Dolphin Explorer E30 first impressions

[Drock85]

I received my Dolphin E30 yesterday evening. Unboxing and setup was painless, and operating the vacuum was easy.

Onto the immediate frustration.... I noticed right away that it was picking up debris and shooting everything out of its top vent. I read about this with a similar robot and so I reseated the filter. I placed the vacuum into the pool and again it was doing the exact same thing. There isn't much to really adjust with the filter, it fits one way and sits on springs. I again, took the filter out and plopped it back in and shut the top. This run it didn't seem to be spitting anything out of the top vent. Hurray! Although, I wonder if this is this a sign of something I will have to fight with on a regular basis? I really hope not.

I have a 20x40 pool with a 9' deep end. It seems that the 2h runtime was just not enough for the robot to clean the whole thing. The angles of my pool seemed to constantly redirect the robot to areas it has already cleaned. I am not expecting the tracking guidance of an indoor Roomba but just noting that i think my pool affects the robot. The robot got hung up on the bottom intake several times throughout its 2h our cycle and seemed to hang on it for a couple minutes each time before it would get itself unstuck. This also seemed to really through off any kind of intelligent pathing this robot may have. The robot seemed to randomly pick when it wanted to do the the waterline cleaning. Sometimes it would go halfway up the wall and then just go back down, other times it would bump the wall and not go up. Sometimes it would choose to go all the way up the wall and perform a waterline cleaning.

I ran the robot for another cycle and I will say it got most everything, I woke up to a very clean pool and I was pleased...until the point I took the robot out. I lifted the robot from the handle and let the water drain and what do I see? a BUNCH of debris just dumping right back into the pool. Perhaps they were caught in a location inside the robot but not inside the filter? Again, I hope this is not something that will happen regularly, for the price of this robot I want the debris it sucks up to stay inside of the robot.

So...first impressions on this robot from my standpoint are frustrating. I will continue to test this robot out but I have my reservations. Next step is waterproof enclosure for the control box, Wi-Fi outlet and automation of this robot.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Your experience is not unusual. Also, all of the “smart clean” marketing hype is just that - hype. These robots are dumb and don’t analyze your pool. They use a combination of wall climbing and thrust turns to execute a “random walk” type cleaning pattern. Higher end models of this robots that can connect to the App allow for some selection of “Floor Only” or “Waterline” cleaning as opposed to the standard 80/20 floor/wall programming.

Just note that these robots have a mean time between failure (MTBF) of about 5 years. The motor assembly is the most prone to dying and they cost $450 (current price) to replace. Maytronics does NOT make them rebuildable, they only replace the entire module. Therefore at the end of life for the motor assemblies you have a choice of buying a new motor for around 60% of what a new robot costs or buying a new robot …. Guess what Maytronics would like you to do

 

[Drock85]

Thanks for the input!

I hope it lasts 5 years(or more). I know its not going to be perfect, I can live with it not having intelligent pathing but I do expect the debris to stay in the filter and not flow out. Hopefully, its just a random occurrence but if its constantly dong it I will look into returning it or other options.

Seeing as it took more than 1 cleaning to get my pool cleaned I am going to attempt the automation method using the Wi-Fi outlet. Looks like i can just schedule it to run (2) 2hour cycles the days i want it to run so it has a chance to get the whole pool. Unfortunately I get a lot of debris in my pool from Oak and Magnolia trees especially this time of year. The debris will be reduced as spring winds down and we get into summer but this robot has some work to do fall/spring time that's for sure.

 

[mknauss]

but I do expect the debris to stay in the filter and not flow out.

That should not happen. Has never happened with mine. Check the fabric closure in the bottom of the filter basket. It should have metal closure that does not allow debris to fall out. Now if you had a lot of leaves, that can create a situation that the closure is not allowed to close completely.

 

[Drock85]

I will take a look at the bottom fabric closure. Not many leaves in the pool as i did have the pool mostly clean, a handful of leaves at most. After the third time I reseated the basket all debris stopped coming out of the top of the dolphin. Hopefully it just something simple with the fabric closure as you are suggesting.

I will say that it picked up a good bit of sand/small particles that the old Polaris 360 couldn't and I am ecstatic about that.

Thanks!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Magnolia leaves will be hard to clean for sure.

It sounds like the filter basket is not snuggly seating against the top cover. You should look at it some more up on a bench to make sure there is good sealing.

 

[Drock85]

Well I’m happy to say that everything stayed in the basket and nothing spilled out when I took the robot out of the pool.

Much appreciated everyone. I can tell the few magnolia leaves will have to manually be scooped out but it gets everything else without issue. Still grabbing fin particles off the floor which is amazing! Clearly superior to my old pressure side cleaner.

I would very much recommend this robot currently.