Chronical of my Apex Implementation.

ccotter · 12/17/2013, 01:24 PM

I have it from a good source that Santa will be brining me an Apex for Christmas

. I plan to use this thread to chronicle my setup / implementation. Everything from what my setup is today with power strips and timers to mounting the controller, display, EB8s to the code used for each item I wll be controller along with the DIY items I plan to build for the implementation.

My current setup is a 125g (6ft long) mixed reef with LPS, a few SPS (want more), and some softies along with 8 fish and a cleanup crew. I have an under stand sump (~30g) where I will house the Apex and accessories.

My Apex equipment coming from Santa:
- Apex Controller (with temp probe and std PH probe)
- 2 EB8s

I plan to add a DIY Breakout Box (RJ45 style) to interface to several float switches as well. Will chronicle that build as well in this thread.

My high level control plan is as follows:

- Main pump
o Always on, but monitor the upper float switch used for ATO to check
for the main pump not turning on after a power outage.
- 2 Hydor Koralia Power Heads.
o One always on and the other off at night and during feeding
- Jabao MP40 Powerhead
o Will DIY a cable to interface to 0-10V input on Apex
o Will control wave cycle
o Also considering to add a storm feature in the future.
- 2 Heaters
o One of the main reasons I am getting a controller
- Skimmer (Super Reef Octopus)
o Off during feed and anytime main pump goes off
o DIY float switch in the cap of the cup to shutoff if cup overflows
- MH lights
o Simple timer control for day/night
- CFL actnics
o Simple timer control for sunrise/sunset feature
- Moonlight LEDs
o Simple timer control for moonlight
- ATO pump
o interfaced to redundant float switches in the sump
- 2 BRS Dosing Pumps
o Dosing schedule for independent control of Ca and ALK
- LED light on Upflow Algae Scrubber
o Simple timer control for 18hr cycle with ontime during main lights being off

Between now and the time Santa arrives, I have some online shopping to do for the breakout box items, float switches, float switch hangers, wireless game adapter, and short (1 or 2 ft) grounded extension cords to ensure I can neatly route all power cables as well as the items needed to create the RJ45 male ends to the float switches.

I will post pics of the current setup later this week and advise on where I am buying the items listed above.

Spyderturbo007 · 12/18/2013, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccotter

I have it from a good source that Santa will be brining me an Apex for Christmas

.

Santa only ever brings me socks and other crap I don't want.

ilikefish34 · 12/19/2013, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spyderturbo007

Santa only ever brings me socks and other crap I don't want.

Filter socks? cause that wouldn't be so bad

Spyderturbo007 · 12/19/2013, 07:08 AM

I wish, but sadly, no.

Mark Bianco · 12/19/2013, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spyderturbo007

Santa only ever brings me socks and other crap I don't want.

Consider yourself LUCKY my friend.

If you think that's bad! I dislike crowds and I dislike the cold even more. One year Mrs. Santa got me / us reservations to go to NYC on New Years Eve to see the ball drop in person.

Mark

aquamanic · 12/19/2013, 04:39 PM

Ha! That wasn't a present for you!

Mark Bianco · 12/19/2013, 05:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aquamanic

Ha! That wasn't a present for you!

Exactly my friend. Just like when a female buys you some cloths for a gift and when opening it they say I got that for you cause I think you would look sooo good in it. That's a lie what they are really saying is I think you dress like a slob!!!

ccotter · 12/20/2013, 06:51 AM

Ok, been reading up on installing the Apex and doing some online shopping to prepare. So far, I have ordered the following:

- Ordered a refurbished Netgear Wireless game adapter from Sears.com. $37.17 including shipping.

- Order 10 1ft and 5 2ft grounded extension cables. This will help extend powerhead cables from the other end of the tank where I plan to mount the Apex as well as allow the larger "wall wort" power supplies to neatly plug into the EB8.

- Ordered set of 5 float switches from Ebay.

- Ordered Float Switch Mounting brackets from Autotopoff.com

- Ordered a RJ45 (male) to Din 8pin (mail) cable from Ebay. This will allow me to neatly connect my DIY BoB to the Apex and there will only be female RJ45 connectors on my keystone box.

Now I need to get the items for my DIY BoB build (Keystone box - 7/8 input), RJ45 female keystone connectors. RJ45 male connectors and CAT5E cable. Hope to have the BoB completed by Christmas day.

