View Full Version : Funny problem with Aquatronica
Had a really funny problem with the Aquatronica today.
I have had the lights programmed on the Aquatronica to come off and on for the last 3 months. All's worked fine, until I noticed today that the lights hadn't come on after 2 hours after they should have.
I checked the time on the unit, which was correct. So then went to check the program which looked correct. Didn't change anything.
At that point the lights started :confused::confused::confused:
Totally confused on this one, anybody else experienced this? or know what the problem is.
Dave
philworrall
28-08-06, 07:31
How do you know it is the computer?
P
instantsquid
28-08-06, 09:10
I've had similar (but not exactly the same) experiences with my Aquatronica.
Lights were all on, as they should be, when I added a pH probe. Went into the pH probe programs and two of my lights went off. The computer said they were still on... I came out of the pH program and the lights came back on! Very weird.
I don't have the PC interface (yet) so have not upgraded the firmware. This may well cure some issues (but will probably highlight some new ones!)
- Ian
I have upgraded and I believe I am on the latest version.
Why I believe it is the Aquatronica is the chance that all three ballasts would fault. Then come on together at the same time 2 and bit hours later would be virtually impossible. Also the fact that they all came on the same time is strange as each light has a staggered start/stop.
This together qith all halides starting when I accessed the unit, (entering the program for one of the halides.)
I can't really see that it can be anything else, but I am open to ideas?
Dave
By the way I haven't changed any programs on the Aquatronica for at least a couple of months.
Dave
As an update, had another problem with the unit over the weekend this time a bit more serious.
Lights this time didn't go off at the allocated time and again when I accessed the program menu switched off the lights. Also I believe that the auto top-off was stuck on at the same time. This dumped about 20L of RO water in my tank :mad: Checked float valve, it wasn't stuck.
Looked at my RO reservoir a couple of hours before which was full. After the event it was empty. Ok not 100% proof, but a coincidence with the problem with the lights.
I am currently awaiting responce Aquatronica support at the moment.
Dave
I have had 2 plugbars replaced for stuck on sockets, PM wavey on here, gave me excellent service!
There are 2 versions of the plugbars, of course the second model has a fix for this issue.....
Cheers Shelton.
steve@ cambridge coral tech
05-09-06, 20:59
have a couple of mates who have had very simular problems, things going on and off randomly, also when he's logged in its wiped all the settings! and also his pc saying its not connected to the aquatronica and cant find it:confused: this happens quite often, then all will be fine, he's waiting for the aquatronica rep to get back to him..again.. has been a few days now with no response:(
i had my first unit shut down for no reason (had i not noticed could have been very grim)
i will use one on my new tank but only to monitor....it will control NOTHING critical...if sticking of or on would be bad then i wont have it done by aquatronica.
my home pc cost £3k and i wouldnt trust that to do much either!
Silverback
05-09-06, 21:37
i had my first unit shut down for no reason (had i not noticed could have been very grim)
i will use one on my new tank but only to monitor....it will control NOTHING critical...if sticking of or on would be bad then i wont have it done by aquatronica.
my home pc cost £3k and i wouldnt trust that to do much either!
Tiggsy
Do you use any other kind of system(s) to automate water parameters??
i didnt..i had the 'tronica doing everything..this time i will run it for monitoring only - i may use it to control Co2 into the calc reactor as that cant go too pearshaped....but halides, heaters, chiller, etc will all run of individual habistat type devices.....aside from computer glitches i dont like the idea that one item on the 'tronica loop can fail and trip out that whole loop...hence i will run twin sump returns, etc on seperate RCD protected loops.
Silverback
05-09-06, 21:56
Can understand where you're coming from!! It does make sense (maybe not financially!!) to have the more critical systems monitored and controlled separately......
i love the ability of the 'tronica to display all the data on my pc, text me, etc.....i just dont want a simple plug tripping or the unit sticking to do in £££££ of tank stock.
what i really need is a 'tronica monitor station without the plug bar!
How many parameters Mark? The new multitester can display two at a time and when left on you will get a graph on the screen. Not as connectable as the full tronica though.
