URGENT - Leak sensor failure.

[Fisherman Joe]

When you say it's been working for years, in the past have you had instances where the the level switch and/or leak sensors have demonstrated skimmer shut off?

 

[Fisherman Joe]

Yes.

I have a waste container with 2 float switches, one activates the Maxi pump for 120 seconds to pump skimmer waste through a tube in the wall to the drain.

The second is a “waste high” alarm. on the leak detection function to kill the skimmer when activated.
Additionally I have leak detector next to this to do the same thing.

Previously if the second float switch activated or the leak sensor it would turn the skimmer off.

I arrived home to both these things no longer doing their job sadly.

I do not know how this has happened. At least once a week the skimmer would start over skimming, fill the waste container with 600ml of water and the second float switch sits at 500ml, therefore i would arrive to the skimmer being off and there being 600ml in this container to pump away.

 

[Fisherman Joe]

You probably have checked this but will you programs work on another outlet?

Is there other functions that not work properly?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Fisherman Joe]

All the power bars are there.

 

[Fisherman Joe]

Skimmer set to PL 5
PL = PL 4 & PL 3
PL 4 = Two leak detection sensors, one float switch, the other is two leak sensors.
PL 3 = Two feed pauses.

Don’t know if this is the best way to programme all this but like I said this all worked perfectly last week.

 

[Fisherman Joe]

In other news my daughter just had a third dose of antibiotics at 2am and is doing much better. That’s the important thing, the rest is a hobby right? X

 

[sylvius]

Absolutely, that’s what counts. And kids bounce back fast

 

[porter_painter]

Unfortunately both the optical level sensors and the leak detectors have a finite life.

In my experience optical sensors last around 2 years, give or take 6 months. I try to replace mine every 18 months. Otherwise you find they may work intermittently or just not work at all.

If you have float sensors, especially in a skimmer, the dirt may have fouled the mechanism and preventing the float from rising to trigger the acton.

In respect of the leak detectors, I have only owned 1. By within a year of purchase all the pins had corroded on the sensor, which meant it no longer worked as expected to trigger alarms. I had not had a leak during that time, but when I questioned with GHL they said that it had been in contact with water and that had caused the pins to corrode. I could not disprove this, but I think the corrosion was caused simply by being in a humid environment (under my tank stand). Either way, they appear to have a finite life and if they get wet, especially with salt water, they may cease working - therefore I would suggest considering them as single use items - you will need to bin the ones you've now got wet as they will start to corrode.

Therefore it may be an unfortunate combination of failure of 'consumable' sensors. Of course, if all your items are very new I would discount all of the above apart from the need to regularly replace the items.

 

[Fisherman Joe]

What you say is very valid.

If you read my earlier posts, when I activate the sensors there is a little tick. Next to the level sensor 11. See below.

The software sees them activating. It’s not the switches.

GHL said previously to me they never had float switches fail basically.

 

[Lasse]

It will work out for your daughter - antibiotics is powerful - How do I know? Wednesday night (local time) I was transported into the hospital with a serve infection in my left leg and foot. I´m still here but antibiotics works - I´m much better and I hope I´m back home this afternoon (your morning). And I´m not a fast bounce back youngster

I have to still ask you if you get an alarm from the P4 when this happens. Was the P4 alarming when you got home? Both leak functions should have trigg a general alarm if they works as they should. I have a similar function in my system but it is connected to general alarms. Its switch of a socket if there is a general alarm.



Sincerely Lasse

 

[Fisherman Joe]

Get well soon Lasse

I had no alarm when I got home!

Even when the leak detection sensors activated I get no alarm.

The only time I got an alarm from the leak sensor was when I power cycled the PF4. When I reset it, it did not activate again.

 

[Lasse]

I will but I just get the information that I should be here one day more.

It sounds weird. My overflow float switch (with a configuration as a leak detector as exactly like yours) always send an alarm if activated. And when not activated - it looks like this

I have a P4 for testing purpose at home. But I´m earliest at home on Sunday.

Take care of your daughter - it will work out,

Sincerely Lasse

 

[porter_painter]

What you say is very valid.

If you read my earlier posts, when I activate the sensors there is a little tick. Next to the level sensor 11. See below.

The software sees them activating. It’s not the switches.

GHL said previously to me they never had float switches fail basically.

Understood. In the case of multiple failure points, it's really a matter of eliminating the factors one by one, so I hope my post is of some assistance in that process.

While I understand that the float switch may never fail as GHL says, it can be prevented from operating very easily by debris. (That's why many other brands used to come with a little plastic cover - to prevent snails or other things stoping the switch from actually floating).

It will work out for your daughter - antibiotics is powerful - How do I know? Wednesday night (local time) I was transported into the hospital with a serve infection in my left leg and foot. I´m still here but antibiotics works - I´m much better and I hope I´m back home this afternoon (your morning). And I´m not a fast bounce back youngster

I have to still ask you if you get an alarm from the P4 when this happens. Was the P4 alarming when you got home? Both leak functions should have trigg a general alarm if they works as they should. I have a similar function in my system but it is connected to general alarms. Its switch of a socket if there is a general alarm.



Sincerely Lasse

Get well soon Lasse.

