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Gavita Controller Problems

Twisted pleasur

Twisted pleasur

Active member
Veteran
I have two EL1 and one EL2 controller and if I lose power they are not keeping their settings.

They revert to 400 watts and Celsius instead of Fahrenheit, 24 hour time instead of 12 hour. Time of Day gone and also the on and off times are lost.

Is anyone else having or had this problem with any of their controllers?

Ive sent a support ticket to Gavita.. I will post here about my experience.
 
Twisted pleasur

Twisted pleasur

Active member
Veteran
Well Gavita Got back to me. They explained exactly what I thought that it is most likely the internal battery has failed. Not rocket science by any means but I just wanted to report how this was going to go with this company. We know we can not have equipment fail like this.

So they want me to report to them with the production/serial number so they can look the units up and see if there has been problems with that production time for their records and let me know the nearest reseller to exchange the faulty controllers out for brand new ones.

This is nice customer service. If I had to ship the faulty units to them and wait for them to return from their country or even a factory authorized dealer in the US for service and wait for them to be returned this would even take longer so I am relieved to hear it will be fast as possible to correct the problem.

I honestly wish we could as a consumer replace the battery our selves like we would in a thermostat or something. Its allot of trouble to be down with something like this if your relying on it.
 
jocat

jocat

Active member
Irecently had the same issue with my EL1, power went off for just a minute and the settings were partially lost, it went to 600w and C instead of F, and timer settings were lost. I was wondering..I will contact Gavita..thanks for the tip
 
H

hvac guy

Active member
If you're still concerned about the Gavita controllers, send me a PM, I can program a SIEMENS PLC to replicate exactly what EL1/EL2 do.
 
Twisted pleasur

Twisted pleasur

Active member
Veteran
Hey buddy... Long time no see. Glad your still kicking... Wow thats quit the offer. They are replacing them but Im going to pick your brains.... lol
 
Twisted pleasur

Twisted pleasur

Active member
Veteran
Well Gavita Took care of me.

Told me to go my nearest reseller and they would exchange them out.

So I knew who stocked the controllers I went there brought the ticket number. The first thing they asked was did I buy these form them and I didn't. But it did not matter.

So they called their contact for Gavita U.S. and he asked who I talked to as soon as I said his name he knew and they told the store to swap everything out.

So Im back in biz he said there was a small batch that had this problem.

So if you happen to have one get them to make the replacement. They told me they are actually happy I called. They want all their customers to be happy and to tackle any problems they may be having. So they can address any problems with their staff and enginers and to have a superior product.

The reseller was happy also because they got rid of three controllers Gavita is going to credit them back for the units which is the same as a sale.

So good luck Gavita people. Happy Growing. :tiphat:
 
C

Cheesegez

Well-known member
I have the same sort of problem , I have an EL2 I went to check on things today and lights where still on 7 hours after they should of turned off and my controller is convinced that 100% output is 400w similar to your first post ... lol but here's the thing , my Grow shop said they'd replace mine with an EL1 to get me out the shit so I went exchanged the controllers and guess what ? lol it's doing the exact same thing so it can't be the controller in my case surely ? Typical Saturday scenario where no one answers phones lol GAVITA

The above problem was me being a Div , the master controllers internal battery failed and is not a serviceable part �� ... got a new one under warranty �� and obviously you need to set the ballast wattage on the controller ..
 
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F

Fatty Pneumonia

New member
I had an EL1 with the same issues where it would reset to 400 watts,
incorrect time, ect. after a power disruption. I dealt directly with Gavita and they are aware of the issue. Exchanging the defective one was very easy. All I had to do was e-mail them the serial # of the
bad one and they got a replacement in the mail ASAP with a pre-paid
mailer to ship back the defective unit.
Interesting to note that the new one was physically different than
my original one, being both shorter in length and height, but a bit
thicker. I did notice that the clock on the new unit also loses about 10-12 seconds per 24 hrs.
 
P

prune

Active member
Veteran
What a piece of crap. What good is great service if all they do is keep shipping the same defective product day in and day out. Two weeks in on a replacement and the the first brownout reset to 400watts again. what programming whiz designed this crap, Gavita?
 
H

hvac guy

Active member
Frank has it right, a PLC can do the exact same thing, the controller uses pulses of DC voltage from 0 to 10VDC to control dimming and power off/on and the heat probe is just an analog sensor. A tech can build and program but it may cost more than an EL1 or EL2.
 
Lazyman

Lazyman

Overkill is under-rated.
Veteran
I found it easier to just plug the EL1 brain into a small UPS (battery backup) along with the wifi repeater and any other mission-critical timers
 
H

hvac guy

Active member
Shouldn't have to use a UPS, if Gavita could get the factory to use a decent battery, then no issues, just like Honeywell purchased AUBE, and fucked up a very reliable digital timer.
 
repuk

repuk

Altruistic Hazeist
Veteran
hvac guy said:
Frank has it right, a PLC can do the exact same thing, the controller uses pulses of DC voltage from 0 to 10VDC to control dimming and power off/on and the heat probe is just an analog sensor. A tech can build and program but it may cost more than an EL1 or EL2.
Click to expand...

Same could be done much cheaper, with a raspberry pi and modules, by using the superb opensource project mycodo

Back to the EL1/EL2 looks like the battery drains on itself... looks like a flaw in the design or assembly.
 
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