a bad idea in an Aquarium. Just to many ways for the reading to get skewed. Stray voltage, air bubbles, bio fowling. Even chemicals that may change the conductivity without changing the salinity.
Lastly I look at my Trident and I really wish I could pull out the reagent drawer without the upper red plastic piece falling out. Also would it have killed them to make the plastic mold with a proper slider rail so that the reagent tray would not tip over and drop out? Honestly I love the unit but every time I change the reagents I get nervous that something is going to break. It just flimsy.
How can anyone answer this if they have not run both for a while?
Wow, didn’t know there’s no surge protection on the energy bar. I have mine plugged into a GFI outlet. I don’t have a UPS yet. I will soon though. For now I’m going to plug the Apex into the power strip that has the cabinet lights and iPad power plugged into it.Correct, there is no built-in surge protection on the EnergyBars, only an overload circuit breaker. My EnergyBar plugs into a UPS backup battery which also provides surge protection. Here's a diagram from my tutorial on Apex Power Monitoring where I provide instructions on integrating the Apex with a UPS to preserve battery life during a power failure:
I have an Apex (two EB8, DOS, FMM) and I also have a GHL KH Director. I've never had a problem with my Apex and it's done everything I need it to. The KH Director has been great as well though I've only had it for a few months.
The two differences I've noticed are:
-The GHL is built like a tank. Not that the Apex is weak physically but the GHL just seems like a stronger product design wise.
-The GHL is has a lot more options and a lot more buttons to push in the software. It may be because it's less focused on statement programming and more on option selection and data tables. I like it but I'm also a technical person. The Apex programming seems complicated at first but it's very straightforward and easy to understand once you're past the initial hump.
I think you'll be happy either way.
Went from an RKE to a Profilux so I can't speak about the reliability of an Apex. My decision was based on the Apex was similar to the RKE, modular, the Profilux had most of what I use on the main unit. One issue I had was with the Vortech controller, I know a module , where it doesn't have the QD functions. Support kept telling me it wasn't a problem, it was a known issue but the Profilux 4 was in development so the 3 was a non issue. Updating the firmware can be a pain, I found the easiest thing to do is to just skip right to a recovery flash. GHL connect is useless to me, truly 9 out of 10 times it fails to connect and when it does it's so slow it disconnects just changing a page and I have problems connecting to the web server so using it remotely isn't going to happen for me till I figure that out. I can connect over my network to the GCC program without issue, and this is how I program the controller. Trial and error on programming logic, their forum wasn't very helpful with that.
With that said, once running, I haven't had any issues in the 8 years I've had it. Support improved once their presence in America increased, no small part due to Vinny.