Trouble with APEX FMM

Ann Enomy · Oct 11, 2019

I recently updated my old Apex classic to the new in hopes of eventually getting a trident. I also added a FMM as I wanted to add an extra layer of protection on my ATO with optical sensor and get a leak detector and flow sensors. When it all works its great but I have been having the FMM disappearing off of fusion and then all my alarms going off and it renders my ATO useless. I have rebooted the FMM a few times, replaced the usb cable, switched USB outlets, Deleted and reinstalled FMM under a new address and now just today factory reset the whole apex system. Re writing all the programming was not my favorite thing to do! It is up and functional for now but for how long? If the FMM disappears again do I have a bad module? Is there something I’m missing? Any advise would be appreciated. One good thing is that before this I trusted the automation a bit too much and was thinking about giving apex control of dosing once I had the trident. Now I see that is far too dangerous.

rkpetersen · Oct 11, 2019

Sorry you reinstalled the AOS; that typically isn't necessary to address the problem with 1 module.
Have you updated both the Apex itself and the FMM module to the most current software?
Also, is it the FMM module itself that's disappearing, or just the optical sensor inputs?
If it's the sensors that are vanishing but the FMM is still there, there's something you can try:
Go to the Modules page, select the FMM module, and then look at Configuration on the right.
Uncheck Auto-detect Sensor for each input, and then manually set it to the correct type. Upload.
This may keep your sensors working properly.

Letting the Apex control dosing via the Trident and DOS isn't particularly dangerous.
The system is very conservative and will default to not doing anything if the data seems off.
I have heard of no instances where accidental overdosing has occurred, either during beta testing or later.

Also, always good to keep a backup of your Apex programming.
A backup is downloaded by clicking a hard drive icon at the upper left on the Misc page of Apex Local (not Fusion.)
Or, just pull down the menu at the upper left of the dashboard to Configuration Summary, and save that web page.

Ann Enomy · Oct 11, 2019

I did update both FMM and Apex Firmware. I also would do the steps you outlined and what has happened is that it would revert to auto detect within an hour. It does not seem to do that now but it has been only a few hours. What I do see now, which was happening before as well, is weird readouts from flow meters like the following screen shot. “SKIMFL” is a 1/2 flow meter off my manifold. “RET_4” is a flow meter coming off my return. As you can see from the graph the numbers are more than a bit off. The output on the Cor return is very consistent. I am very frustrated!