Spyderturbo007 · 12/20/2013, 06:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccotter

Ok, been reading up on installing the Apex and doing some online shopping to prepare. So far, I have ordered the following:

- Ordered a refurbished Netgear Wireless game adapter from Sears.com. $37.17 including shipping.

Good luck with the gaming adapter. I've found them in the past to be "flaky" at best. I switched to PowerLine adapters for places I don't want to run a wire. They are cheaper as well. Not that I'm telling you to switch, but if you run into issues it might make your life easier.

ccotter · 12/20/2013, 08:11 AM

Spyder,

Thanks for the advice. I don't have any experience with the Netgear wireless adapter. My gameplan is to get the Apex up and going while sitting directly next to my router and control a lamp fixture. Once I get that connection working, I will go down the path of trying to get the Wireless connection working. I will do some research to locate a Powerline adapter just in case.

aquamanic · 12/20/2013, 09:29 AM

I recommend you guys think through your emergency power strategy before making a decision on whether to use a gaming adapter vs. a powerline. If you lose household power, with a powerline you're not going to be able to talk to your controller even if the rest of your network (router, modem) is on a small UPS.

Spyderturbo007 · 12/20/2013, 10:40 AM

My Apex isn't on a UPS, so I rely on Reeftronics to provide notification if my power goes out. I had issues in the past where my gaming adapter would drop off the network randomly and stop responding to the Reeftronics ping request. That meant that I had to leave work to make sure everything was alright with the tank and that the Apex didn't go crazy.

ccotter · 12/21/2013, 07:22 AM

Ok, I think I have everything on order now for the DIY BoB. I hit eBay and ordered an 8 port Keystone box, female RJ45 ports, and male RJ45 connectors. Now the hard part comes.......waiting for Santa to arrive with the Apex.......in the meantime, I plan to continue to readup on the Apex documentation. Will also post pics of my current setup which is a cluge of wires, timers and power strips.

ccotter · 12/26/2013, 09:27 AM

Ok, time for an update. Below are pics of my current setup:

My tank:
tank.jpg

Power Strip #1 - Under tank:
Under tank Power Strip 1.jpg

Power Strip #2 - Under tank:
Under Tank Power Strip 2.jpg

Under Tank Light Timers:
Under Tank Light Timer 1 - Blues.jpg

Under Tank Lighting Timer 2 MH.jpg

Plus there is an additional power strip behind the stand that has a timer in it for an LED light for my scrubber and powers the skimmer and a couple power heads. Quite a mess...

ccotter · 12/26/2013, 09:35 AM

I followed the instructions in the comprehensive reference manual v4 to do my setup.

I took the Apex, Display Module and one of the EB8s to my wiring closet and plugged connected the Apex directly to my network with the included Cat5 cable. I connected the EB8 to the Apex and the Display Module to the Apex with the included cables. Everything powered up and green lights came on, so upstairs I went to my iMac in the kitchen.

I ran the Apex Browse utility for the Mac from the link in the manual and was quickly able to identify the local ip address of the Apex and noted this address.

Opened a Safari page and typed in the local ip address and the default login information and the dashboard was quickly displayed. Success!

ccotter · 12/26/2013, 09:46 AM

Next came the email setup......didn't quite go as smooth, but not too bad.

Despite the HUGE notice on the Neptune Systems forum front page, I went straight to the directions to setup a GMX account. Followed the procedure and.....nothing......pretty quickly realized and then went searching for a plan b in the list of smtp email services that were free. Found Yahoo listed and I attempted to setup my Yahoo account. Could not get it to work. Spent some time trying to setup an account I have with BrightHouse networks, but again, would not work. My main personal email is thru gmail, so I had to find an alternative.

I tried SMTP2Go and it was quick and VERY easy to setup and instantly worked. I was worried, however, about the limit on the free account of 20 email per day. So I went back on the search.

I Googled free SMTP email and found Inbox.com. Signed up for an account and went thru the process on their webpage to turn on SMTP and voila, everything was working. I instantly started getting email alerts about every 20-30 minutes as there was a email alert setup in the Apex for low temp. Since I didn't have the Temp Probe plugged in, the alerts were coming thru which make me feel confident that that part of the system is working well.

