Tunze ato 3152 question

[hersheyb]

I purchase the ato for about 6 months now and it has been working flawlessly until yesterday night. A small snail crawled up float switch n turned on the pump n started pumping water into my tank. The pump continued to pump water till it emptied my reservoir and it kept running.

I have tested the ato unit, plug on and off but the pump still continues to run after the safety auto shut off time.

Is the unit broken? Suggestions? I don't want the tank to overflow again.

Thanks.

 

[Coelli]

Contact Tunze - they have really excellent customer support.

 

[rvitko]

By any chance are you pumping down hill? The only way I can imagine this happening is a siphon as even if the float failed, the timer should shut it down without fail. If a siphon is present, none of these safeties will work, if your reservoir water level(point B) is above the terminus of the hose (point A) a siphon is the issue, see siphon situation 3.

 

[hersheyb]

There s no siphon, I should be more clear, the pump runs until the water reaches the float switch. The problem is that the safety timer is not working at all. I have tested this outside of the tank. The pump will continue to run even if the resevoir is empty, the pump will only stop if the water reaches the float switch. The safety is not working at all. Anything Im missing, cuz it was working fine when I first got it.

 

[rvitko]

On a 3152, the safety timer will shut it off after 1.8 or 3 minutes assuming the float is not raised in this time. There is nothing to stop the pump from running dry and it is not harmed by briefly running dry (until the timer would shut it off). To check the timer you would need to pin the float down and see if the pump can run more than the set time which is 1.8 out of the box, 3 minutes is an optional setting. Everytime the float is raised, this timer gets reset unless it has completely timed out. I have never seen one where the timer did not work, but if that is so, we would replace it, just be sure their is actually an issue by running a test so we rule out a misunderstanding of how it should work, nothing protects the pump from running dry and the timer only applies to continuous runs where the float has failed to switch it off.

 

[hersheyb]

Thanks for the info, I will do another test to make sure. will let you know.