Sick and Tired of Waveline pumps
 

Ok, so long story short I've gone through 3 controllers on my Waveline 12000's. 1st gen controllers were awesome! But they burned out their poorly designed cooler fans, thus in turn burn't out the controllers.
2nd Gen controllers = very poor pump performance (at least on high head applications)
3rd Gen - no change from 2nd gen (at least the ones I got)

I have to say, there is a definite, audible difference in RPM from my 1st Gen to the other two, so it seems like it allows the impeller to ramp up further.

Now I hear there is another gen that is Apex ready.

My question (because it appears RLSS customer service doesn't like it when you keep asking them why their products suck):
Does anyone know if these pumps are PWM controlled or how to test if they are?

How can I mod something to drive these pumps?

Yup! Feel your pain. I scrapped both my 10,000's and went back to the tried and true mag drives.

The DC's are great pumps for a while, but unless you fork out huge cash for the big name brands, they will just end up in the garbage.

What happens when the controller dies? It doesn't have variable speed or it doesn't work at all?

Waveline
 

Myka, when the controller dies, everything dies :(
Fishy,Fishy: I was under the impression (when they first came out) that Waveline were the top of the line. These are definitely NOT Jabeo pumps.

Codfather:You are my hero! Has it been working well? Mind if I pick your brain a bit? My boards are way different than yours, but I don't mind poking about a bit to figure out what's going inside. Unfortunately my boards are also not as nicely identifying what wires are doing what. Here's a pic of the latest gen board:

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psi3ilgzq8.jpg

The wires in the top left are what's coming from the AC/DC Meanwell power supply. The black, White and green wires are headed to the pump. I tried metering them out with my voltmeter but the readings were haywire, constantly moving all over the place. Any idea's?

This is the power supply they're using:
http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3xasxugs.jpg

Well that's lame. I didn't read all that other thread. Wouldn't there be a fairly easy way to just go around the controller and use it as an on/off pump? Or, could you buy a controller from a different pump (they have replacements I think for other brands, don't they?) and integrate it?

Everyone thought the Waveline pumps were top of the line until the big players released DC pumps that were in the $500+ range and we realized that the Waveline is a cheaper model (and performs as such). Not as cheap as the Jebao, but it may as well be with all the failures.

Ya, what's weird is with the 1st generation controller I got with the pump, I was probably pushing over 1000 gph. According to the factory charts I should be able to push over 1300 gph at 12' of head, so I figured it was probably close.
A friend had their's running far earlier than mine, but it fried the controller because of poor cooling design. RLSS sent us all new controllers even though I hadn't even run mine yet. My friend ultimately shut their tank down and got out of having a tank because of the damage everything caused - but that's a whole other story....
So I finally have mine up and running and since I still had old controllers, I decided to run them side by side with the new controller to see the difference when I filled up my 210. I'm running 2 separate returns that run side by side so the comparison should be spot on. Well the new controller I bet doesn't put any more than a few hundred gph. It totally sucks compared to the old controller.

I would TOTALLY be open to running it wide open with no control. With the head pressure I'm running at I need all I can get. I just need to figure out how to make that happen without burning up the pump :)

I was talking for like red dragon, abyss, ecotec etc. As far as top of the line.

I had to run a powersource similar to that one, but due to the moisture in the fish room, it too eventually died.

Only way to chase a signal such as PWM is with an oscilloscope. Costly piece of gear, although these days there are dongle options available that work with a PC. Aside from the controller, it's good to know more about the pump motor as well. Is it a brushless PMG DC motor, any additional circuitry in the motor or pump housing?

Buy an Abyzz or RD pump. Done.

The Wavelike pumps are, as far as I know, Jebao motor blocks with their own controller.

eek! The one I'd need is $1300... and I'd need 2 :eek:


That could very well be. I actually have no problems with the pumps. For some reason it's the controllers. I'm just going to find a way to run these and turf these crappy controllers. I have 3 DC12000's that have got probably less than a few months running time combined!

Why not just run a regular pump? I don't get the variable control thing if you're going to run it wide open anyway?

My biggest selling point on the DC pumps is vibration. No matter how much I isolated my Reeflo Barracuda or my Laguna pond pump, you hear it vibrate through the floor. With the DC pumps, they are DEAD silent. No vibration what-so-ever

And as hard as it is to conceive... that tiny little DC12000 (when the controller was working as it should) pushed as much water as the Reefflo Barracuda

I setup an EcoTech Vectra L1 pump on our new invert system and the amount of water it flows is so impressive. I am feeding 8 tanks and its set @ 40%!!!

