Neptune EnergyBar8
The Energy Bars available for our Apex systems are much more than a glorified power strip. In fact, this component of your aquarium controller equipment is far more important than most people realize – and not all systems are created equal!
It is obvious that this component is key to controlling things on your aquarium, but what is not so apparent is how it is critical to preventing catastrophe in your aquarium. Here’s how:
CURRENT SENSING DEVICE
The Energy Bars continually send their information on their present current drain to the Apex controller. This is incredibly useful information for a number of reasons. First, it enables you to recognize what the overall power consumption is on any Energy Bar so that you can better distribute the load across your multiple Energy Bars. Also by having this feature you can accurately determine the power utilization of your tank to compare different lights, pumps, skimmers, etc.
Imagine revving the engine in your car and dropping the shifter from P to D. That is exactly what happens when many controllers turn on the power to your pumps. Just like in a car, this kind of instantaneous application of power to your return pump after a feed cycle or to your power heads will certainly lead to early failure. With the Energy Bar, power is slowly ramped on so that every motor is safely brought up to speed without the damaging torque.
POWER-FAILURE DETECTION, COMMUNICATION ERROR PROTECTION AND PRE-PROGRAMMED FAILSAFE STATE
Each Energy Bar outlet can be configured to be either in an off or on state if the power were to fail and then come back on or if there was a communication failure with the Apex base unit. This means that if, for instance, your heater was on when the power went off, you could have it programmed to be off until control was reestablished with the Apex base unit. Or, as another example, you could program your main return pump to always be in the on position in case of failure.
EXTRA AQUABUS CONNECTIONS
Each Energy Bar has additional connectors so that you can easily expand to other modules. This is very helpful for those that want to use one Apex to control multiple aquariums. The Energy Bar becomes an AquaBus “hub” at any location you choose – allowing you to connect more modules in that area. This is called a “star topology” and is unique to the Apex. Many other controllers require you to daisy chain together every module or they require you to buy a separate “hub” to connect everything together.