Now, onto the next step - setting up external access to the Apex and figuring out how to port forward on my home network. I was a little nervous, as it turns out, I should have been more nervous..........

ccotter · 12/26/2013, 09:54 AM

I moved to the next section of the Comprehensive Reference Manual to be able to access my Apex from outside of my local network at home.

First, I assigned the Apex a fixed ip address on my local network and assigned it to a random port (not 80, didn't want to open that one up, plus some of the documentation said that port 80 is sometimes blocked by ISPs).

Needless to say, after HOURs of attempting every combination of the directions I could find, I could not get port forwarding to work.............and here is the readers digest version of why.

My ISP's modem acts as a ROUTER. If this is the case, they will need to help you with opening up a Public IP address. The first thing that should have clued me in was that my personal router was setup in bridge mode. On top of that, I am using an Apple Airport that assigns IP address of 10.xx.xx.xx. The IP address of the Apex was a 192.xxx.xxx.xxx address, which should have told me something....but it didn't.

After waiting for the my ISPs phone support to come online this morning, I was quickly able to figure out the above and they went thru the process of setting up a Public IP address via PPPoE. After waiting for him to flip the "magic switch" on his end for the amount of time he stated plus 15 mins, I still could not get anything to work. After a quick call back, he figured out that they were OUT of public IP address and would have to call in one of their service providers to setup a new subnet.....which could take up to a week......dang. So bottom line is I will not be able to complete this process until I hear back from them....Hopefully by early next week.....

Now on to setting up wireless access.

ccotter · 12/26/2013, 10:01 AM

Next I moved on to Wireless access. With my port forwarding experience still a W.I.P, I was a little nervous, but this time it was not warranted.

I pulled read thru a couple posts on the Neptune site and unboxed my Netgear WNCE2001 Wireless gaming adapter.

I went to the Netgear site and pulled up the setup instructions utilizing the external wall wart power supply since this is the setup that will be used when the Apex is under my tank.

Followed the procedure and pretty quickly (under 10 mins) had the wireless adapter connected to my network and was online with my iMac on the wireless adapter.

Took the Wireless adapter down to my wiring closet where the Apex is still setup and connected it.

Came back upstairs and launched Safari and plugged in the local ip address of the Apex and Voila........up came the dashboard. Simple and straightforward.

Now on to how I will mount the Apex under my tank. I plan to mount the Apex and the EB8s to a piece of peg board and then mount the peg board under the stand in a way that I can remove it if needed. Will give that a little more thought and report back as I get it installed.

12/19/2013, 04:39 PM	#6
aquamanic WHO DAT?? Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Baton Rouge, LA Posts: 5,709	Ha! That wasn't a present for you! __________________ I don't work for Neptune. Please put all questions into forum posts and not PM's. Visit the Neptune Community Forums for the latest Neptune updates - forum.neptunesystems.com

12/20/2013, 09:29 AM	#11
aquamanic WHO DAT?? Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Baton Rouge, LA Posts: 5,709	I recommend you guys think through your emergency power strategy before making a decision on whether to use a gaming adapter vs. a powerline. If you lose household power, with a powerline you're not going to be able to talk to your controller even if the rest of your network (router, modem) is on a small UPS. __________________ I don't work for Neptune. Please put all questions into forum posts and not PM's. Visit the Neptune Community Forums for the latest Neptune updates - forum.neptunesystems.com

12/26/2013, 09:54 AM	#17
ccotter Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Indiana Posts: 11	External access setup.......pain...... I moved to the next section of the Comprehensive Reference Manual to be able to access my Apex from outside of my local network at home. First, I assigned the Apex a fixed ip address on my local network and assigned it to a random port (not 80, didn't want to open that one up, plus some of the documentation said that port 80 is sometimes blocked by ISPs). Needless to say, after HOURs of attempting every combination of the directions I could find, I could not get port forwarding to work.............and here is the readers digest version of why. My ISP's modem acts as a ROUTER. If this is the case, they will need to help you with opening up a Public IP address. The first thing that should have clued me in was that my personal router was setup in bridge mode. On top of that, I am using an Apple Airport that assigns IP address of 10.xx.xx.xx. The IP address of the Apex was a 192.xxx.xxx.xxx address, which should have told me something....but it didn't. After waiting for the my ISPs phone support to come online this morning, I was quickly able to figure out the above and they went thru the process of setting up a Public IP address via PPPoE. After waiting for him to flip the "magic switch" on his end for the amount of time he stated plus 15 mins, I still could not get anything to work. After a quick call back, he figured out that they were OUT of public IP address and would have to call in one of their service providers to setup a new subnet.....which could take up to a week......dang. So bottom line is I will not be able to complete this process until I hear back from them....Hopefully by early next week..... Now on to setting up wireless access.

