Dolphin Impeller Constantly Clogs With Hair

[wsamon]

First off, this post is not for me, but is seeking advice to try to help someone that made a post in a FB robotic pool cleaners group.

She recently bought a Dolphin T45, which looks like an S200 with a lot of bells and whistles. According to her it is a) not leaving her pool clean and more importantly b) getting its impeller clogged with hair every time she runs it. Dolphin support has essentially did not help. They claim that the hair is fine enough to slip through the filter (should that really be possible?) and that disassembling the robot to clean the impeller is considered routine maintenance, even if it needs to be done every week, despite the robot clearly not being designed for that to be a weekly task due to the amount of disassembly necessary. They say it's normal and the robot is operating as expected. I know I'd be mad if I were her. She claims she previously had a robot (didn't say make / model) that both got her pool cleaner and had no impeller issues.

So what do you guys think? Is there anything she should look at or do to keep the hair from reaching the impeller? Obviously, getting the hair out of the pool in the first place using manual nets, etc. before running the robot is one strategy, but if you're doing that work manually anyway, why have the robot in the first place? Considering it does not seem to be getting her pool particularly clean either, I'm thinking there may be a manufacturing (or shipping) defect in the basket housing that's enabling water to flow around the filters and directly to the impeller. If that's not the case, is there anything she can do to get the basket to catch the hair? Is adding a skimmer sock / pantyhose a viable option?

 

[chiefwej]

Which filters does she have? The ultra fine panel filter should catch any hair. I have had a s300 for about 3 years and have had to clean the impeller exactly once. My pool gets dog hair and my wife has shoulder length hair that I‘m constantly picking out of the roller brushes on our household vacuums.

 

[wsamon]

Which filters does she have? The ultra fine panel filter should catch any hair. I have had a s300 for about 3 years and have had to clean the impeller exactly once. My pool gets dog hair and my wife has shoulder length hair that I‘m constantly picking out of the roller brushes on our household vacuums.

Yeah, that was a question / suggestion I posed to her, and don't know the answer to yet. I have to admit that I'm shocked by how poor the responses from Maytronics seems to be. Assuming she's being forthright about their full communications, they literally told her that hair going through the filter and getting to the impeller is normal and didn't even suggest using ultrafine filters to prevent it. The response screams low effort, useless, and "not our problem".

 

[cowboycasey]

With one or both filters hair should not be getting through at all.. there has to be some way that the filter is not setting square in it or allowing water and gunk around the filter... Mine catches hair all the time and microscopic junk along with it... I bet when she opens the filter it is not even dirty cause it is all going right back out somehow...

 

[wsamon]

Which filters does she have? The ultra fine panel filter should catch any hair. I have had a s300 for about 3 years and have had to clean the impeller exactly once. My pool gets dog hair and my wife has shoulder length hair that I‘m constantly picking out of the roller brushes on our household vacuums.

She has the ultrafine filters.

With one or both filters hair should not be getting through at all.. there has to be some way that the filter is not setting square in it or allowing water and gunk around the filter... Mine catches hair all the time and microscopic junk along with it... I bet when she opens the filter it is not even dirty cause it is all going right back out somehow...

I'm getting confirmation about the filter being dirty. If we assume it's not dirty, do you have anything to suggest to her? It sounds like Maytronics support is refusing to acknowledge there possibly being anything wrong with the robot. I've got to admit, as a new owner of a Dolphin robot as of Monday, this situation has me a bit concerned. It's not a good look for them.

 

[mknauss]

I have to admit that I'm shocked by how poor the responses from Maytronics seems to be.

@Maytronics Customer Care

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Either she needs to post here with pictures or you need to get pictures posted. This tag-team helping is not very … helpful.

If the basket frame is improperly assembled or the panels misaligned, hair could easily get through. Pictures would help.

 

[wsamon]

Per an image she posted, the official response from Maytronics appears to be:

The type of debris that gets caught in the impeller, like hair, is slippery and thinner, and can sometimes escape through the filter. If you have pets or more swimmers with longer hair swimming in the pool, it is more likely there will be a more frequent need to clean out the impeller.

I understand the frustration, but again this is regular maintenance for all of our robots which we recommend to all of our customers.

I apologize again for the inconvenience, but this is the solution to this issue.

