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Protect your Apex w/a UPS and 12v power supply

trivan

trivan

Monday night I had a black out due to the storm for about 1 hour in the middle of the night. I heard the house generator kick in - No problem I thought and i went back to sleep....

Woke up 5 hours later, and realized my DT water level was low, went to the sump room and pumps were off, heaters off and basically Apex was DOA. I tried to reboot it and nothing... I spent the morning on with Apex support (who were excellent). The diagnoses was that the power outage cause the Apex to get corrupted. They did a remote log in to my PC and we walked through the process of flashing the APEX and then updating to the newest version. I then spent the day reprogramming everything I had. I could have used my back up, but i wanted to ensure I didn't introduce anything to corrupt it.

I asked Apex if this happens and it seems while not frequent, happens enough that they know the drill on how to get back running. The recommendation was to get the 12v power supply and a UPS to ensure that the brains do not lose power.

I've been a long time Apex user and have a lot invested into it but in my opinion I find reliability to be declining over the years. While the support was incredible and has improved over the years, I think its time to look to another controller. I travel way too much and I was lucky that I was home this week to deal with this. I would have had a dead tank if I wasn't. I just don't have the confidence in it as I use to.
 
trivan

trivan

trio91 said:
so connect the back up, to a back up?
Click to expand...
Yes, seems silly, but seems the loss of power to the brains of the Apex can cause the corruption. In 6/7 years and all the blackouts we've had this was the first time this has happened. But I guess redundancy is key.
 
njtiger24 aquariums

njtiger24 aquariums

Officer Emeritus
Article Contributor
Speaking as a IT person -

When you have anything electronic lose power (computer, apex, TV, etc....) there ALWAYS a chance of something getting corrupted or even worst; fried.

Connecting your system to a UPS will not only save you in short power failure but also can help save the electronic. Electric from the wall is 'dirty' and most electronics don't handled dirty power well. A UPS will 'clean' the power before sending it over to the device.

Now if I recall correctly the apex device gets an IP address correct? You could go nuts and setup a network monitoring system and have it if that device drops off the network you will get an alert. I think its a little over kill for home application but as you said your on the road a lot so it might be a extra peace of mind.
 
trivan

trivan

njtiger24 aquariums said:
Speaking as a IT person -

When you have anything electronic lose power (computer, apex, TV, etc....) there ALWAYS a chance of something getting corrupted or even worst; fried.

Connecting your system to a UPS will not only save you in short power failure but also can help save the electronic. Electric from the wall is 'dirty' and most electronics don't handled dirty power well. A UPS will 'clean' the power before sending it over to the device.

Now if I recall correctly the apex device gets an IP address correct? You could go nuts and setup a network monitoring system and have it if that device drops off the network you will get an alert. I think its a little over kill for home application but as you said your on the road a lot so it might be a extra peace of mind.
Click to expand...

I completely agree, which is why prior to a whole house generator (Kohler) I bought a Honda EU for the clean power. I have a whole house surge protector installed and my PC all have UPS's (Tripp Lites). So lesson learned on the controller. I never recommend a contractor generator to anyone other then contractors unless cost is a consideration and the dangers of blowing out electronics are known.

Not sure if your familiar with the Apex, but in a failure of the controller, the powerbars are suppose to default to a Fallback of on or off. I've learned that this is only if the powerbar is completely disconnected from the UBS and/or the controller not running. Since they were connected and the controller running (sort of) the fallback failed and the pumps which should always be on, were not.
 
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