12/26/2013, 10:01 AM	#18
ccotter Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Indiana Posts: 11	Setting up Wireless access. Next I moved on to Wireless access. With my port forwarding experience still a W.I.P, I was a little nervous, but this time it was not warranted. I pulled read thru a couple posts on the Neptune site and unboxed my Netgear WNCE2001 Wireless gaming adapter. I went to the Netgear site and pulled up the setup instructions utilizing the external wall wart power supply since this is the setup that will be used when the Apex is under my tank. Followed the procedure and pretty quickly (under 10 mins) had the wireless adapter connected to my network and was online with my iMac on the wireless adapter. Took the Wireless adapter down to my wiring closet where the Apex is still setup and connected it. Came back upstairs and launched Safari and plugged in the local ip address of the Apex and Voila........up came the dashboard. Simple and straightforward. Now on to how I will mount the Apex under my tank. I plan to mount the Apex and the EB8s to a piece of peg board and then mount the peg board under the stand in a way that I can remove it if needed. Will give that a little more thought and report back as I get it installed.

12/17/2013, 01:24 PM	#1
ccotter Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Indiana Posts: 11	Chronical of my Apex Implementation. I have it from a good source that Santa will be brining me an Apex for Christmas . I plan to use this thread to chronicle my setup / implementation. Everything from what my setup is today with power strips and timers to mounting the controller, display, EB8s to the code used for each item I wll be controller along with the DIY items I plan to build for the implementation. My current setup is a 125g (6ft long) mixed reef with LPS, a few SPS (want more), and some softies along with 8 fish and a cleanup crew. I have an under stand sump (~30g) where I will house the Apex and accessories. My Apex equipment coming from Santa: - Apex Controller (with temp probe and std PH probe) - 2 EB8s I plan to add a DIY Breakout Box (RJ45 style) to interface to several float switches as well. Will chronicle that build as well in this thread. My high level control plan is as follows: - Main pump o Always on, but monitor the upper float switch used for ATO to check for the main pump not turning on after a power outage. - 2 Hydor Koralia Power Heads. o One always on and the other off at night and during feeding - Jabao MP40 Powerhead o Will DIY a cable to interface to 0-10V input on Apex o Will control wave cycle o Also considering to add a storm feature in the future. - 2 Heaters o One of the main reasons I am getting a controller - Skimmer (Super Reef Octopus) o Off during feed and anytime main pump goes off o DIY float switch in the cap of the cup to shutoff if cup overflows - MH lights o Simple timer control for day/night - CFL actnics o Simple timer control for sunrise/sunset feature - Moonlight LEDs o Simple timer control for moonlight - ATO pump o interfaced to redundant float switches in the sump - 2 BRS Dosing Pumps o Dosing schedule for independent control of Ca and ALK - LED light on Upflow Algae Scrubber o Simple timer control for 18hr cycle with ontime during main lights being off Between now and the time Santa arrives, I have some online shopping to do for the breakout box items, float switches, float switch hangers, wireless game adapter, and short (1 or 2 ft) grounded extension cords to ensure I can neatly route all power cables as well as the items needed to create the RJ45 male ends to the float switches. I will post pics of the current setup later this week and advise on where I am buying the items listed above.

12/19/2013, 07:08 AM	#4
Spyderturbo007 Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: PA Posts: 2,564	I wish, but sadly, no.