Can understand where you're coming from!! It does make sense (maybe not financially!!) to have the more critical systems monitored and controlled separately......
hi
its actually a lot cheaper to control things individually.
habistat cool controller - £25
temperature controllers - £30 to £50
auto top up - £50 to £100
PH Controller - £100
ORP Controller - £80
Plug in timers - £5 each
Aquatronica - maybe £400+ to do all the above?
plus you would sleep easier at night knowing that even if one item fails its not going to stop everything else working as well.
the more threads i read about things going wrong with these units i really dont understand why people want to risk all their livestock and spend a fortune on systems that clearly are not 100% safe, in fact maybe not even 70% safe
dont get me wrong, i love gadgets and anything that makes life easier is great, but only if they actually work.
How many parameters Mark? The new multitester can display two at a time and when left on you will get a graph on the screen. Not as connectable as the full tronica though.
in an ideal world i would want:
all my critical powered items run on sperate controllers (as per the thread above) i would then want my pc to display temp of sump, temp of tank, PH, PH in a reactor, Orp, SG and give off warinngs (and by text) if any of these things went wonky.
only way to do that is run £1000 of 'tronica then another few hundread on individual controllers.
in an ideal world i would want:
all my critical powered items run on sperate controllers (as per the thread above) i would then want my pc to display temp of sump, temp of tank, PH, PH in a reactor, Orp, SG and give off warinngs (and by text) if any of these things went wonky.
Ocean view will be ready shortly and will do all of the above including txt messaging, email, internet control and viewing. You do not require to buy a plugbar if you do not wish as it is powered via the pc usb port. all the probe sockets are on the usb interface and not the plugbars. Check out my signature for a the preview.
This is only a suggestion If mods feel this is advertising please remove.
the more threads i read about things going wrong with these units i really dont understand why people want to risk all their livestock and spend a fortune on systems that clearly are not 100% safe, in fact maybe not even 70% safe
dont get me wrong, i love gadgets and anything that makes life easier is great, but only if they actually work.
What do you base these wild accusations on?
"Clearly not 100% safe, in fact maybe not even 70% safe."
Can you direct me to some proof of this statement please?
"the more threads i read about things going wrong with these units"
Where are all these threads you talk about i can only seem to find 2 or 3 in the aquarium control forum going back nearly a year?
I have use a tronica for a year now, every single thing in my tank is powered through it, not once have I had a problem.
The support the members get off of Ian (wavey on here) is second to none, evertytime somebody has a query on how to do something with the unit he happily gives the advice, reading comments like some of those above I imagine he asks himself why.
The only problem that seems to have affect a few people was in regard to plugbars and I think you wouldn't find anyone who if they told the company about it didn't get replacement bars.
If I had one small gripe about the tronica its in relation to the instructions not being that clear for techno thickos like me and this is probably backed up by the few threads you do see on here asking for advice on how to program a certain function.
I have use a tronica for a year now, every single thing in my tank is powered through it, not once have I had a problem.
.
forget what has or hasnt happened though - do you not see the POTENTIAL for a problem when all your tank systems are run of a single chip and a single plug?
Tiggsy it is all connected to your favourite item the Aqua Medic Percula, so all will be fine :D.
Potentially yes it could be a problem, but hell so could a lot of other things.
At the end of the day in 12 months it has been faultless and thus it has my confidence, if something goes wrong then I will deal with and take the neccessary action, but whilst its not broken why fix it.
Life is to short :) to be worrying all the time about something that may never happen.
Sorry should have said I have two plug bars, not one.
Both of these are also the originals from a year ago and have never been changed.
Muzzy I think its wrong to state statistics that arent remotely substantiated.
From my experience with seperates you are no safer with them, from my point of view the Aquatronica gives me alot more fail safes as it does possible risks.
I wont name the "seperates" that I have had issues with but they are all from some of the big players.
In fact I have already found a few benefits that would be impossible to achieve with seperates or without seperates.
Also actually I dont see what risks I am running, My pumps (Streams) are run via Tunze controller. So why would you not sleep easy at night. If the aquatronic fails by pumps keep working, if it fails during the day, my lights might not come on (wheres the risk in that). If I have a power cut then everything fails, same as you. But then I have an inverter for powercuts to neglect that risk, due you have powercuts covered?
