Dolphin T45 robot - poor cleaning or my expectations too high?

[thejeff]

Hi all,

I got a Dolphin T45, which is one of the fancier Dolphins. I was expecting better cleaning ability from it. Not sure if there is something wrong or my expectations were too high.

I have a fiberglass pool. I leave the robot in for a full cycle (with visible dirt in the bottom). It certainly does clean up 80% of it, but it often passes over a large amount of dirt and leaves a good part of the dirt behind. Like you can see the track marks of where the tracks drove and there is still a lot of dirt around. I'm not expecting absolute perfection but you'd think it would pick up the dirt it drives directly over. I have never had another robot so am not sure if this is just a weak machine, a defective machine or my expectations are too high?

It also does a weak job of picking up dirt along the sides of the pool. Where the bottom meets a side, there is a radius bend in the pool. Dirt seems to gather there and the robot does not pick up much of it, even if it goes straight up the wall and back down.

I clean the robot after every use and empty the basket, hose off the filters every time.

Would like some opinions!

Jeff

 

[Jimrahbe]

Jeff,

The T45 looks very similar to the S200/300 etc... I can only compare it to my S200.. If I have one dime sized leaf in the bottom of my pool, it will be gone once the robot is done with its cleaning cycle.

That said, I don't have enough dirt in the bottom of my pool to see the tracks, so not sure if it really covers 100% each time..

What happens if you run it several times? Where does all the dirt come from? Are you sure it is dirt and not algae?

If the unit was working and now is not, your suction fan at the top of the robot could be clogged with string or ???

It also appears you have two cycles.. Normal and Fast... I would not run in the fast mode..

If new, I would contact the seller and see what they have to say.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[thejeff]

Thanks Jim!

Dirt finds it way into the pool during heavy rains some ground water can seep over the edges of the pool if it's raining too hard. I don't have a ton of pitch going away from the pool so in heavy rains it can flow into the pool a bit.

The last example was after hurricane dorian - we got hit a bit and the bottom of the pool had a good amount of dirt and leaves. Removed the bulk of leaves with my net thing. It took 4-5 full cycles (not fast) to pickup most of the dirt in the bottom. And even after 4-5 full cycles there was still quite a bit of dirt.

Perhaps sounds like there's something wrong with mine.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

It sounds like you get an unusually heavy amount of dirt in the pool- more than 99% of us. How did you clean it out before? Was it time consuming??

I am thinking you're expecting a lot more than most. You might need to just run ito more and make sure to have the finest filters in the basket to collect all that dirt.

Maddie

 

[thejeff]

Here is a video I shot yesterday. If you watch til the end you’ll see how much dirt is being left behind.

For the amount of dirt on the video, I’ve run 3 full 3 hour cycles and there is still a ton of dirt left.

 

[tabitha_599]

I think you need to contact the place you bought it. I got my S200 yesterday. I did miss one spot but I only ran one cycle. I also have a fiberglass pool and get a lot of sediment and debris because we are surrounded by trees so I think it's going to be a daily thing for us but overall it did a fair job.

 

[thejeff]

I reached out to Dolphin support to get their thoughts.

I took apart the top part in order to see into the impeller. There was a lot of hair wound up into the impeller. Removed it all, however have not seen an improvement (at least nothing major) in cleaning performance. The video shot above is after the hair was removed.