Self cleaning head on skimmer
- Thread starter scuzy
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roostertech
New member
Or would it go up into collection cup after getting dislodged?
slief
RC Sponsor
Some self cleaning heads have their blades vertical which smears some of the scum which ends up with some in the bottom of the skimmer. Others like the Aquadrivers have the blade at an angle which pulls the scum up to the top of the neck. That said, as Simon mentioned, the idea is to use them frequently enough to prevent stuff from building up on the inside of the neck. I've been using them for the last 7 years and absolutely love mine. I run mine once a day for 15 seconds and my neck is always clean but mine also has a high speed motor and an internal sprayer that sprays the inside of the neck and lid when the wiper roatates so it does a wet wiping when the neck and lid are being cleaned. My collection cup only gets removed every several months. I even have a built in washdown on mine which allows me to rinse my collection cup on an as needed basis. That washdown ring which you can see in the picture below is connected to a hose spigot and there is a solenoid between the spigot and the neck cleaner than allows me to spray the inside of the cup down with fresh water without ever having to remove the cup.
slief
RC Sponsor
The wiper gets a bit caked but unlike the Avast and Vectra, once a day is all it takes to keep my neck perfectly clean. The wiper on this neck cleaner spins at about 10x the speed of the Swabbie and Vectra. Inside the dome, there are rollers that role over the tubing similar to how a peristaltic pump work.BAs the motor rotates, water is drawn up through the silicone hose from inside the skimmer body and sprayed out through a nozzle on the wiper arm to keep the neck and lid wet as the wiper rotates. The sprayer for the inside of the neck helps a lot. The underside of this SCH is also connical which improves skimmer peformance by pushing the foam out towards the top of the neck. The other nice thing about the Helix is that it's only add about 1" more to the height of a skimmer so if space is tight below the tank, these low profile SCH's will usually fit right in.
These pictures were taken before I swapped the original Aquadriver for the new Helix.
You can see the lid wiper in this picture. It keeps the lid and the acrylic ring on the lid clean too which is nice. My first generation Aquadriver served me very well for nearly 7 years until I upgrade to the latest one. In fact, that one never failed me and is still in perfect working condition.
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slief
RC Sponsor
No. It's an AquaDriver Skimclean Helix. It's made in Germany (distributed in the US) and is what RE offers when customers want an SCH. While it's not made by RE, the quality, construction and dare I say price would have you believe otherwise. They aren't cheap but these aren't anything like the other neck cleaners as you can probably tell from the pictures. The lid and other parts on these are CNC machined out of PVC and matches the BK's perfectly which was a bonus for me. My original Aquadriver was all red which looked pretty nice too but the Helix raises the bar as the original one was a couple inches taller and didn't have the wiper for the lid.
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slief
RC Sponsor
The Mini 200 has a 200mm cup so you would need the Helix 200.
slief
RC Sponsor
Hi Scott so the add-on wash rinse I'll have to pipe a pump to spray the cup? Mine came in and ready to install tonight. Would a apex pmup work for the sprayer?
Very nice!! I have my washdown connected to a hose spigot in a closet next to my tank and use the tap water pressure instead of a pump. . You will want to use fresh water for it. I am sure you could use the Apex PMUP to feed the washdown. While it may not provide great pressure, all you are really doing is rinsing the cup anyway so adding fresh water and draining will do the trick. You would want a 1/4" john guest style connection on what ever source you use whether it's a valve from a spigot or connection under a sink or a pump.. In my case, I have a 110v solenoid valve connected to the spigot so I can activate it via my controller. You also only want to use the washdown on an as needed basis. Don't run it automatically because you would need to have the skimmers cup connected to some sort of permanent drain and if your skimmer ever overflowed, it would keep draining the water from the tank.
slief
RC Sponsor
Just make sure you use fresh water as the salt and calcium in salt water would likely clog the nozzle holes in the washdown ring. Too bad you don't have a sink nearby. A T fitting under the sink on the cold water line would work great and 1/4" tuning is easy to route. Either way, PMUP should be just fine.
scuzy
Active member
Self cleaning head on skimmer
Going need to figure out how to get fresh water to it. Hmm might need to run another ro tubing through the ato hole in the wall and pump from my reservoir.
How's long do you need to run the flush? A few seconds?
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Going need to figure out how to get fresh water to it. Hmm might need to run another ro tubing through the ato hole in the wall and pump from my reservoir.
How's long do you need to run the flush? A few seconds?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
slief
RC Sponsor
That's up to you and also dependent on the flow of water. I usually fill the cup which takes a good minute or so on my SM250 with my 50PSI tap pressure. Then I open my drain valve on my collection cup and wobble the skimmer back and forth to suspend anything that may have settled on the bottom of the cup. I only use my washdown ever few months though and don't worry much about a dirty cup. Everytime I drain skimmate, I wobble the skimmer to help suspend the gunk even when I don't run the washdown.
