Ongoing Wavebox pump failures

[Steve Atkins]

A couple of years ago I purchased a pair of wave boxes for my tank and they have proved to be a great product as long as they have been working.

The problem is that I have just put the 4th pump on one of them a week ago and the 3rd pump on the other failed 2 days later. The latest pump to fail was one of the newer ones with an internal controller. If you take out the two pumps from that run which had the wrong plastic used and developed internal distortion (which were the 2nd pump for each wave box), this still leaves each wave box chewing through 3 pumps in about two years.

On the other hand, I have two 6100 pumps which have performed flawlessly for a lot longer (at least till I damaged the cord on one of them) with a lot less maintenance. The wave box pumps get cleaned every time I do a water change, which is about monthly, and the 6100 get cleaned a couple of times a year.

My local agent (New Zealand) has been very good about this and has replaced each failed wave box pump but it must be eating into his margins as much as it is eating into my composure.

I have not searched at huge depth but my limited searching has not found a comparable story of sequential failure so I am wondering if there may be something about the length of my tank, 2.4m, that is causing additional stress on the pumps due to the wave frequency.

Any thoughts?

Steve

 

[Aquadepot]

The very early wavebox pumps had some of these repeated problems, we have had none of the new generation fail in Australia.
The size of the aquarium and wave would not have any effect on the product.
Tunze Germany take good care of warranty and support the dealer distributorship world wide.
Do not be concerned with support Alois will be happy to resolve any further issues.

 

[Steve Atkins]

Alois has been very supportive but I suspect he is beginning to dread hearing the sound of my voice on the phone. Time was when it would just be a social call but for the last couple of years 1/2 of calls have been to report pump problems. Being Xmas I have spared him the latest news for now.

I had hoped the new pumps would be more robust than the earlier ones seemed to be and the last one to fail (new style) had been going well for quite a while (so it appeared the new design might have nailed it).

Steve

 

[Aquadepot]

PM sent

 

[aquaticac]

I have a similiar problem with just one customer tank, and ongoing stream pump problems in his tank.

When I see his phone number my hands also starting shakeing.

Bu we always have great support from ROger and Tunze Europe, and I hope Roger will help solve finaly this problems....

 

[rvitko]

These problems have been solved with revised electronics since February of 2008. The pumps made in about May 2007 had the plastics issue, this was a very brief issue as we adapted to new VDE safety requirements that required a new plastic that was a better insulator and our first plastic that was suggested did not work well with our molding equipment but we changed the equipment and plastic and that was solved. The more recent problem had to do with micro connectors in the pump disconnecting over time from heat and expansion and making no or intermittent contact, this was solved by better isolating and securing the internal driver and switching to soldered connections in February of 2008.

 

[Steve Atkins]

That sounds hopeful.

I had noticed that cleaning the pumps frequently, rather than waiting for the alarm to sound, has seemed to prolong their life since I had the first run of failures. I started doing this after noticing how hot they were inside when cleaning only after the alarm had sounded and theorising heat may be their achilles heal. The continuous on/off nature of wave box pump duty must be the hardest work they do so any thermal stress issues would be at their worst then.

Is there any way to tell if the one that has just failed, which was the only one to fail that was also one with an internal driver, was built before or after the wiring changes you mentioned above?

I have noticed that the one which arrived just before this most recent failure had a lot lager power supply then the one that failed but did not actually check if they had any differences in the model number, which I assume was changed when the wiring was changed to identify the newer more robust ones.

Steve

 

[Steve Atkins]

I have just checked when I actually got them and it has been a little longer than I thought, since January 2007. The most recent one to have a failure is however about to get its 5th pump and will have averaged about 220 days per pump by the time it gets it. The other one is doing a lot better, at over 270 days per pump.

This does include two with the faulty plastic so I guess a bit of bad luck has also been at play.

Steve

 

[rvitko]

The power supply was a separate issue, new EU regs require that appliances no longer waste power while "off", the old power supply pulled a few watts while off and the new one pulls a fraction of a watt. There really is no absolute way to tell, and even in between several small changes were made as we worked on the problem, in general 218 and later pumps will have the soldered board and pumps from 147 and later will have a silicon sealed board, the silicon was added to reinforce the attachments from coming loose.