Alright, this was the right way to go. It’s better than the Power Stream Triton in every way except for sticking to the walls.
The tritons strengths were:1) the outboard tracks don’t have an outer support shield. When it reaches a wall, it squares up and goes up. 2) the rear facing jet really does help keep it up against the wall and vertical.
In contrast, the nautilus CC’s faults are: 1) the outer support shield digs into the wall when struck at an angle, but it doesn’t square up, it will angle up the wall, break the surface and either scrub the tile or fall to one side and run sideways across the pool wall. 2) The side shield makes black marks on my gunite pool.
The nautilus CC’s strengths: 1) It climbs my stairs like the Triton, but after it breaks the surface it’s programmed behavior is much smarter. When it realizes that it’s not in an ideal position, it turns on the suction and rapidly sucks itself back down to the floor or step. (Tritons rear jet just made it swim around until it decided to shut down). 2) I like cleaning these filters better. I didn’t think I would, but I can get a better clean out and can remain dry.
Triton PS faults: 1) It never made it more than 20 minutes before shutting down on my steps. 2) Rapid spinning front roller brush creates a pressure wave or current that blows a lot of material out of the way before it can be run over and suctioned up. 3) Rapid spinning roller brush doesn’t break up debris or algae as well as the Nautilus. That was a big surprise. 4) Filter basket is more messy to clean out. Another surprise.
I thought initially, that cleaning the tile was important, but it’s not. A machine that runs for 3 hours unattended and picks up everything on the floor is important.
Even when I would baby sit the Triton to see how it performed, I was quite often disappointed at how many live oak leaves it left behind. It would blow them out of the way before it could get to them. It was just generally a poor performer compared to this nautilus.
A prefect machine “for me” would have the gear driven, interior supported tracks of the Triton, gear the front roller so that it’s the same speed as the track speed, go back to the easily opened double filter baskets, and make the upper jet customizable. Some people could keep it rear facing for wall clinging, or it could face the top to correct the “swimming” problems I had.
Im glad I got to give 2 machines a thorough test and can share these observations. Seeing this would have helped me with my initial purchase.
Some of this will make it to the Triton, S300, Discovery Page.