To me, this sounds like contacting Toyota about having to replace the car battery every month and being told "replacing car batteries is regular maintenance for all of our cars. If you drive the car with lots of people in it you will have to replace the battery more frequently." (Imperfect analogy aside) Doing it occasionally is normal, but this frequency clearly indicates something is wrong and they are ignoring that.

Edit: fixed a transcription issue in the quote. It should have said "type of debris" instead of "type of hair"

 

[wsamon]

Either she needs to post here with pictures or you need to get pictures posted. This tag-team helping is not very … helpful.

If the basket frame is improperly assembled or the panels misaligned, hair could easily get through. Pictures would help.

I'll tell her to come here and post this stuff, but I don't think she's even a member of this site / may not even know it exists. I don't know her personally, and am only acting on what I saw in a different group because the situation both bothers me as a consumer and person that cares about others, and concerns me because I just bought a similar product and have many people in my family with long hair, including myself, as well as 2 dogs. The only 2 pictures she's posted so far are of the impeller with hair wrapped around it like a ball of angel hair pasta, and of the response she supposedly got from Maytronics support.

 

[wsamon]

Either she needs to post here with pictures or you need to get pictures posted. This tag-team helping is not very … helpful.

If the basket frame is improperly assembled or the panels misaligned, hair could easily get through. Pictures would help.

I also dug up this image from a post she made back in July, though it doesn't seem very helpful. Apparently the first basket she received wasn't sealing properly so Maytronics sent her a new one but she's obviously continuing to have issues.

 

[mknauss]

The filter panels in that picture are the spring clean up panels. Not for regular use. Should be using the pleated media filter or the dual filter setup.

 

[wsamon]

The filter panels in that picture are the spring clean up panels. Not for regular use. Should be using the pleated media filter or the dual filter setup.

good point. in replies to that same post she mentions picking up the ultra fines based on someone's suggestion. In response to my question on the recent post she said she's got ultra fines installed now. Of course, I have no way of verifying this and she hasn't posted pictures of that. I told her to come post here because she'll probably get better help. We'll see if she does.

 

[cowboycasey]

Those filters go inside the pleated filters.. If she is just running those that is the problem...

 

[wsamon]

Those filters go inside the pleated filters.. If she is just running those that is the problem...

ooh. good point. I will mention this.

wait... aren't the pleated ones the ultra fine and the screen ones the rough ones? Or is there something else that I'm missing? She said she's already installed the ultra fine, so that would mean she's got the pleated? Now I'm getting confused lol. Anyway, I'm inclined to wait until she posts here, but now I'm curious for my own knowledge. Marina did the combo-filter swap for me and I've just been rolling with those since I got the machine and haven't really learned much about the different filters yet, other than knowing they exist.

 

[muzymarta]

Hello Everyone! I'm here and the issue started with one of the filters not staying in so the basket was always open inside, please see pictures, then the robot started shutting off because the impeller was covered in hair, after contacting support and several emails they shipped new basket but in the meantime I switched to using ultra fine filters and they were fine all clipped in no gaps, however the impeller still gets the hair. these are from beginning of issues, I will take pictures of current state later today and post.

 

[cowboycasey]

I will take some pictures tonight to make sure I am remembering correct.. You know how it is when you get old...

@muzymarta Welcome to TFP

 

[muzymarta]

So another issue is I just started 2 hour cleaning cycle and it ran for 5 minutes and stopped. Why would that happen? Looks like I can't post video. it stopped after 5 minutes.

 

[muzymarta]

So another issue is I just started 2 hour cleaning cycle and it ran for 5 minutes and stopped. Why would that happen? Looks like I can't post video. it stopped after 5 minutes.

 

[Freddypop]

R U sure you properly reinstalled all parts of the impeller cleaning process back in their original placements? If not you should verify as this would cause the behaviour indicated

 

[muzymarta]

R U sure you properly reinstalled all parts of the impeller cleaning process back in their original placements? If not you should verify as this would cause the behaviour indicated

Yes I did, also is working now hour In and working, the thing is once you start the 2 hour
Cycle you expect it to run and not babysit it, and it looks like sometimes it works sometimes doesn’t so really I don’t know if it finished 2
Hour cycle or stopped after 5 minutes. I got this smart robot so I can have a life and not baysit the robot.