Pool Rover Plus for IG Pool?

[randytsuch]

Over ther years, I have had a Barracuda suction side cleaner, some other cheap suction side cleaner (think it was called a Ribbit, and looked like a frog :-D ). Later, in 2000, I bought an Aquabot, the basic one.

Aquabot was great, dropped it in Friday night, and pool was spotless by Saturday morning. Died on my a couple years ago, stopped moving. The drive motor died, and drive motors are over $250, so I have not repaired my Aquabot yet. I actually dismantled the motor last weekend, and figured out the thing had jammed because the gear on the motor spindle stripped. Motor itself is fine, but since the gears are stripped it won’t work anymore.

I don’t want to spend $250 on my Aquabot, because based on this one, I don’t trust the drive motor to last, and it’s the most expensive thing to replace, if it fails.

So, I am thinking about a Pool Rover Plus from Costco. Since the Pool Rover only has the only motor, for both cleaning and creating a jet to move it, it won’t have the same problem as my Aquabot did.

But, I was checking out this site, on robotic pool cleaners,
http://www.i-love-my-aquabot-automatic- ... eaner.com/
and it says the Pool Rover style cleaners don’t move as fast after the filter bags starts to get dirty. I guess it’s more of a problem with in ground pools, like mine, where there is a slope between shallow and deep ends to go up.

Any comments would be appreciated, I’m tired of vacuuming my pool. And, even after I vacuum, there’s always still some junk in the pool. When the Aquabot was working, pool was spotless on Saturday morning.

BTW, I took out the drive motor, and all of the gears/belts from my aquabot, and just left in the pump motor, and the "wheels". It's not bad as a manual vacuum, when set up like this. I just use my pool brush to push it around.

Randy

 

[randytsuch]

I decided to order it from Costco, since it is basically no risk.
If it doesn't work to my satisfaction, I can return it, and get all my money back, including shipping.

Supposed to be here next Monday, so I can use it before the big Father's day party we are hosting this year.

If it works anywhere close to what my broken aquabot did, then I will be happy.

Randy

 

[jpwicki]

Randy,

Let us know how it works.

 

[RonI]

I decided to order it from Costco, since it is basically no risk.
If it doesn't work to my satisfaction, I can return it, and get all my money back, including shipping.

Supposed to be here next Monday, so I can use it before the big Father's day party we are hosting this year.

If it works anywhere close to what my broken aquabot did, then I will be happy.

Randy

I have the exact same unit bought from Costco last year. It does an excellent job in cleaning the pool. It comes with two different bags. One is o be used for larger objects like leaves and the other bag they say filters the water. Anyways, I use it in a inground pool and am very happy with this unit.

 

[randytsuch]

So, it came yesterday, there was a big box by the front door when I came home last night.

Unpacked it, and put the fine filter bag in. I am not sure if it is because its a pool rover, but there are some minor changes in the filter bag installation from my 8 year old aquabot. I think it is easier now.

Dropped it in, and let it go.
It can't climb the wall at the shallow end, the corner is too sharp, but it does climb the side and deep end walls, and has no problem going from deep to shallow, and vice versa, in my pool

I only ran for about 30 minutes, but it picked up a bunch of dirt/leaves/hair in just that time.

At this point, the only drawback I notice is that it moves too fast. I have the basic aquabot, which crawls along the bottom. It takes a while to clean, but it does a very good job of cleaning. The rover goes fast enough to kick up dirt as it moves along, so I think it might miss some stuff when it's 2 hour cycle is over.

Later this week, I will let it run a full 2 hour cycle, and see how clean the pool is when it's done. When my aquabot was working, I would drop it in at night, and the pool was spotless the next morning.

Randy

 

[randytsuch]

OK, here's my update after using the rover for a little while.

The guy from i luv my aquabot was giving me some help to try to find parts to fix my aquabot, so I sent him this, and he "published" it on his site, here
http://www.i-love-my-aquabot-automatic-pool-cleaner.com/pool-rover-plus.html

I ended up buying a Pool Rover Plus from Costco. The plus model is designed for in ground pools.

It can climb walls, if the angle between the wall and bottom is not too sharp, and can go from the deep to shallow end.
So, in my pool, it climbs the side and deep end walls, but it can't climb the shallow end wall.

It does not work as well as my old basic aquabot did. It goes "too fast", fast enough so it kicks up dirt sometimes, instead of picking it up. The aquabot was snail slow, but it picked up everything in its path. The rover misses stuff. So, at the end of its 2 hour cleaning cycle, there is still a little dirt and stuff in the pool. The aquabot took overnight, but the pool was spotless when it was done.

It also slows down as it picks up more dirt, since it uses the pump motor for drive, and as the filter bag gets dirty, the water flow slows down. Since I keep my pool covered, it does not get that dirty, and while it is slower, it still covers the pool.

But, I decided to keep the rover. Costco had a sale, and it was $400 shipped, about 1/2 the price of the cheapest bot. And, the most expensive part to replace is the pump motor, which is about $150, so it will be cheaper to repair and keep running.
So, while it has its drawbacks, when I weigh the advantages of lower price and cheaper repair costs, the advantages outweigh the drawbacks for me.

A few more comments.
My DE filter is now leaking DE into my pool, and the rover is able to pick up most of the DE, so it can pick up even very fine dirt. I have to empty the bag often, but at least it picks it up. When the bag gets really dirty, the rover seems to spend more time in the deep end, but cleaning the bag fixes that.

So, if you have a pool that gets really dirty, it might we worth spending the extra money for a better bot, but since I have my pool covered and it does not get too dirty, the rover works great. Even with the DE leaking, which is making my pool very dirty, the rover cleans it, just takes a little more work since I have to clean out the bag a couple times before it can clean the whole pool.

Randy