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Apex + Inkbird + Heaters(with internal thermostat)

thesassyindian

thesassyindian

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What are the best practices for a system with Apex + inkbird + heaters with internal thermostats like the Eheim Jager series?

Is an inkbird advisable?
Or is just the heater’s internal thermostat + Apex with EB832 enough?

13EDB446-8D4E-4758-AD49-9320E7E6B876.jpeg
 
If your heater has a temperature controller built in, you don’t need the inkbird.

What I do is have the Apex actually control the temperature and the other controller (the heater in this case) set a little higher (fail-on protection).

Then program the Apex to alert you if the heater is not drawing current when the Apex plug for it is on. This will tell you if either the heater has died (fail-off) or if something is wrong with the Apex system like temp probe is out of the water and the secondary temperature controller is shutting it off (fail-off).

You can do it the other way with the Apex as backup like BRS says to do but then you lose the energy monitoring function, the better accuracy of the Apex thermometer, the ability to have the controlling thermometer upstream in the sump, and the ability to track temperature with outlet being on in Apex.

I set a hysteresis on a half a degree F (on at 77.5, off at 78.0) so the Apex outlet isn’t turning on/off frequently.
 
And on the multiple small tanks I have I use an inkbird as the primary and the integrated temp controller in the heater as the failsafe. This also works well if the tank isn’t connected to Apex.
 
JVU said:
You can do it the other way with the Apex as backup like BRS says to do but then you lose the energy monitoring function
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Thanks @JVU for your insight!
About the above statement, why would you lose the ability to monitor energy if the heater Tstat is primary? Won’t the EB8 plug still measure power since it will be on? What am I missing?
 
thesassyindian said:
Thanks @JVU for your insight!
About the above statement, why would you lose the ability to monitor energy if the heater Tstat is primary? Won’t the EB8 plug still measure power since it will be on? What am I missing?
Click to expand...
For me the value of the energy monitoring function of the Apex is about being able to set an alarm to trigger when the Apex senses not enough current when an outlet is on. If the heater’s Tstat is primary, the Apex outlet will essentially always be on and the heater will be turning on and off, so you can’t use the power monitoring.
 
I read somewhere that minimizing how often an Eb832 outlet flips on/off would help preserve its life... so I do 2x Jager -> inkbird -> Apex.
I figure, if that's true, I'd rather replace an Inkbird over an energy bar.

So the inkier is set to the real temp range I want to operate in and the Apex is the backup, safety measure... plus I've programmed other stuff in case temp gets too high (turn off lights, turn on fan etc)
 
I have had a heater controller die and be stuck ON.
I have had Apex glitch out and get stuck OFF.
I have had an Apex relay die and be stuck ON.

So....

I am now doing something simpler.
Apex has an alarm on low/high temperature. It does not "control" heat, just "checks" it.
(Although it does control a fan for cooling)
I use two multiple smaller heaters, using their own controllers.
Being smaller, if one dies, it should not cook or freeze things, at least not quickly.
 
phatduckk said:
I read somewhere that minimizing how often an Eb832 outlet flips on/off would help preserve its life... so I do 2x Jager -> inkbird -> Apex.
I figure, if that's true, I'd rather replace an Inkbird over an energy bar.

So the inkier is set to the real temp range I want to operate in and the Apex is the backup, safety measure... plus I've programmed other stuff in case temp gets too high (turn off lights, turn on fan etc)
Click to expand...
Yes, BRS said this in a video and others have said it too. In my case I have 2 slightly undersized heaters and have one set to turn on and off at 0.2F lower than the primary. With this approach there is actually very little on/off switching of the Apex outlets, maybe a few times a day for one and a few times a week for the other, see below.

1638299957372.png


In a small tank with only 1 oversized heater you would probably have more on/off switching, but I still would do it this way. Having the power monitoring feature has already saved my bottom since I started doing this.
 
JVU said:
Yes, BRS said this in a video and others have said it too. In my case I have 2 slightly undersized heaters and have one set to turn on and off at 0.2F lower than the primary. With this approach there is actually very little on/off switching of the Apex outlets, maybe a few times a day for one and a few times a week for the other, see below.

View attachment 33555

In a small tank with only 1 oversized heater you would probably have more on/off switching, but I still would do it this way. Having the power monitoring feature has already saved my bottom since I started doing this.
Click to expand...
That's what I am worried about - I have a 50W heater with a built in thermostat on a 13.5gal tank.
All forums are full of warnings to not have the EB832 switch frequently.

Can you please elaborate on how the power monitoring helped you?
 
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thesassyindian said:
That's what I am worried about - I have a 50W heater with a built in thermostat on a 13.5gal tank.
All forums are full of warnings to not have the EB832 switch frequently.

Can you please elaborate on how the power monitoring helped you?
Click to expand...
One of my 2 heaters failed. Apex alerted me the second it failed because it didn’t draw power when it was switched on. I may not have noticed for a while otherwise because I have 2 heaters staggered. Also I’d rather find out up front than later after the tank is significantly cold and triggers a temp alarm.

If the Apex was the failsafe (and so always on) I wouldn’t have found out about it until it caused some problem.

