Aquacontroller help

[Big Country]

I have a Aquacontroller III setup with 2xDC8's, common setup with communication going from ACIII to A level DC8 to B level DC8. In the last 2 weeks I have had problems with 2 pieces of equipment plugged into A level DC8 shorting out, first a heater and last night a pump, and blowing the GFCI. The ACIII is plugged in elsewhere so it is still running and seems to think that it's still controlling since the status is changing on its screen, the B level DC8 is plugged into another circuit so it is still powered up. Problem is the ACIII is losing communication with the B level DC8 since the A level has no power after blowing the GFCI. Whatever status B level equipment is in at the time of the power outage to A level is what status it stays in, that's fine for lights and some other things but scaring me to death that a heater might be on and stay on, or my CO2 be on to the calcium reactor and stay on. Would be bad to have a ATO or dosing pump doing a programmed addition to the tank also. I caught the problem last night by noticing that my calcium reactor PH climbed to 7.8, luckily the GFCI tripped when the CO2 was off and since the ACIII lost communication to B level the ACIII couldn't turn the solinoid back on so the PH just kept going up.

 

Is there a way to write a program code to tell you if the ACIII loses contact with the DC8? Is there any other safety that I can program that might help? At this point I'm thinking about taking my calcium reactor off of my ACIII and putting it back on a reef fanatic ph controller. My Jager heaters have thermostats set a little higher than set temp so theoretically they should shut off themselves no matter what the ACIII is telling them to do. I also sent a email to Neptune asking if I could split the phone connection and send a seperate line to each DC8 to independently control them without being daisy chained together which would be the easy solution.

[trott]

Have you tried to update the DC8?

[Big Country]

Have you tried to update the DC8?

 

Update the DC8?

[Origami]

I don't think that the AC-III actively reads the status of the DC-8, but reads the status of internal variables which represent what it thinks is the current state of the outlets there. This means that, when you're disconnected, you probably won't have a way to sense the disconnection without something added.

 

The easiest way to address this might be to change the way your control cable is routed. Right now, I gather that it's going from the AC-III to DC-8#A and then on to DC-8#B. Can you change this so that the control line of DC-8#B is direct connected to the AC-III and daisy chain DC-8#B to unit #A? This doesn't help the GFCI-tripping problem, but it may keep communications from being severed with Unit#A.

 

Another alternative might be to use a simple relay to monitor power on DC-8#A such that when power is removed, the relay opens (or closes). Monitor the state of the relay using one of the Boolean sensor inputs - the input/output connector - (on the DIN connector) on the AC-III unit.

[Big Country]

Well, I heard back from neptune, you have to daisy chain the DC8's they will not work if you split the wire to each DC8. This unit has work flawlessly for a couple of years, I'm sure it's just bad luck on my part that I had a end cap fall off of a titanium heater and allow water intrusion, and now a pump cord fray enough to expose the wire to saltwater.