Roger, need your help with my Osmolator

[benf]

Last night i hooked up the Osmolator and Kalk dispensor, but need to verify a couple things.

One, the inlet for the kalk is on the bottom which is fed from the pump and the outlet is on the top which goes to the tank, correct?

Two, the little check valve, i have the ball end toward the pump, thinking that as water enters the valve it compresses the spring...they should have had a bigger pic in the manual for it.

Three, does it matter which way you hook up the 2 wires for the pump?

Reason for these questions, after doing those procedures, do not see any flow back into the tank.

thanks
Ben

 

[rvitko]

One- Yes.
Two- Yes.
Three- No.

You may need to prime the pump, tip it up to let the air out. It also takes quite a while to fill the dispenser.

 

[benf]

thanks Roger, will ck it out when i get home...

 

[benf]

Roger, even though my low light is on i still dont get anything out of the pump...i removed the ck valve so i can see if the pump itself will do anything, but it did not.

question...the low light is flashing slowly, will it pump at that point or does it need to be on solid? and thats the problem?

 

[rvitko]

It has to be on solid for a few seconds, the green light needs to be on as well. There is a time delay of a few seconds built in to the cirucitry to accomodate for splashes.

 

[benf]

ok, i unpluged it and pluged it in again and add water to the sump so there was contact again with the low sensor. Now the red light doesnt light, the level light comes on and the pump on light comes on for a short time and goes out. Is normal operation for the pump to only give a little squirt and then turn off? Doesnt seem to be enough pressure to make it up to the aquarium if it just squirts and turns off.

 

[benf]

sorry, need to bump...need help getting this going

 

[jmait769]

Now the red light doesnt light, the level light comes on and the pump on light comes on for a short time and goes out.

Do you have the optical sensor and the float switch for overflow protection setup like the picture (on the right side) shown below? You should not get a red light unless the water level has risen above the optical sensor and activated the safety float. The pump will not come on with the red light illuminated.

My water level sits just at the tip of the optical sensor like the picture below.

Once the water level falls below that, the pump kicks on and brings it back up to the tip of the optical sensor. It runs for about 30 seconds and pumps in about ½ - 1 cup of water. Maybe you could post a picture or diagram of how you have yours setup? That would help.

Jay

 

[rvitko]

The red light should only light if a problem exists. It will normally add only very small quantities of water at a time. Make sure the sensor is in correctly and not covered in micro bubbles. Frequent problems I see are people installing the sensor in sucha way that it is pressed against a solid surface and a film of water is caught between the surface and the sensor. When new microbubbles cling to the fresh plastic. Rinsing in hot water lessens this tendency.

 

[benf]

mine looks like this

 

[benf]

Roger, the water that came out of the pump was about a 2 second burst and i find it difficult to believe that little burst will have enough pressure to go into my kalk dispenser and travel verically ~2.5ft to the tank.

 

[rvitko]

But was water required to top up the tank? If the sensor is touching the water it is not going to call for more water. When the optic sensor does not touch water for a few seconds it will run until it has been in contact with water for a few seconds. What you describe sounds like the initial turn on, the system runs a couple seconds usually when you first plug it in.

 

[benf]

the tank did need water... yesterday i wanted to test it again after our 1st conversation so i drained some water from the tank hoping the pump would turn on.

you are saying that little pump should push enough water thru the kalk dispenser up to the tank, right?

 

[rvitko]

Yeah, it is capable of 9ft of head pressure, even giving the Calcium Reactor a generous equivalence to 2ft of head pressure it should still work. At this point we need to figure out if the issue is the sensor (i.e. is the controller showing that the pump should be on when it should be on) or is it the pump/check valve. Is the pump on and simply not pushing water up? I would double check that water is not dribbling over the sensor. I had this problem in my last set up, the water trickled over the baffle and onto the sensor, it ran down the rail and constantly tricked the sensor into thinking it was in water. The easiest way to test this is take the optic sensor out and just dip it in a bowl of water and pull it out to check if it works. If the controller and pump operates correctly in this way check the sensor mount. If the pump does not work, check the contact in the connector, I have seen the contacts touch the insulation and not the wires.

 

[benf]

OK, when i get home today i will 1st double ck the wires, and then will ck the sensor as u describe. From what i can tell, the pump doesnt even fill the kalk dispenser.

 

[rvitko]

You may need to relieve the pressure in the kalk dispenser on start by running it with the cylinder open. That is a lot of air for the pump to have to work out. I remember I had to restart mine 2 times as it took a long time to fill the container and purge all the air out the first time through. The Osmolator can only run 10 minutes as a safety and it shuts itself down after that.

 

[macawdad2003]

I had the same confusion setting up my Osmo/Kalk dispenser. Turning the pump upside down to prime solved the problem.

Matt

 

[benf]

thanks for the info....wish i was home to try it right now! will post results ...thanks again!

 

[rvitko]

What Matt said is correct, the pump often needs to be primed like this if it has been dry. Having the lid off of the calcium dispenser helps as well.

 

[benf]

Ok Roger, tried what you both said and it now works, but still have a question if this is normal or not....is the water flowing into the valve supposed to act like a sledge hammer or should it be smooth with the spring compressed? Mine keeps pulsating, is the valve bad?