Electrical

Right before my trip to Arizona, I spent Thursday installing the Apex controller on my system, replacing the Aquacontroller 3 that I've had for several years. I prefer never to make a big change before a trip, but the AC3 had to be rebooted internally and I lost connectivity with it. Unable to check on the tank over the web when traveling is bad news, so I gritted my teeth and took the plunge and hoped that I would get lucky this time.

What I have is the Apex brain, the display ...

Bobby finally had a little time to come over and I put him to work. I needed a number of things resolved or completed.

Two outlets in my home were flakey with bad connections, so he swapped those out.

The AquaController 3 had stopped communicating with all the x-10 modules in the sump area, and he had the tool to replace the phone jack connectors on the wiring to the kind that fit the sockets correctly. All four were replaced to get a good connection, and now the x-10s ...

Years ago, I got a kit from Aquahub.com for my reef. I never did update my float switch system to his safer relay approach. Here's what I had for the past 8 years or more: http://www.melevsreef.com/plumbing/auto_topoff.html

With the new set up, I've tried to avoid holding anything back and went "all in" so to speak. So I pulled out the kit and noticed I needed some goodies. I called up Patrick at Aquahub and asked if he could ship me the missing pieces. He wondered where I got ...

Last night, while cleaning out my living room, I accidentally got one of the American DJ switch assemblies wet. I quickly unplugged it and dried it off, and today I opened it up for inspection. What I discovered was a discolored spot at one of the connections. There was no water inside, fortunately.

Here's how to open one up. Remove it from use, unplug it of course, and remove the two screws from each end.

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And like that, the tank is now level. I ran up to Home Depot and bought some 2" flat aluminum stock. An 8' stick was $17.50, and I cut it up into 6" sections with a jigsaw using a metal-cutting blade.







The aluminum is 1/8" thick. ...