Warning to Profilux Users

[TimT]

Thanks for the info and so sorry for your loss.

That is my worst nightmare.

Cheers,
Tim

[Snappy]

Sorry for your losses Steve.

[Skimmerking]

well Steve i can mail you some frgs of what i have if you want I don't have much not like you have.

[Ross]

Sorry to hear of the crash.

How much top up water do you figure ended up in the system?
What was the final salinity?

[sphelps]

I'm thinking around 80-100 gallons, salinity was around 1.015 I think, not sure exactly as a friend of mine noticed the issue before I returned and increased the salinity to more acceptable levels, unfortunately it wasn't soon enough.

[Seriak]

I feel your pain. Everytime I go on vacation, I cringe at what I might come back to. Sorry for the loss.

[Snaz]

The float sensor packaging includes a warning about expiration? Does any INCLUDED documentation mention the first sensor expiration? If not, then the manufacturer has no leg to stand on here.

Sorry for your losses.

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Snaz

The float sensor packaging includes a warning about expiration? Does any INCLUDED documentation mention the first sensor expiration? If not, then the manufacturer has no leg to stand on here.

Sorry for your losses.

No it does not although profilux support claims they have mentioned something regarding replacement of sensors somewhere on RC and they seem to feel that's adequate. I had the original sensor working for close to 5 years without issue and only recently replaced it as it was looking pretty worn. The new sensor failed within months and apparently according to profilux is a result from it expiring while it remained in original packaging for close to 2 years. This to me would suggest cheap components or poor quality control which goes against Profilux claims of high quality products. However as far as I'm concerned the main issue is the automatic reset, sensors can fail or get stuck so you can't rely on them, the back up alarm should deactivate the ATO and it should stay inactive until manually reset. This is how it's documented so I would have assumed the automatic reset was something Profilux was not aware of and perhaps just a firmware issue, however support staff seemed fully aware of it but don't agree there is an issue. Rather after some insulting "very obvious" conclusions (which they have now removed all trace of) they pointed blame toward user error and bragged about unparalleled support while offering warranty replacement of an obviously cheap sensor. Would have been nice if they recognized these two issues as something more serious and at least made some kind of attempt to let other users know.

[sphelps]

For those interested in a semi-solution to help prevent this failure you can set your ATO to not always be active and use a timer to control when it can activate. This is easily done within level sensor settings. Set the timer to activate once a day for just slightly longer than it would need to for worst case evaporation. This essentially replaces the max on time so you set that to 0 to deactivate or still use it how you see fit. For example you could set max on time to your evaporation limit of say 5min while setting the timer to activate for 5-1/2 min. This way you still get an alarm and deactivation if you want it. Otherwise you you can deactivate the max on time and set timer to activate for 5min. The advantage here if you do have a float failure and you're away from home top off water will still be added daily at a rate just slightly over the needed amount but will likely take several days before an issue would surface. While if the alarm feature is used your top off remains deactivated until reset which could also cause issues depending how long it goes unnoticed and how long your tank can run without top off supply.

With either approach the tank will be protected against the fluke occurrence of constant power outages during float failure.

Of course you can also limit the amount of fresh water supply available which most people do but for those people who use a large supply to hold the tank over for an extended or infinite period of time this feature should prove useful.

[Bblinks]

Sorry for your loses. If in anyway I can help you out with restarting please do not hesitate to ask. I have a good selection of sps corals that I can frag you a piece of each and as long as you pay for shipping I am willing to ship free of charge.

There is a reason why a lot of us including dealers that do not like to deal with certain supplier/s. When you are purchasing something they seem to be your best friend and once something goes wrong all of sudden you become a free loader. It's never the product but the end user's fault!

Anyways let me know.