Alert for inputs NOT changing

[HaubFather]

I had a thought today that it would be nice to get an alert if a probe was having an issue by getting an alert that a reading WASN'T changing. A simple example of this would be temp. There is really only two options, the heaters are on and its climbing or off and its cooling. If my probe is reporting the same temp for over an hour, I KNOW there is something wrong with the reporting. Maybe its interference, maybe it's a bubble, who knows but at least I would know to look into it.

Does anyone have this implemented? I couldn't find anything on Neptune's website or here that correlated.

Any help is, as always, appreciated!

[zombie]

Not possible. The apex doesnt have the capability to do holding registers.

You can get a similar effect using a virtual outlet to check if your heater has been ON or OFF for longer than a set period of time though. Say for example your heater in a test week turned ON for no longer than 15 min and was never off longer than 30 minutes. You could do something like

HeatFailON
Set OFF
If Output Heater = ON Then ON
Defer 030:00 Then ON

HeatFailOFF
Set OFF
If Output Heater = OFF Then ON
Defer 060:00 Then ON

Email
(Existing)
If Output HeatFailON = ON Then ON
If Output HeatFailOFF = ON Then ON



With that said the situation of a probe value getting "stuck" at a particular value can only occur for three conditions:

1. Probe gets unplugged (will read about 20F)

2. Probe shorts (will read about 120F)

3. Probe falls out of tank (will read room temperature)

Because of this, your reasoning would be moot to begin with, but it is useful to know if a heater is running too long or too short for other reasons.

You might be an engineer if...You have no life and can prove it mathematically.

[HaubFather]

Screen Shot 2018-03-08 at 21.03.44.jpg

Well, your three scenarios are not the ONLY way the temp probe would report the same thing for many hours. As it happened to me this afternoon. I'm still working through what is causing this, my best guess is interference as I did add a new Maxspec Gyre around the same time as the lock in reporting temp started. The new pump was also causing some bubbles in the sump as I hadn't had time to fine tune it yet either. I don't think bubbles would have caused the temp probe to report incorrectly, maybe the salinity anyways.. Still working through the issue and I'll happily report what I find the cause to be if there is interest.

Because of this, I find it would have been helpful to know that something was wrong after the temp didn't report any change for an hour. My heaters stayed off most of the day and the tank temp was running low. Not emergency levels but not good all the same. Your solution of monitoring the results of the stuck probe - IE heater has been off for too long would have worked. Thank you for your solution!

[zombie]

Odd. Never seen that before in over 5 years on the forums. I have seen straight lines when the apex was offline for an extended time, but yours actually has polling points in between. I would definately report this to support.

You might be an engineer if...You have no life and can prove it mathematically.

[HaubFather]

Will do! Thanks again for the reply!

[jonmos75]

That is not uncommon for my tanks having a straight line for temp.

Capture.PNG

[HaubFather]

Screen Shot 2018-03-08 at 21.38.25.jpgScreen Shot 2018-03-08 at 21.40.42.jpg

For 5+ hours though? Perfectly in sync with ORP as well?

Also when I did move my probes Salinity shot up to much closer to where I knew it actually was.

I've opened a ticket with support to review as well.

[zombie]

Yours is also incredibly tight range and it looks like you have a 10 min polling rate. Straight lines there is solely random chance where as OPs is obviously an error of some kind.

You might be an engineer if...You have no life and can prove it mathematically.

[HaubFather]

As a side note... I'm only about a week into Apex usage. So any general suggestions as noticed would be gladly taken from someone 5+ years over my Newb self.

Again, thank you Zombie!