Dolphin DX4 problems

[Liam]

Hello,

New pool owner here.
Just purchased a house with a pool and inherited a Dolphin DX4 equipped with a filter bag with the pool. I replaced the climbing rings on it due to two missing and two were hard as stones and cracking.

But the machine will not climb the walls (it is gunite, there is no algae on the walls, and the filter is clean.
Also, it seems to stay in one place in the pool and doesn't turn 90 degrees like it says in the manual.

Anyone have any input on anything I can try?

thank you,

 

[thebombardier]

Does it try to climb the walls at least?

Do me a favor, with the unit out of the water, flip it upside down and turn it on. Just let it run its test cycle out of the water and it will automatically shut down. Report back here with what exactly it does and for how long it does each sequence. A video would be great if possible.

 

[Liam]

Thanks for the reply.

I will get that video hopefully tomorrow. Yes it tries to climb the walls, but only goes up so far and then reverses.

 

[Liam]

Here are two videos.
The video of the dolphin dx4 upside down had a clicking noise. So I pulled the side off of it and checked one of the rollers. It had some grit and leaves in it and I cleaned it out and it stopped clicking.

The second one is the DX4 in the pool. As you can see it seems to never turn and stays in the same place. It does try to climb but never makes it to the top.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EA8AvwLSSaixS7_72x9ohgRLXq8GqWuD

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A7KRHoRRfZlkXiTUGR9PySrNmcppqe23/view?usp=sharing

 

[thebombardier]

Well it seems that the unit is test cycling correctly out of the water. Though it does look like you could at least use a new set of tracks, they're a little loose. Nothing that would cause your issue though.

What's more concerning is that random stopping and starting its doing along the bottom of the pool. Usually that's indicative of a break in the cable somewhere. The machine moves enough to open the break, stops because it has no power, the break closes again, and it starts a new test cycle. Because it's not designed to climb walls during the test cycle, it just turns around when it gets to one. Also because the circuit is opening and closing so much, it's not actually running long enough to get to its cleaning cycle.

Also, this unit doesn't necessarily "turn". It has no ability to do so. It's primary method of navigating around the pool is climbing up the wall to the waterline, moving along the waterline laterally, then coming down in a different part of the pool. That or it may periodically turn off its pump motor, causing one side to lift and it makes a wide arcing turn.

 

[Liam]

Well it seems that the unit is test cycling correctly out of the water. Though it does look like you could at least use a new set of tracks, they're a little loose. Nothing that would cause your issue though.

What's more concerning is that random stopping and starting its doing along the bottom of the pool. Usually that's indicative of a break in the cable somewhere. The machine moves enough to open the break, stops because it has no power, the break closes again, and it starts a new test cycle. Because it's not designed to climb walls during the test cycle, it just turns around when it gets to one. Also because the circuit is opening and closing so much, it's not actually running long enough to get to its cleaning cycle.

Also, this unit doesn't necessarily "turn". It has no ability to do so. It's primary method of navigating around the pool is climbing up the wall to the waterline, moving along the waterline laterally, then coming down in a different part of the pool. That or it may periodically turn off its pump motor, causing one side to lift and it makes a wide arcing turn.

So you think it is a break in the cable somewhere? Any way to test it with a multimeter? Sorry I am pretty new to this whole pool robot thing.

Thank you for your help.

 

[thebombardier]

Yeah. Easiest way is set your multimeter to DCV, hook up the test points to the end of the cable thats plugged into the motor unit, then hook the other end of the cable up to the power supply. Turn the power supply on, see that it reads 24V DC on the multimeter, then just keep bending the cable in places of usual wear until the voltage drops to 0.

Downside is that if there is a break in the cable it's not easy to fix yourself. The parts are cheap enough but Dolphins use a set of specialized crimpers to put the connectors at the end of the cable that cost like $300 a set. It may be a fix you want to hand off to a shop.