MP-40W impressions

[Musiker]

Hi
I bought two Vortech MP40-W for my new tank and wanted to share my experiences sofar (running 14 days)

The good stuff:
1. The FLOW - These things have an absolutly amazing flow. So powerfull yet so gentle..

2. The software is very well thought out (small improvements needed imo). Things like Disconnect detect, sync/antisync are sweet

3. Ease of use. So easy to setup

4. I like the design a lot.

Small things:
1. Programmable Night mode speed

2. I am having trouble seeing if my slave reacts correctly in Lagoon mode.. An indication on the LEDs when receiving a RF message would be helpfull.

3. Would be nice with a PC controlled master driver - I have a small EEEbox running linux attached to my aquarium. Would love to be able to use that as a controller.. Release RF protocol maybe, hehe!


The not so good stuff - Really only the noise!:
1. Makes more noise than I had hoped for - Would gladly pay a premium for more silent ones!

2. Night mode is too noisy - For some reason the 40% constant makes more noise than the Lagoon mode (which byfar seems to be the most silent running one)

3. Running pumps at 100% I can not imagine anyone with the tank in their living room being satisfied with noise level at 100%??

BR
Henrik

An image of my tank (8 days after I moved stuff from my 250L)

 

[JasonD]

Have you tried turning/tunning the wet side by hand while it is in 100% mode? This helped me quite a bit but it still isn't totally silent by any means but I like them none the less. My wife doesn't complain about the noise which is who I consider the 'man on the street' test if you will.

Jason

 

[Musiker]

LOL - Yeah, what others thinks is the best test.
Actually after I wrote the above I went home and decided to give them another close look..
One of them (the most noisy one) felt warmer than the other, which I did not expect. As I felt that I had them perfectly aligned..

Well I disconnected it and removed the spacer and behold. A small bit of leftover glue or something on the rotating plate. I removed it an assembled it again.. I think it helped lowering the noise..
Another observation, I made yesterday was that the slave did not enter feed mode when I pressed the Master, which caused food to be blown all over. The pumps are placed around 1meter (3feet) apart within line of sight.
Mhh I tried to hit the mode button on the slave but it dit not react (Did not switch from antisync to sync)..
The resolution was to disconnect the power and start the pump again..
So it seems that somehow the pump driver software had entered a deadlock! Which also could explain why I had trouble seeing any changes in the speed on the slave!

The software is not as stable as I expect from an embedded device (I have spent the last 11 years developing software for embedded devices and deadlocks is what I consider production stop reason)
If the slave indicated when it changed speed or mode I would have noticed the deadlock earlier..