Motor turning slowly

[maitai123]

Hi,

I have 2 Vortec pumps which I purchased approx. 6 weeks ago. One of them seems very hot and turns very slowly, nowhere near the speed it used to turn before.

There is nothing touching the magnets (nor the external spacer) and the wetside spins smoothly with the push of my finger.

Could this be a power supply problem?

I love these pumps, but a problem after only 8 weeks?

Please help and thank you.

 

[EcoTech Marine]

Unfortunately sometimes problems can happen, but we're here to fix them for you in that unfortunate event.

Since you have two pumps the first thing to do is swap the parts between the two and isolate which component is giving you problems. After this please email us at service@ecotechmarine.com and we'll take the steps to get you running right.

-Tim

 

[maitai123]

Hi Tim,

Ok, this is what I did today after receiving your recommendation:-

1. I turned off the Master MP40w, and swapped out the power supply (from the slave pump)

2. I turned on the Master, and voila! The pump started to spin much much faster. It seemed to me, that I had a faulty power supply.

3. BTW I left the Master pump running on the Slave's power supply, and connected the Slave up to the Master's power supply. To my surprise, the Slave switched on a worked perfectly!
I was once again baffled.

4. I let the pumps run for 4 hours, and the Slave ran perfectly "cool" with the suspect power supply. The Master however, while it was spinning much faster on the Slave's power supply, it was very hot, even though I am positive the alignment between the wet and dry unit is perfect (ie. no wobbling, strange sounds, friction etc).

5. Even though I was sure the spacer on the dry end was not rubbing, I then decided to take off the Spacer completely as my glass is quick thick (ie 1/2 inch) to rule out the heat being caused by the Spacer. I will now let it run for 4 hours to see if the heat goes away.

6. If the pump cools down, then it looks like the spacer was the culprit after all.

My question is: Can I run the Master, without the Spacer, permanently, and will this cause any long term damage that I need to be aware of?

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to give you as much info as possible regarding my pump problem.