One could make their own AquaBus cables as well - this is just not the usual Apex customer that wants to plug and play.
You can only extend probe ports so far without a myriad of potential issues. And, I think stretching multiple probe wires across a 12' room, instead of one aquabus cable, is less than ideal.
That seemed all very confusing on the water station thing. I was simply trying to say that if you wanted to monitor the temp and control the saltwater mixing pumps and an inexpensive feed pump from the garage mixing station that it was pretty reasonably priced, and easy. Lots of people like to heat their water in the make-water stations, run a mixing pump, and then push it to their tank(s) at water change time. To do that they just spend about $250 on a PM1, EnergyBar4, and Temp probe - and of course their usual pumps for mixing, etc. Some will add the float switches to the tanks to automate the RODI refill which they could do with the breakout box or other 3rd party available or DIY solution. My point was that if you had your water station say, in the garage, it would much easier and less expensive to extend the Apex to it, than it would the Profilux.
Your point about using another full system (like the yet to be released or priced 4e) is a good one. That is why many people use the Apex Jr. for this purpose already. And the ApexEL could certainly be the best option for someone that would want to spend a few $ extra at its $499 price, rather than extend with modules.
I was not even talking about automatic water change. But for that, most simply have their make-water rotomold containers (often still making and mixing manually) and just get the DOS to do the ongoing water changes and they're are done. Most people don't want to make things any more complex than necessary. This is what BRS has shown in many videos and also has implemented on quite a few of their office tanks.
You can only extend probe ports so far without a myriad of potential issues. And, I think stretching multiple probe wires across a 12' room, instead of one aquabus cable, is less than ideal.
That seemed all very confusing on the water station thing. I was simply trying to say that if you wanted to monitor the temp and control the saltwater mixing pumps and an inexpensive feed pump from the garage mixing station that it was pretty reasonably priced, and easy. Lots of people like to heat their water in the make-water stations, run a mixing pump, and then push it to their tank(s) at water change time. To do that they just spend about $250 on a PM1, EnergyBar4, and Temp probe - and of course their usual pumps for mixing, etc. Some will add the float switches to the tanks to automate the RODI refill which they could do with the breakout box or other 3rd party available or DIY solution. My point was that if you had your water station say, in the garage, it would much easier and less expensive to extend the Apex to it, than it would the Profilux.
Your point about using another full system (like the yet to be released or priced 4e) is a good one. That is why many people use the Apex Jr. for this purpose already. And the ApexEL could certainly be the best option for someone that would want to spend a few $ extra at its $499 price, rather than extend with modules.
I was not even talking about automatic water change. But for that, most simply have their make-water rotomold containers (often still making and mixing manually) and just get the DOS to do the ongoing water changes and they're are done. Most people don't want to make things any more complex than necessary. This is what BRS has shown in many videos and also has implemented on quite a few of their office tanks.