Bad Cables?

[JWan]

I have two Tunze Stream 6000s seem to run fine off the multicontroller, but shortly after I plug them into the controller, one of them starts beeping like crazy.

If the pump itself was bad, I would assume that it would beep even when not plugged into the multicontroller.

Just to be safe, I opened both and cleaned the impellers. There was no visible buildup of any kind on either powerhead.

Is there an easy way to test if one of my cables or the controller is bad?

 

[rvitko]

The most likely culprit is the upper bearing is stuck to the magnet. When this is the case the pump cannot run when the controller slows its speed and the pump starts to beep. Please check this, see the thread on cleaning at the top of the forum or check your manual, part 3000.610 and 3000.630 are stuck together most likely, they should spin smoothly on each other.

 

[JWan]

Apologies for being unclear. When I said I cleaned both impellers, I meant that I had disassembled both powerheads, following the directions on the stickied forum post. The upper bearing on both impeller assemblies had a very minor amount of "crud" that was built up, but it was not just some brownish/greenish crud (ie not calcification) that easily rinsed off with no scrubbing necessary. Neither bearing showed any signs of binding and would spin for a revolution or two before stopping. For my own sanity (STOP THE BEEPING!), I disconnected both powerheads from the controller and they both seem to run fine at full blast when disconnected from the controller. I'll try testing them by plugging them into the multicontroller one at a time. I did notice that wehn I plugged one powerhead into port 1 and 1 powerhead into port 3 or port 4, the light for port3 or 4 did not turn on. I could have sworn that it used to.

I recently purchased a pair of 6055s. I plugged the nano into port 1 of my multicontroller and it worked fine.

To provide some background, I have no corals, do not dose kalkwasser, calcium, CO2 or anything else. The multicontroller that I'm using is a 7094.

 

[rvitko]

It could be the 7094 is dying or that a cable or socket is corroded. I can't say that I have seen this before, I have seen a 7094 have a dead channel. If the sockets on the driver or controller have any corrosion that is a likely culprit, you could bring the pumps by and we will test them out.

 

[JWan]

Hi Roger, I got really busy after I got your latest response and never got a chance to swing by as I've just lived with this problem up to now. Unfortunately, I think I need to get it serviced sooner rather than later as my 4 streams on full blast completely destroyed the soft coral frags I tried to drop into my tank.

I've also run into 2 other problems:
1) My Osmolator sporadically doesn't work properly. I don't know if it's damage to the socket where the AC adaptor plugs in but sometimes it just doesn't light up. I bought this about 6.5 years ago, so I don't expect free replacement, but I'd like for someone to look at it and let me know if it can be repaired. I purchased a Kalk Reactor last year that is now out of commission until this is fixed.

2) One of the power supplies on my Nanostream 6055's has also died. I don't think I ever got it wet or anything like that, but I'd like to get it replaced. I bought this in July of 2008, so I imagine it's out of warranty, but I didn't want to just buy a wall wart from Radio Shack until I got a better idea of the required specifications.

Can you PM me the address/hours that it would be convenient for me to come by? As I recall, your office is local to me.

 

[rvitko]

We stock the 6055 power supplies, they are $40 approx. It is a 30W 12-24V power supply, they typically call them universal computer accessory/ netbook power supplies.

Besides this power supply, neither problem has a quick solution, you would need to drop the items off and give me a couple days. As we aren't generally open to the public and I only have one employee it is best to schedule a time to come by, I frequently leave to run errands. Generally Wednesday and Thursday are the slowest days and best to come by.

Tunze USA
305 Victor St
Austin, TX 78753

512-833-7546

Austin, TX

 

[JWan]

Thanks Roger, I'll try to give you a call sometime next week before I try and swing by.

 

[JWan]

I don't really expect much in the way of customer service these days, but I was pleasantly surprised by Tunze.

I was expecting to drop off my equipment for a a couple days, but Roger took the time to fix me up on the spot. He got my osmolator working again in short order (bad float) and after spending some time verifying that my pumps were all fine, was able to determine that my muticontroller was toast (it was about 5 years old when I originally posted about problems). Both were well out of warranty.

I went ahead and replaced my faulty 7094 with a 7096 and look forward to hooking up all 4 of my power heads to the it.

Thanks again Roger and I will definitely be looking at Tunze for all of my future purchases.

 

[rvitko]

Thank you!