Polaris Turtle repairs

[emann]

My Polaris turtle stopped changing direction, so I replaced the piston, the black cylinder, and the spinning white tube/filter.

Now the turtle moves back and forth, but the randomizer ball is stuck on one outlet so the turtle only moves left.

A few questions:

1) Where does the randomizer ball go? in the section of the housing so it can bounce between the 2 rear outlets or in the front of the clear housing so it can bounce between the 2 front outlets?

2) Is the spinning white tube supposed to physically connect to the piston (the plastic that holds the filter in the spinning white tube connects into the piston tube)

3) What exactly is supposed to make the ball bounce? the spinning white tube is spinning but doesn't seem to have enough pressure(?) to dislodge the ball from the outlet it is currently blocking.

4) Should the ball bounce between the front and the back of the clear cylinder (alternately blocking a forward port or a backward port) or just stay in the front or back?

5) In the "directions" I got with the new piston, it said to locate the small hole in the piston perpendicular to the tabs on the black cylinder. Why is this? What does the hole in the piston do?

6) If I cannot get the ball to start bouncing, what do I try? Cleaning the ball, cleaning the inside of the clear cylinder? replacing the ball/cylinder? The spinning tube/piston seems to be moving correctly, but I can't figure what will get the ball to start bouncing.

Thanks in advance for any help, I feel I'm getting close to getting the tutrle working again, just need that last little fix that I'm missing.

 

[Wolfmarsh]

Sounds like youve got it right.

Here are my attempts at answers:

1 - The company says the ball should go in a particular chamber, but Ive experimented moving it around and find its best for my pool when it blocks one of the back ports.

2 - I'd have to take mine apart to look, but if i remember correctly, the answer is no.

3 - The way it works is the white tube really controls which chamber the pressure is applied to. It wont really dislodge it when it is pressurizing that chamber. Let's say you have the ball in the chamber for the back ports. When the device switches to pressurizing the front chamber, the ball is supposed to come loose from the port it was blocking, and float around in the back chamber. THen, when the white piston moves and pressurizes the back chamber, the ball is supposed to rush to one of the two ports, blocking it. Theoretically, the ball would "randomly" pick a port to be pushed to, but its been my experience, like yours, that it picks the same one, quite often.

4 - No, it will stay in whatever chamber you put it in.

5 - I would need more detail (or to take mine apart again) to see. Sounds like yours is working perfectly though

6 - This is the hard part. I've wanted to try a few things, but didn't want to risk ruining the ball. Ive been wondering if a larger ball wouldnt help the problem, or if a different shape like a 8 sided shape wouldnt do better. Ive also thought about notching the outlet where the ball gets forced so that some water could leak by it, helping to relieve the pressure once the cylinder changed chambers, does that make sense?


Let me know if you find something that works, for me, I just accepted that as part of the bad design.

I do find that the faster the white piece spins, the more random the ball location seems to be.