If you can wait, apparently they will be available for sale in Canada in February.

What are they like with head pressure though, that's the killer for me. Probably somewhere between 12-14' of head.


EDIT: just checked it out - probably just shy of 1000 gph....

The output of this pump is 1" but I used a 1" to 1.5" bushing to convert it to 1.5" and its pumping water up a 1.5" line 6' into a manifold that T's off 9 times (8 tanks + external skimmer). Each tank has two 90 degree elbows before the water hits the tank. That is a ton of head pressure if you ask me.

Each tank has baffles so that I can separate the shrimp/crabs/snails/etc so its a flow through design. The bottleneck of my system is the 1/4" teeth in the baffles. The drains can handle more flow but the teeth can only handle so much.

Don't be a baby :)

Lol. Usually when I'm spending that kind of dough it's for my shop :)

So for those who've asked questions and/or offered to help me out with this little project here's everything I'm dealing with:

1st Gen controller:

Front

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psomrrxese.jpg

Back:

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psdpvuxfyk.jpg

Guts/Innards

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psgfzcydkm.jpg

2nd Gen controller:

Front

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psgnm7e0tw.jpg

back

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psucyjauq9.jpg

Guts/Innards

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psi3ilgzq8.jpg

Pump. Connector from controller has 3 pins

front

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psytlo38me.jpg

back

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5hyymilu.jpg

sorry, no gut shots of the pump. I can get at the impeller but thats it. Pretty sure it'll all be encased in epoxy inside anyway...

You already have the MW power supply rated at 24 VDC, 8.8 amps. That's roughly 211 watts. The photo you posted of the pump specs shows a max of 170 watts. Have you tried hooking the power supply directly to the pump? Should work if you wish to run it at full speed. Just need to confirm polarity of the leads. The 3rd wire is no doubt feedback to the controller & not needed if running at full bore without control circuitry.

If you're handy with a soldering iron & really liked the way the 1st gen controller worked, try replacing the electrolytic capacitors on the board, the firecracker cans. Quite often these fail & render the rest of the electronics useless. Sometimes you can see the failure in the form of bulging at the top of the can. Many an expensive electronic component has been trashed due to failure of a few cheap capacitors in the power supply. They're only a few $$s each & worth a try to see if it will resurrect the original controller.

Hey Mike, is there a way to figure out what the polarity is without damaging either the pump or power supply? Can I just plug 2 wires coming from the power supply to the different combinations possible and see which 2 work? Are the only 3 things that will happen be 1) the pump run backwards if the polarity is crossed, 2) not run at all or 3) run properly?

Or can I smoke something by just trial and error?

You can't run a dc pump directly off a regular power supply. The controller actually switches the coils in the pump on and off very rapidly in a pattern to get the magnet in the middle to spin. Without the controller the motor will make about half a revolution and stop. It is more like an a/c motor in that respect.

I wouldn't recommend a trial & error method of determining polarity for a motor. Not likely that anything bad would happen with 24 volts, but not worth the chance really. Try to determine polarity with your multimeter. As mentioned earlier, if the signal from the controller is some sort of pwm or pulse, an oscilloscope is the best way to detect that, but the multimeter should react by jumping off zero. If you have an old analog multimeter, you may be able to see the needle move. It will either jump in a positive direction or try to hit the stop at the left of the meter display.

I asked in an earlier post if you could determine whether the motor is a PMG (permanent magnet) DC motor. If it is, it should run on straight DC voltage no problem, this is how all the little 12vdc cooling fan motors work. The coil circuitry design of a PMG DC motor is such that the voltage is switched internally to keep the rotor moving. However, on a low cost product such as the Wavelines, it will be next to impossible to find out more details on the design. Even more established companies producing higher cost hardware are unlikely to be very free with their design information. Best of luck with this endeavour!

Please contact us
 

Please do not wire the power supply to the pump directly!

Send us your serial number and we will warranty the pump.
email: daniel@rlss.ca




THE WAVELINE PUMP CANNOT BE WIRED DIRECTLY TO A POWER SUPPLY AND BY PASS THE CONTROLLER. THE DRIVER IS IN THE CONTROLLER AND YOU CANNOT BY PASS THE DRIVER. IN ADDITION THE CONTROLLING SOFTWARE IS IN THE CONTROLLER, WITHOUT THE CONTROLLING SOFTWARE NOTHING WILL WORK.