 

[porter_painter]

I would also say, in the case of my level sensors, once they get to a certain age the optical ones just become unreliable. In fact, I've had a clear out recently of my 'old' level sensors and tested them before disposing of them. On plugging them in and testing, I would find that for some of them sometimes they would detect being in / out of the water, but they did not always correctly identify their state. Therefore they partly worked, but in my view they could not be trusted to be correct and thus needed to be binned.

I cannot say if there is any read-across into what your experiencing now - but I am just sharing the experience that potentially the components can appear to be working, but if you test and re-test you may find they are not 100% working... and the law of the sod means that when you actually need the item to work in real life, you will find it does not.

 

[tastyfish]

No advice, but I hope your daughter gets well soon. Everything else pales into insignificance when your child is unwell.

 

[tastyfish]

It will work out for your daughter - antibiotics is powerful - How do I know? Wednesday night (local time) I was transported into the hospital with a serve infection in my left leg and foot. I´m still here but antibiotics works - I´m much better and I hope I´m back home this afternoon (your morning). And I´m not a fast bounce back youngster

I have to still ask you if you get an alarm from the P4 when this happens. Was the P4 alarming when you got home? Both leak functions should have trigg a general alarm if they works as they should. I have a similar function in my system but it is connected to general alarms. Its switch of a socket if there is a general alarm.



Sincerely Lasse

Get well soon Lasse!

 

[AZMSGT]

Unfortunately both the optical level sensors and the leak detectors have a finite life.

In my experience optical sensors last around 2 years, give or take 6 months. I try to replace mine every 18 months. Otherwise you find they may work intermittently or just not work at all.

If you have float sensors, especially in a skimmer, the dirt may have fouled the mechanism and preventing the float from rising to trigger the acton.

In respect of the leak detectors, I have only owned 1. By within a year of purchase all the pins had corroded on the sensor, which meant it no longer worked as expected to trigger alarms. I had not had a leak during that time, but when I questioned with GHL they said that it had been in contact with water and that had caused the pins to corrode. I could not disprove this, but I think the corrosion was caused simply by being in a humid environment (under my tank stand). Either way, they appear to have a finite life and if they get wet, especially with salt water, they may cease working - therefore I would suggest considering them as single use items - you will need to bin the ones you've now got wet as they will start to corrode.

Therefore it may be an unfortunate combination of failure of 'consumable' sensors. Of course, if all your items are very new I would discount all of the above apart from the need to regularly replace the items.

Sorry for the OPs problems. However the above statement about the leak detectors having a limited life is not correct. If they are cared for they can last a long time.

In regards to the leak detectors they should be checked and cleaned regularly. All the dust and debris that is on anyones floor can get into the pins. Once a month I inspect and if needed, take mine apart and clean them under tap water and a brush. I blow dry them with compressed air then I rinse with isopropyl alcohol and let them dry over night. Then reassemble and put them back in service. The alcohol will help evaporate any remaining water and drys clean.

If you find heavy corrosion use some contact cleaner and a wire brush to clean it.

FYI, the sensors themselves have no physical electronics they are just a series of pins connected to a stereo jack via a circuit board.

Float sensors also need to be inspected and cleaned regularly.

Also once a month I operational check sensors to make sure they are doing what they are meant to do.

With a good preventative maintenance schedule you can extend the life of your equipment and be sure it will work when needed.

 

[ingchr1]

I mentioned it in my other post in this thread, but I had the same thing happen to me as the OP.

I have an optical sensor in the return chamber of my AIO that I use as a low level alarm, it has no other function. It is setup as Leakage Detection and inverted. One day I was doing maintenance on the tank and had the sensor out of the water. It did not alarm. The indicated state in the P4 never changed. It stayed as Fill.

As a test I unplugged the sensor from the P4. When I did this it still did not alarm, the state stayed as Fill. The sensor is closed on Fill and open on Alarm, so it should have alarmed when unplugged. This eliminated the sensor as the cause of the problem.

I ran through the same test sequence on the other port on the level/leak card, with the same results. This eliminated the first port from being the sole cause of the issue.

I then change the function to not inverted. When I did this the alarm came in when the sensor was plugged in and not plugged in. The alarm was always in. This testing confirmed that the input to the card (the sensor) had no affect on what the function was doing.

At this point I put in a ticket for the issue, explaining what I was observing. For the ticket they requested a photo of the sensor. When I pulled the sensor out of the water for the photo it alarmed this time. The only thing I had done between the time of when the function was not working and working was to cycle power to the P4. The power cycle seamed to fix it. I don't recall the issue specifically happening since then, but it may have. The other day I was doing maintenance and the alarm did come in when the sensor went dry. The issue originally happened back in September.

It's a strange issue and appears to not be an isolated case. There was no conclusion by GHL to what may have caused the original failure and why it is now working.

Potential Causes?

• Leak/level card
• Issue created during the previous firmware update (at the time I was on 7.24)
• ????

 

[Fisherman Joe]

How very odd!

Home today, made no changes, now the float switch and leak sensors work!!

Very worrying that I don’t know why this happened. I would rather find out this is my fault!

 

[Fisherman Joe]

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