ImPower motor controller not working according to manual

[DustMagnet]

Hello, first post on the forum. Chemistry is fine, water is clear, so the problem must be in the mechanical, right?

I just replaced the original Marlow Argonaut 1-1/2 HP pump from the eighties with what I thought was a reasonable variable speed choice - the AquaPro APEXV1 using the Marathon Electric ImPower 1-1/4 HP motor.

I hadn't read about ImPower problems here and I hadn't read that they are apparently now out of business.

The problem, such as it is, that I am having with the pump is that I want the pump to run at low (or medium) speed after the two minute prime, not after two hours on high. The ImPower manual indicates that this is done by connecting L1 to the red (low speed) terminal instead of the orange (single speed) terminal.

However this does not change the behaviour of the motor controller - it still runs at high-speed for two hours before switching to low regardless of the wire position.

So my question is: Does anyone else have this motor wired in the "Extended Functionality" mode? Does it actually change speeds after two minutes from power-on? Alternately, is anyone successfully using this motor/pump in a two-speed timer setup, as Extended Functionality just seems to be the low-speed configuration of that setup?

I have a query in with AquaPro but I haven't heard back from them yet.

Thanks for reading.

 

[DustMagnet]

I talked to AquaPro support today and the friendly lady on the phone unfortunately does not have the APEXV1 manual available to her. Like their website, her documents only refer to APEXV4. At their request I have sent them a picture of the wiring to consider and they will call me back.

 

[DustMagnet]

No word back yet, and now I don't expect anything until after the holiday weekend.

 

[DustMagnet]

The run around continues. They need to have a technician call me back, but no call. Repeat. I send photos of the pages in the manual that specifically describe the desired operation, in detail. "Must be a misprint." Then how does the two-speed timer connection work? <crickets> Call again today. "I need to go take a look at the motor controller configuration myself and call you back." No call back - that's the third time.

I suppose I will have to call them every single day, day in and day out, until we get to the bottom of this.

 

[DustMagnet]

Maybe someone here can confirm that I'm not crazy. Compare the wiring photo earlier in the thread to the manual:

Does that not suggest that in the wiring configuration previous in the thread that the motor should run at high speed for two minutes, then drop to low speed?

 

[DustMagnet]

Now the president of AquaPro himself, Charles Murphy, has become involved. He has copied Jim Stuckey of SN Tech (makers of the ImPower motor) in an email asking him to contact me regarding this motor controller. I appreciate any forward momentum on this issue, but this does kind of call to question what AquaPro knows about their own equipment...

While I wait for Jim to contact me - which I am sure will be real soon now - I have also confirmed that manually overriding the motor speed does not disable the automatic turn-down as it should.

This is even in the troubleshooting section of the manual!

If I make a manual change to the motor speed, two hours later the motor will drop to low speed regardless. Nothing in the troubleshooting about that.

Maybe the whole manual is a misprint? Maybe it's for a motor controller they wanted to produce but never got around to?

I hope at least that this thread is some amusement for you gentle reader. I'm really posting this as a form of catharsis, and maybe to caution as to AquaPro's competence vis-à-vis technical support.

Or in other words, "Don't mind me, I'm just female dog, wolf, fox, or otterin' here." (Unfortunately not the 1980's good kind of female dog, wolf, fox, or otterin')

 

[DustMagnet]

I finally received a phone call from a technician at AquaPro this morning. After reiterating the findings thus far the technician determined that my pump has the newest firmware installed, which means that a) Extended Functionality will not work and b) two-speed timer functionality will not work.

Yes, at some point ImPower/Marathon Electric/SN Tech shipped motors with updated firmware that removes features. No word on the rationale for this.

It seems that between the new motors being shipped to AquaPro and the manuals being updated the APEXV1 went out of production so nothing further happened. Any APEXV1 pumps in the channel are discontinued orphans.

In any case, I can stop chasing a ghost - this pump is never going to not start in high-speed.

Still waiting for word from SN Tech about manual override not sticking (always returning to low-speed after two hours).