The weirdest thing happened with my ACIII temp controller

[jnguyen4007]

my cell phone alarm went off several times during the night. Finally around 4:30 AM, my wife got tired of hearing the alarm going off every few minutes on my cell phone that she woke me up to take a look at it. I took a look at it, and it showed the temp at 91. I rushed down stairs to check on the tank. The water felt a bit on the cool side but definitely no where close to 91. I looked at the controller screen and I could see the temp rising and lowering anywhere between 80 to over 100 degree in matter of seconds. I took the probe out and the temp dropped down to roughly what I thought our house temp was, then I put the probe back into the sump. Again it registered abnormally unusual temp that fluctuates from one to the next rapidly. Just when I thought the temp probe might have gone bad, the reading stabilizes again. The sump's temp registered at 78, about 2 degrees less than where I normally have it. It makes sense because the controller was programmed to shut off the heater if it rises above 81. Ofcourse I couldn't go back to sleep after that and been up since. It was the weirdest thing. I wonder if the storm last night had anything to do with it acting so weird.

[dhoch]

I know electrical interferance can be a problem... but I've never experienced something like that.

 

You might send curt (neptune) a pm

 

Dave

[jnguyen4007]

I know electrical interferance can be a problem... but I've never experienced something like that.

 

You might send curt (neptune) a pm

 

Dave

 

Thanks Dave. I'll do that.

[rioreef]

I saw lightning last night around 1030 pm. The current lightning strike map is showing strikes up and down the cold front that came through during the night. It could have messed up your readings. Anyone else see this in their data?

[jnguyen4007]

I emailed Curt with the problem encountered last night. He thinks it sounded like the temp probe has a problem. He gave me an RMA number so I'll send it out tomorrow.

[fab]

The Neptune Systems Aquacontroller temperature probe failure mode tends to be that it fails with a high reading. If you get a very high reading that doesn't make sense, unplug the probe and read the aquacontroller's temperature indicator. If it reads between 20-25 degrees F, the problem is most likely the temperature probe, not the controller unit. If it reads anything else, the controller unit is suspect.

 

Neptune System's warranty is 90 days for probes and 1 year for their other items.

 

fab

[jnguyen4007]

The Neptune Systems Aquacontroller temperature probe failure mode tends to be that it fails with a high reading. If you get a very high reading that doesn't make sense, unplug the probe and read the aquacontroller's temperature indicator. If it reads between 20-25 degrees F, the problem is most likely the temperature probe, not the controller unit. If it reads anything else, the controller unit is suspect.

 

fab

 

Fab,

 

I did not know that. I will have to try that. Thanks for the tip.

 

James