12/20/2013, 06:51 AM	#8
ccotter Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Indiana Posts: 11	Ok, been reading up on installing the Apex and doing some online shopping to prepare. So far, I have ordered the following: - Ordered a refurbished Netgear Wireless game adapter from Sears.com. $37.17 including shipping. - Order 10 1ft and 5 2ft grounded extension cables. This will help extend powerhead cables from the other end of the tank where I plan to mount the Apex as well as allow the larger "wall wort" power supplies to neatly plug into the EB8. - Ordered set of 5 float switches from Ebay. - Ordered Float Switch Mounting brackets from Autotopoff.com - Ordered a RJ45 (male) to Din 8pin (mail) cable from Ebay. This will allow me to neatly connect my DIY BoB to the Apex and there will only be female RJ45 connectors on my keystone box. Now I need to get the items for my DIY BoB build (Keystone box - 7/8 input), RJ45 female keystone connectors. RJ45 male connectors and CAT5E cable. Hope to have the BoB completed by Christmas day.

12/20/2013, 08:11 AM	#10
ccotter Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Indiana Posts: 11	Spyder, Thanks for the advice. I don't have any experience with the Netgear wireless adapter. My gameplan is to get the Apex up and going while sitting directly next to my router and control a lamp fixture. Once I get that connection working, I will go down the path of trying to get the Wireless connection working. I will do some research to locate a Powerline adapter just in case.

12/20/2013, 10:40 AM	#12
Spyderturbo007 Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: PA Posts: 2,564	My Apex isn't on a UPS, so I rely on Reeftronics to provide notification if my power goes out. I had issues in the past where my gaming adapter would drop off the network randomly and stop responding to the Reeftronics ping request. That meant that I had to leave work to make sure everything was alright with the tank and that the Apex didn't go crazy.

12/21/2013, 07:22 AM	#13
ccotter Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Indiana Posts: 11	Ok, I think I have everything on order now for the DIY BoB. I hit eBay and ordered an 8 port Keystone box, female RJ45 ports, and male RJ45 connectors. Now the hard part comes.......waiting for Santa to arrive with the Apex.......in the meantime, I plan to continue to readup on the Apex documentation. Will also post pics of my current setup which is a cluge of wires, timers and power strips.

12/26/2013, 09:27 AM	#14
ccotter Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Indiana Posts: 11	Ok, time for an update. Below are pics of my current setup: My tank: tank.jpg Power Strip #1 - Under tank: Under tank Power Strip 1.jpg Power Strip #2 - Under tank: Under Tank Power Strip 2.jpg Under Tank Light Timers: Under Tank Light Timer 1 - Blues.jpg Under Tank Lighting Timer 2 MH.jpg Plus there is an additional power strip behind the stand that has a timer in it for an LED light for my scrubber and powers the skimmer and a couple power heads. Quite a mess...

12/26/2013, 09:35 AM	#15
ccotter Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Indiana Posts: 11	I followed the instructions in the comprehensive reference manual v4 to do my setup. I took the Apex, Display Module and one of the EB8s to my wiring closet and plugged connected the Apex directly to my network with the included Cat5 cable. I connected the EB8 to the Apex and the Display Module to the Apex with the included cables. Everything powered up and green lights came on, so upstairs I went to my iMac in the kitchen. I ran the Apex Browse utility for the Mac from the link in the manual and was quickly able to identify the local ip address of the Apex and noted this address. Opened a Safari page and typed in the local ip address and the default login information and the dashboard was quickly displayed. Success!

12/26/2013, 09:46 AM	#16
ccotter Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Indiana Posts: 11	Next came the email setup......didn't quite go as smooth, but not too bad. Despite the HUGE notice on the Neptune Systems forum front page, I went straight to the directions to setup a GMX account. Followed the procedure and.....nothing......pretty quickly realized and then went searching for a plan b in the list of smtp email services that were free. Found Yahoo listed and I attempted to setup my Yahoo account. Could not get it to work. Spent some time trying to setup an account I have with BrightHouse networks, but again, would not work. My main personal email is thru gmail, so I had to find an alternative. I tried SMTP2Go and it was quick and VERY easy to setup and instantly worked. I was worried, however, about the limit on the free account of 20 email per day. So I went back on the search. I Googled free SMTP email and found Inbox.com. Signed up for an account and went thru the process on their webpage to turn on SMTP and voila, everything was working. I instantly started getting email alerts about every 20-30 minutes as there was a email alert setup in the Apex for low temp. Since I didn't have the Temp Probe plugged in, the alerts were coming thru which make me feel confident that that part of the system is working well. Now, onto the next step - setting up external access to the Apex and figuring out how to port forward on my home network. I was a little nervous, as it turns out, I should have been more nervous..........