Apex Jr. Outlet Failure (?)

[MrX]

Anyone have any experience with 1 or more outlets on their Apex Jr. going bad?

I came home after being out for the last 5-6 hours and thought "man, it's quiet in my office." Turns out neither of the powerheads was running. At first I thought I forgot to turn it back on after feeding but then remembered I use the Apex Jr. "feed" buttons. It should have come back on automatically.

I unplugged the powerhead that the Apex was reporting as "ON" (my left powerhead) and tried it directly on a wall outlet; it worked fine. I tried my other powerhead (the right side one) on the problematic Apex Jr. outlet and it didn't work either.

I tried rebooting the Apex after unplugging everything and that didn't help. At first it made things worse; I couldn't connect to the Apex Jr. management web page and my lights wouldn't stay on. Eventually I got that all working. *sheesh*

I then tried a regular desk lamp in the outlet. First try it came on, so I decided to plug the powerhead back in. It started to spin, like just barely, and shut off. When I plugged the lamp in again it wouldn't come on... I had to screw around with the plug to get it to come on.

I just got this thing in April and the fact that it's already having issues is very disappointing. Luckily everything else seems to be working and hopefully I have time to get Neptune in the loop to replace it.

Controllers are great until they aren't.

Anyone have any experience with something like this, or dealing with Neptune support? What should I expect?

 

[cilyjr]

i have 1 that failed on the reg apex. its the eb 8. they will fix it but you will need to send it to them

 

[MrX]

Yeah, that can't really happen... their device controls my tank. They better have a cross ship option.

 

[cilyjr]

Not when I called them about it. They want to fix the one you have. It coulda been a power surge on your that broke it. They will say

 

[MrX]

Not when I called them about it. They want to fix the one you have. It coulda been a power surge on your that broke it. They will say

They can say whatever they want. lol. Everything works except the on outlet on their device. The thing is only 4-5 months old.

I'll post more tomorrow after I call them.

 

[jamesdong009]

I had the opposite problem with my AC jr. The outlet for my two-part got stuck on and dumped a week's worth of alkalinity in a day. Needless to say, the tank came to a crash real fast.

Keep us updated on how you make out with them.

 

[MrX]

I just got off the phone with Paul at Neptune Support. He stated repeatedly that they don't do cross ships outside of the initial 30-day window. To quote him - "These devices are in hostile environments and we can't refurbish the units..."

He was quick to point out that if I really need the outlet they'd be willing to give me a discount on a new EB8. WTH?!? I've already bougth the Apex Jr., VDM, EB8, Breakout box, etc... now to have the # of outlets I planned for and purchased I have to buy more to account for their defective gear.

He also stated I should try tapping it with a rubber mallet to unstick the mechanical relay. Sure, that might work, but I'm not happy with that "solution".

When I mentioned the Apex is running my tank and needed for my Apollo LEDs he told me to hook up a 9-volt battery which would run them for a while. When I mentioned that the things LIVING in my tank were accustomed to the current lighting conditions and that I'd have to do other things to account for the lights now running at 90% on the battery "solution" he really didn't reply.

If I'd known this was how they handled things I would have never bought Apex/Neptune stuff to begin with.

 

[mchartier]

A lot of our manufactures follow the same procedure, Tunze and EcoTech do this also where you have to ship back so they make sure theres no water damage or other damage that may have been caused by the environment or the user.

 

[MrX]

Well, trying the "tap" fix didn't work. The outlet is fubar'd.

Stupid question, but does anyone have an Apex Jr. I could borrow/rent for a bit while I get this one fixed? (Worth a shot.)