Craig
yeah fair point.
should have just said - In my opinion nowhere near safe enough to use.
or - in my opinion nowhere near 100% safe.
and no i dont have powercuts covered, except that i know my sump tank will hold a back syphon - something a lot of people seem not to account for!
touchwood havent had a powercut for 2 years
ALL MHO:
I've seen a few threads on UR, more than 3 where there has been reliability problems with the Aquatronica and at least one where a wipe-out occurred and yes, the Aquatronica was (apparently) to blame. At this moment in time I can't be bothered to search for the links but, they are there. I also have friends who use the Aquatronica and they too have had problems.
Nothing is 100% safe, I agree. Every manufacturer has had failures.
In my opinion different manufactures are leaders with some products, example:
Deltec and Aquamedic for skimmers
Tunze for top-up and internal water circulation
Schuran and Koralin for CA reactors
And so on........
The list for bad stuff will include products made by the above too. ;)
The point I'm trying to make is, that with some wise observation and careful selection of equipment, you should be able to select products that have a good reputation for both reliability and performance.
This is not advice and I trust people will do there own research and then decide if they want to trust their aquarium to a computer system. Myself, I will not. The only task I would employ Aquatronica, IKS and all the others, would be to monitor only and act as an alarm (SMS).
I do believe that well chosen separates are a safer option.
I'm torn between airing my views and keeping quite; I've met Wavey (Ian) and he is a thoroughly nice guy and he has a vested interest in this product.:) Ultimately though, I will always try my best to give a balanced and honest view for the good of the end users (me and you) and I hope others will do the same.:o
I'm not questioning the support or level of service that you get from Aquatronica; no bad reports here, it's very good indeed. Another plus point is product development, they appear to be good at this too.
At the end of the day, you pays your money, you makes your choice.
Hi All
Wont get involved in the stats, well OK less than 3% for the controllers, and that includes things like clock speed out of cink with PC(hardly life threatening) or a dark screen. Software updates have cured all problems that have occured on the controller.
As for the tank running on one system, well,if the auto-top up sticks on, you could have the pH or density probes alarm out that something is wrong. As most of the things we dose are related, invariably, when one is out of cink, something else goes, that is the beauty of a linked system, the overides will shut other items of. (eg, timed dose of kalk over nite, the Aquatronica will override the timer function if pH climbs to high)
Also, a single temp controller is not going to allow a heater on/of, switch on cooling fan(s), swith on chiller, switch of halides, thats at least three separates for just that.
Aquatronica, with 10 bars and 20 control inputs allows multi tank connections, 3, 4, 5, tanks, one controller no problem.
We have had one system crash that appears to be the fault of a plug bar sticking on so the auto topup continued to dose OR the heater stuck on. We simply do not know what caused the crash(but we know what failed). As would happen the person was on holiday at the time. Aquatronica are replacing ALL his stock and I understand the person is still going to use Aquatronica(AFAIK).
Once the SMS and ethernet modules are out, even when on holiday you would be covered as you could get alarms sent to other hobbyists, local shop etc. The SMS will even alert you to a power cut and let you know when it comes back on.
Individual controllers, none as far I am aware can be linked into the net or SMS, so you would have NO way of knowing if a sinlge control has gone wrong.
Ian,
You make a lot of fair points.....i am certainly tempted to go back down the 'tronica road, if only to make use of my £3k home office PC to view the data on :D
As an aside, i'm about to move my office some distance from the sump room - i assume a really long wire is the only way to deal with that? no bluetooth/wirless type option?
With 3k of PC you should know what you're talking about really.....
Do you have to mention the price of everything you own?
Ian,
You make a lot of fair points.....i am certainly tempted to go back down the 'tronica road, if only to make use of my £3k home office PC to view the data on :D
As an aside, i'm about to move my office some distance from the sump room - i assume a really long wire is the only way to deal with that? no bluetooth/wirless type option?
Do you have to mention the price of everything you own?
Sorry, didnt mean to "show off". No offence meant...just that its ironic that many of us have these high powered PC's in our homes but then dont fully utilse that as part of the reef keeping. Great when something like Aquatronica and similar can assist with the joining of the two together.
Of course, any PC will do..in fact, those on a budget may find that a 2nd hand PC would be less that an Aquatronica interface! yet add a whole new dimension to their monitoring - worth ocnsidering for those that dont have a PC and think its too costly to bother with.
should clarify - i mean if you have a 'tronica, get a cheap PC as well......not get the PC instead!
Just received a replacement control unit.
thanks
Wavey
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