New osmolator... YES!!!

[slanky]

Ok, so I FINALLY managed to get my osmolator in from Marine Depot

I set it up for the first time last night and it appeared to be working. It filled to the sensor and the osmolator blinked to the green "level" setting. I went to watch some TV and about an hour later I hear a buzzing sound. The osmolator had been pumping for awhile and dumped about 4 gallons of makeup water into my sump and it had run the fill container nearly dry.

Roger, I read something you mentioned in another thread about new sensors possibly not being broken in when you first get them. I'm guessing this might be my problem. I simply figured it was working and headed off to watch tv. But somehow I guess the water level went past the sensor and then it figured there was no water in front of it anymore, so it started pumping. I had my safety cutoff a bit too high up, so when I heard the pump buzzing in the empty container, the water level was approaching the cutoff switch.

Do you think rinsing the sensor under hot water will help? I'm going to give it a shot tonight and run it again and see how it goes. Hopefully it doesn't dump a ton more water into my sump Luckily for me, my sump was rather low anyway, so dumping 4 gal. in wasn't a huge deal.

Just curious if there's any other "new sensor" tips other than rinsing it in hot water..... Thanks!

 

[rvitko]

Just the hot water and you can use soapy water too, just rinse it well and wipe it dry. It's just like a new skimmer, plastic repels water when new so the air forms a film over it and the sensor can't detect the water. I asked them to add this to the instructions and it should be in a future revision. We got new injection molding machines and the quality of parts they make is much higher and they are so smooth now that this has become an issue. Add to this that the brain is now a real computer with a CPU and surface mount technology, they used to be hand made circuit boards. These add up to make it very acurate but it means even the little film of air doesn't let it register water contact.

 

[slanky]

Ahh, very interesting.... I will give that a shot tonight. It kind of freaked me out last night, but figured it might be me doing something dumb or the newness of it

Thanks a bunch, Roger... You answer all these questions so fast! It's amazing :thumbsup:

 

[slanky]

Hey Roger,

I tried the warm/hot water thing with the sensor....and now when I plug it back in, the osmolator controller just reports 'level' no matter where the sensor is. It could be 3" away from the surface of the water, it could be touching the water, it could be submersed in the water, and it just says 'level'.

I tried rinsing it again with the same results. Am I doing something wrong? I never thought installing a new osmolator would be this frustrating

 

[rvitko]

If you dry it off and just test it away from the tank does it do the same thing?

 

[slanky]

Yep, if I dry it off and keep it out of my sump completely and plug the power back into the control unit, the control unit just turns on the green "level" LED and stays there.

 

[slanky]

Guys,

For those that don't know, Roger rocks! I got my replacement osmolator control unit from Roger today and everything is peachy so far. I haven't managed to dump another 5 gal. of RO water in my sump yet, so that's a good sign!!

Absolutely fantastic customer service from Roger and Tunze USA. I'll never hesitate to buy a Tunze product with customer service like this. Now if I only had a 210 to plop a couple streams in I'll have to convince the wife on that one

Once again, a big thank you to Roger for solving my problem so quickly.