Guest beatle February 18, 2008 February 18, 2008 (edited) I bought my AC Jr and DC8 used a few weekends ago. It has been great in the beginning but now it's starting to act up. I have both of my Koralia 3 pumps attached to a power strip and plugged into a port on the DC8 to turn them on and off during feeding time. I've noticed recently that the pumps do not always turn off when I select Feed A. Sometimes I have to do it twice and they may sometimes restart before the timer is over. They also have a tendency to turn off, turn on during the day at random. The AC Jr thinks that it's on I also have a ballast driving two 54w T5s that's plugged into another port on the DC8 I find that it turns itself off occasionally during the day as well, only to turn back on. The ballast seems fine, and if I plug it into another port that is currently on, it will fire and light the tank properly. I've also seen my sump light flicker once in a while during the day (it's on a reverse cycle so it shouldn't be on at all during the day). Anyone have an idea as to what's causing these glitches? Unfortunately I don't yet have a serial cable so I can't show my programming, but there aren't any odd programs that I'm aware of. Edited February 18, 2008 by beatle
flowerseller February 18, 2008 February 18, 2008 You might have leftover old statements still in the ACjr. Scroll thru and if so, delete them. If you hit feedA and the hit select, it cancels the time and the socket resumes normal operation.
Guest beatle February 19, 2008 February 19, 2008 Yeah, I only hit the down arrow once and then go to feed. I cleared the entire timer section out before I started again. If there were programs, wouldn't the pumps and lights actually show as being off instead of just turning off and appearing on the display as on?
dhoch February 19, 2008 February 19, 2008 You are right. And that sounds like wierd behavior. Are the switches on the DC8 that set the A1-8, etc firmly in whatever position they should be in? If so and the problem continues i would contact Curt. Dave
YBeNormal February 19, 2008 February 19, 2008 Dirty power to the AC Jr maybe or interference from other devices on the power circuit? Try plugging it (not the DC8) into a quality power strip.
Guest beatle February 19, 2008 February 19, 2008 Switches feel solid. I moved the power over to a powerstrip running off my computers' UPS which should be cleaner. Hopefully that fixes it.
Guest beatle February 22, 2008 February 22, 2008 I've been emailing Curt back and forth for the past few days. I don't seem to be getting anywhere and he's starting to duplicate his questions: What are the progrma statements associated with that light? What version of the firmware is in the conroller (see self test)? Curt On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 3:44 PM, Matt <mdb1@mdbbox.com> wrote: Curt, do you have any other things we can troubleshoot with the unit? What's the next step? Thanks, Matt -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matt [mailto:mdb1@mdbbox.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 4:45 PM To: 'Curt Pansegrau' Subject: RE: Odd AC Jr behavior Yes, I can turn everything on and off manually with no problem. I had my daylights (A02) turn on and off several times last night after the reboot. I can tell it's not the light wiring because I'm able to plug it into another outlet that is currently on (like A01, my actinics) and it will light. All the while the display shows that both of my lights are ON. Matt -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: neptunesys@gmail.com [mailto:neptunesys@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Curt Pansegrau Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 3:59 PM To: Matt Subject: Re: Odd AC Jr behavior Can you manually turn on/off each device? Did the behavior change after the reboot? Curt On Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 2:16 PM, Matt <mdb1@mdbbox.com> wrote: Curt, here's the result of the self test: Rev. 3.20J
flowerseller February 22, 2008 February 22, 2008 This is time consuming but might be fruitful. Scroll thru and write down ALL the timer names and the same for ALL your programs. You may wish to do this twice to prove yourself. This might help you see something, or us see something you are inavertantly overlooking. Or, get the serial cable and make like easier. You might have a statement in there you are not aware of or one that is not complete.
Guest beatle February 22, 2008 February 22, 2008 Was planning to receive the cable as a gift next month, but may not be able to wait... This is extremely frustrating. I am just lucky it's not controlling anything really important.
Guest beatle February 25, 2008 February 25, 2008 This is somewhat of a longshot, but is there any chance someone has a DC8 that they could loan me even for a day? Emails with Curt have stopped and we've never reached a conclusion. I'd like to put this troubleshooting to bed, but it seems to me that I'm at the end of my rope without parts.
dhoch February 25, 2008 February 25, 2008 Most of these issues are with programming and without seeing your program it's IMPOSSIBLE to trouble shoot. If you would be so kind (and I know it's a PITA) but list your entire program and timers... Once we have ruled that out then we will better be able to say whats going on. People unfortunatly don't have DC8s laying around (at least I don't) Dave
Guest beatle February 26, 2008 February 26, 2008 Ah ha, I counted Curt out too soon. He was apparently on for a while tonight and after going through the manual configuration menu, he found my Sy (not sure what that is) reading to be too high and fluctuating too much. This indicated a lot of interference. He had me unplug each device from the DC8 to determine which was causing the interference. I tracked it down to the ballast driving my actinics. He suspects that the ballast may be incorrectly grounded. As the ballast is mounted to the backside of my canopy it's a little difficult to reach and inspect, but I'll give it a once over. In the meantime I've moved my "telephone" cable out of the way of the DC8. That has improved the readings, but it hasn't been long enough to determine if that cured the problem completely. I'll have to check it and my ballast out later.
jnguyen4007 February 26, 2008 February 26, 2008 Ah ha, I counted Curt out too soon. He was apparently on for a while tonight and after going through the manual configuration menu, he found my Sy (not sure what that is) reading to be too high and fluctuating too much. This indicated a lot of interference. He had me unplug each device from the DC8 to determine which was causing the interference. I tracked it down to the ballast driving my actinics. He suspects that the ballast may be incorrectly grounded. As the ballast is mounted to the backside of my canopy it's a little difficult to reach and inspect, but I'll give it a once over. In the meantime I've moved my "telephone" cable out of the way of the DC8. That has improved the readings, but it hasn't been long enough to determine if that cured the problem completely. I'll have to check it and my ballast out later. Curt is a good guy and I'm glad to see that he didn't let you down. Sometime on issues like this, it takes a bit of time to troubleshoot remotely so that might explain why it took him a bit of time to get back to you. Glad to see that he was able to help you narrow down the potential source of your problem.
mogurnda March 10, 2008 March 10, 2008 Ah ha, I counted Curt out too soon. He was apparently on for a while tonight and after going through the manual configuration menu, he found my Sy (not sure what that is) reading to be too high and fluctuating too much. This indicated a lot of interference. He had me unplug each device from the DC8 to determine which was causing the interference. I tracked it down to the ballast driving my actinics. He suspects that the ballast may be incorrectly grounded. As the ballast is mounted to the backside of my canopy it's a little difficult to reach and inspect, but I'll give it a once over. In the meantime I've moved my "telephone" cable out of the way of the DC8. That has improved the readings, but it hasn't been long enough to determine if that cured the problem completely. I'll have to check it and my ballast out later. Funny, that is exactly the same problem I have been having, and it came down to the ballast for my T5s. What kind of ballast are you using?
Guest beatle March 10, 2008 March 10, 2008 I can't really tell as they are mounted to the back of my canopy on the outside. I bought the retrofit from ReefGeek, so it's their standard ballast. I still need to take my canopy off and check the wiring, as I am still having intermittant quirks, but it's down to maybe one a day.
mogurnda March 10, 2008 March 10, 2008 It looks like they use the Universal Accustart, which is the same one I have.
Guest beatle March 10, 2008 March 10, 2008 Hopefully I'll be able to take the canopy down sometime this week to check it out.
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