Quote:
Originally posted by Geoff
i have a Quiet One pump. one of the blue ones that keeps overheating after about an hour or so.
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I am soooo sorry... not good.
Quote:
Originally posted by Geoff
could i put it on a rheostat to lower the voltage? would this keep it from overheating?
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You could put a rheostat on the motor, but all this will do is slow the pump speed down, making it work even harder to get the flow to thepoint where the water column back pressure is over come to begin pushing fluid. Ultimately you're accellerating the pump failure by doing this. If it has thermal protection, it will shut down. The problem with the overheating is a basic design flaw in the windings for this pump when presented with the load of the viscosity of SW. Might be ok or marginal with FW, prolly better to pass this pump for sw as it currently is designed . Larger pipes will help, but BTT you do what is needed to upgrade your system, clean the impeller, disassemble the motor and clean, lubricate, replace the brushes, reassemble; you would be better off just replacing the pump.
Quote:
Originally posted by Geoff
is this a good idea? what kind of rheostat would i use?
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designs for speed control vary from unit to unit, and usually involve a different means of control rather than directly reducing the power supply at the source for pump motors (lthough that is the basic concept...). Now would be a good time to look at one of the Sequence or Iwaki
external pumps. Get one and have a backup (I unfrtunately just bought several backup pumps, this can get really expensive if you have several different brands/sizes, better to use the same throughout your system for main pumps and keep one backup pump in reserve. Although this is expensive, think about what it will cost to replace just one specimen, much less an entire microcosm, compared to the $'s for one pump as a backup...
hth