Will you warranty pumps that are two years old like this?

I was considering a Waveline DC pump for my cube.

Suggestions on an alternate brand? Reef Octopus?

Waveline warranties
 

RLSS and Waveline have a 1 year warranty. We do stock all parts to repair your waveline pumps.

I truly sympathize with the original poster.

My story:
Back in 2013 I tried the DC3000 on my 40g cube and loved it so much I switched almost all of my pumps over to Waveline DC. Well, so much for being an 'early adopter'.

2xDC3000 shot just out of warranty.
2xDC5000 shot (one on my RLSS 8i Skimmer and one on my return) again, just out of warranty. Both of these were running only at no greater than 50% power and were cleaned every 2-3 of months. That's why I had 2 for each application. It made the maintenance schedule that much easier.
They started to shut down one by one. Impellers spin for a few seconds but won't stay running. Controllers are fine. It's the same for all of them.

I tried to contact Nick at Reef Supply Canada but he shut down his business. So then I emailed RLSS; about a year ago now. Never a response.
I gave RLSS another chance and sent an email 10 days ago with a follow up 3 days later...again, not-a-word-back!

I have no idea if I just need new impellers, other parts or if I'm just SOL.
With that kind of support (none!) who would be willing to throw more money at a brand with such poor reliability? I was seriously thinking of trying the newest generation with the problems (supposedly) addressed but I'd sure feel foolish if history repeated itself.

Every day I stare at my expensive skimmer just sitting in the corner of the fish room. It's a harsh reminder. Hopefully when my 3D printer arrives I can make a part to adapt a more reliable pump into the skimmer.

Sigh

Yup. I have many emails into them as well. Mine were both a long time ago, and recently just to see if they would sell me new controllers and power supplies. Seems like business is just too busy over there ;-)

Thanks for the valuable information. I'll stick with the regular mainstream pumps for now.

Perhaps Waveline will reply to both your emails since he's clearly stated spare parts are available.

Ill buy those off you if you have given up on them :)

I have a project on the horizon that involves DUAL high current BLDC controller with integrated I2C control :)

I understand the need of these manufacturers to "compact" these units to make it easier to hide, however my issue is with lack of cooling which in the end reduces overall life of the unit. My idea always been over engineer it and make sure that the unit can drive 5 to 10 times its normal workload.

Would you not pay more money to know your never have to upgrade another controller ??

Lol, I haven't given up on the pump yet. I love the pumps. I love the original controller. But poor cooling, fan and bearing designs on the controller resulted in burnt out controllers.
I really want to know what the heck the difference is in the gen1 controllers and any of the next gens. I still have a brand new controller (gen1) and it easily pushes probably 1000 gph at 12' of head. Switch to the other controller...less than 2-300 gph. It's completely gutless. I've had one of the guys from Waveline tell me maybe the magnet has de-magnetized, they sent me new impellers.
For some reason no one over there believes me that it is 100% the controller.

My plan is to use an integrated H bridge from ST.
It's the only simple alternative that supports 30A continuous duty at 600V for a sensor less BLDC application. The motor might be rated at 170W and 24V... with a bit of quick math 170/24=7.03A is actual draw.

Now to actually further get into engineering we still don't know whatever its a Wye or Delta configuration of the windings inside the motor.

Well, it was a nice thought.
A week since my post. Several weeks since my email.
Over a year since my initial request for assistance.
Still-not-one-peep.

I think we have pretty well established what to expect from the service side.

Sick and Tired of Waveline pumps
 

I was expecting WAVELINE daniel@rlss.ca to reply publicly on the forum or privately with daplatapus.

I was under the impression Daniel trolls the forums to help build the image of the company and not the opposite!

Perhaps the lack of response will have a negative impact on sales. I did consider a Waveline to replace my Ehiem. I'll definitely replace my return pump with another Ehiem.

Life's just too short to get frustrated with the lack of or simply NO support from Waveline.

Yup. Terribly unreliable product. Terrible customer service and zero support. Hopefully they go belly up.

How sad is it that we get better customer service from their Chinese competitors accross the world! Fish street will get back to you asap and usually send you out replacement parts for the cost of shipping. Buy a Canadian pump on our own soil, and even if I wanted to, I cant even get a replacement part from them.

Terribly sad.