Your small system has 2 big differences though. One is that you‘ll only have 1 heater, so when it fails your tank will get cold quickly (if not summer), so not much of a difference between hearing about it when it fails vs a short time later. Second is that since your heater is overpowered it will be switching on/off a lot more frequently. You can increase the hysteresis in the Apex setting to keeping it from switching as frequently if you want though.

In your case using the Apex as failsafe makes sense more than in a larger tank. I think either way is reasonable. You just want to have a system where your tank is protected from both fail-on and fail-off heater problems as much as possible.
 
Yes, it is bad to have a relay toggle on and off a lot. Leads to contact failure.
Especially if it is very rapid, like a few times per second.

But it is not great to have a relay on all the time either.
It eventually leads to coil failure. Especially on cheap relays where coil gets got.

Generally the trick is to have large hysteresis on the settings.
Turn Heater ON when temp goes below 76.0, and keep it on until it hits 78.
Turn Heater OFF when temp goes above 78.0, and keep it off until it hits 76.

@JVU
Another trick:
Have your MAIN larger heater go on only from 9-4, optimal for solar power.
Have a smaller one maintain it at night, or simply let it cool.
 
JVU said:
One of my 2 heaters failed. Apex alerted me the second it failed because it didn’t draw power when it was switched on. I may not have noticed for a while otherwise because I have 2 heaters staggered. Also I’d rather find out up front than later after the tank is significantly cold and triggers a temp alarm.

If the Apex was the failsafe (and so always on) I wouldn’t have found out about it until it caused some problem.

Your small system has 2 big differences though. One is that you‘ll only have 1 heater, so when it fails your tank will get cold quickly (if not summer), so not much of a difference between hearing about it when it fails vs a short time later. Second is that since your heater is overpowered it will be switching on/off a lot more frequently. You can increase the hysteresis in the Apex setting to keeping it from switching as frequently if you want though.

In your case using the Apex as failsafe makes sense more than in a larger tank. I think either way is reasonable. You just want to have a system where your tank is protected from both fail-on and fail-off heater problems as much as possible.
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Will this case work for maintaining tank at 77F?

Heater internal thermostat set to 80F
Apex cutoff set to 79F
Inkbird cutoff set to 77F

Heater -> Inkbird -> Apex

What way, I can still get energy monitoring from the Apex for the heater.
 
thesassyindian said:
Will this case work for maintaining tank at 77F?

Heater internal thermostat set to 80F
Apex cutoff set to 79F
Inkbird cutoff set to 77F

Heater -> Inkbird -> Apex

What way, I can still get energy monitoring from the Apex for the heater.
Click to expand...
It will work, but you will not have the benefit of the Apex alarming when it has the heater outlet switched on but there is no current. This alarm feature is the main benefit of the Apex for heaters in my opinion. You would have the monitoring in the sense that you can look back later and see when the heater turns on/off, but not for alarm purposes.

With this setup you could do without either the InkBird or the Apex, with the remaining controller set to 77F. Downside of using the Apex as the primary is that it will be switching on/off more frequently. Downside of the InkBird as the primary is that there is no power monitoring and is not as reliable as the Apex (in my opinion).
 
JVU said:
It will work, but you will not have the benefit of the Apex alarming when it has the heater outlet switched on but there is no current. This alarm feature is the main benefit of the Apex for heaters in my opinion. You would have the monitoring in the sense that you can look back later and see when the heater turns on/off, but not for alarm purposes.

With this setup you could do without either the InkBird or the Apex, with the remaining controller set to 77F. Downside of using the Apex as the primary is that it will be switching on/off more frequently. Downside of the InkBird as the primary is that there is no power monitoring and is not as reliable as the Apex (in my opinion).
Click to expand...
Well, consider this case.Inkbird with heater connected to outlet 4 on the Apex.
Lets assume the Inkbird draws 5W of power by itself. With a 50W heater connected to it, I can set the alarm to trigger at 30W.

So if the heater is ON, the outlet should ideally draw 55W.

Case: Heater stuck OFF
Alarm will trigger since the outlet will be drawing less than 30W when it should be drawing more than that threshold.

So the power monitoring will still work. Correct?
If not, I am clearly missing something.

Screenshot 2021-12-11 111949.jpg
 
Consider this case with your parameters-

Everything is working like it should. Temp is 77.5F. Apex outlet is ON. InkBird just turned OFF because it reached target temp. You would get an alarm because the Apex outlet is ON but the watts draw is below alarm amount.
 
When the Inkbird turns OFF, the unit itself still stays ON the whole time. It just turns the output relay OFF.
So it will still draw at least 5W, even when the heater is off.
 
Yes, which will trigger your alarm that is triggered when Apex outlet is ON but draw < 30w. So you will be getting alarms all day when nothing is wrong, making it useless.
 
JVU said:
Yes, which will trigger your alarm that is triggered when Apex outlet is ON but draw < 30w. So you will be getting alarms all day when nothing is wrong, making it useless.
Click to expand...
I think I am misinterpreting how the "MIN" value (in the above image) is used in the alarms on the Apex.
 
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