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Piper

Piper

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If you were going to buy a controller today which one would you go with out of 1) Reef Angel, 2) Reef Keeper, or 3) Apex?

I was looking at picking up another Ranco (or replacing my single stage with a dual stage) to control my fans so they're not running 24 hours a day but figured the cost of that was half way or more to a decent controller that will give me more options and expandability down the road. If I go with a controller it initially would be to run the heater and fans, control the lights (3 sets), control my 2 dosing pumps and maybe an ATO. Right now I just use gravity feed for top off so that might come later.

I was initially looking at the Reef Keeper Lite but I don't think that will work for my dosing pumps from what I can tell. Apparently I need to stack the timers or something like that if I'm not running the same number of minutes per cycle on the timer if that makes any sense. So I was leaning towards the Reef Keeper Elite as that should work for what I wanted with dosing pumps. While researching the Reef Keeper I read some rather old messages/posts on various forums and some people were having issues with them and most people were recommending the Apex over the RK. I haven't looked too much into the Reef Angel yet.

Let me know what you went with if you have a controller and what you think.

Thanks,
Charlie
 
I run two Apex units and am very happy with them. Great customer support as well. You will need to set up a custom timer for dosing but there are examples out there on the forums. I also run a few Reef Keeper Lites and have been happy with them. However, they only cover the basic needs and expanding them to do everything you want would probably bring the cost close to an Apex.

Btw, I owe you a yuma. If you're going to be at the upcoming swap, feel free to remind me and I'll make sure I bring one or have it delivered :)
 
Thanks for the info iCon. I forgot all about the yuma! I'll be at the swap for sure. I'll send you a PM when we get close - thanks!

~Charlie
 
I built my own controller, but when I took it offline for an upgrade (a task started but not finished) I got an Apex to bridge the gap and have been quite satisfied with it. You can get creative enough with the logic to support what you want, and there's a fair amount of help out there for setting it up as previously stated.
 
I had a Reef Angel.
I liked it. It did have a problem once, but great+fast local service.

Key IMO : The Reef Angel is by far the best if you really want to tinker.
As far as I know, nobody else supplies and lets you reprogram internal source code.
Plus it has nice forums on setup/software/etc.

I switched to fully DIY eventually, mostly because of their microprocessor limitations.
 
Mark/Dave - Thanks for the info. What were/are you using for the DIY controllers? That certainly sounds intriguing but the reality is I don't have the time for that at the moment.

I do like the idea of the Reef Angel and the open source code. I'm an old Perl hacker and I still love to code when I can. That would be right up my alley.

~Charlie
 
i have a National Instruments cRIO, which is essentially a real time operating system running one half, with a FPGA dealing with some of the low level IO, etc... I don't think anyone would debate that it's overkill but it's industrial, which is really what you want ;) I got into making custom PCB's to interface to it for fun, which was good because I could use the same thing at work on some test fixtures, etc...

That being said I am quite happy with the Apex. It was a clear winner from fellow BAR recommendations and good stuff spoken online in various places.

But when you want to get crazy, well then I believe you have to go industrial, or at the very least with Roberto's RA since you can program it!
 
Piper said:
Mark/Dave - Thanks for the info. What were/are you using for the DIY controllers? That certainly sounds intriguing but the reality is I don't have the time for that at the moment.

I do like the idea of the Reef Angel and the open source code. I'm an old Perl hacker and I still love to code when I can. That would be right up my alley.

~Charlie
Click to expand...

Mine is Arduino-Mega based.
I have a writeup on it at RC here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2090622
 
Mark - That is very cool. That might be something I look at down the road when I have a little more time.

Roberto - You say you run one but do you really like it? :) Someone told me yesterday that you're the one to talk to about the Reef Angel if I have any questions. I'm looking at the manuals and the RA forum now to see how it all works. I think that might do the trick for me.

Dave - Isn't overkill the whole point of DYI?? Bigger, badder, better!

The Apex is still an option too at this point. From what I've researched so far that will do all I need to do and then some. I think Reef Keeper is out at this point. I'm just not getting that warm-fuzzy vibe with what I'm reading on that.

Thanks again to everyone for all the input so far. If anyone else out there has anything to share please do. I'm still a week or two out from pulling the trigger.

~Charlie
 
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