New AquaBot Rapids XLS and 4WD

[adamtheaxe]

Hi. Sorry if the answer is in the previous posts but can the AWD be used in an above ground pool which has a deep end? I e-mailed Doheny's and they gave me the link to this model but it states it's for in ground pools.

Thanks!

 

[tcat]

I can't see how it would matter. Some in ground pools are vinyl. May not get a sharp 90 degree angle real well, but not many will other than a hand vac.

 

[Izzydro]

Hey guys! You don't know me but I want to thank you guys anyway for all the info I found on this thread which made my decision to finally purchase an Aquabot Breeze 4WD. What made it hard was seeing how some got a great deal on it (under $600) when I was ready to pay $799 lol everywhere mentioned and then some had it back at that price and the cheapest I found was around $740. I decided to purchase a never used display model full warranty from a Hamptons NY pool store off eBay (seller 100% positive feedback) for $650 just now
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem ... 0918915402
I'll follow up w delivery timing and 1st use impression! Have a good day guys

 

[mpk1970]

Received mine too (at least Fedex says "delivered, left at door") I'm at work, guess I'll leave early today.

edit: OK I am home, box was there. After about watching for 10 minutes, my observations:

1. Moves slower than my Platinum Legend pressure cleaner, the PL moves at 32 rpm, this moves at 21 rpm. Not "that" slow, so spends more time sucking the area it's going over.
2. Baskets are great! Openings look like they'll pick up fairly large leaves and acorns (and certainly dirt), no acorns at the moment to test.
3. Seems to do whole pool (as much time in shallow as deep), but then I've only watched it for 10 minutes.
4. A little heavier than I would have imagined at 21#, but I guess they're all about that.
5. Does seem to "chug" occasionally (just stops, moves an inch, stops, acting like it lost it's mind)
6. On land it is easier to move one way easier than the other, I'm sure it's a motor/gear thing.
7. Generally moves up a wall by its length and reverses. Once it a while it will climb to WL, picture below shows that, but what's odd it stayed in that position for about a minute before it reversed. I believe it was stuck on an inlet.

8. My pool shape is sort of kidney, large radius bottom corners:

edit#2: OK one more picture. I cleaned the pool 2 days ago with my Platinum Legend. Pool was clean and today was still clean, saw nothing at the bottom of a clear pool. After 3 hours the 4WD shut off, and here's the result. Lots of gunk and snail shells that use to be in between the drain ribbing. Very cool, happy camper.

Good to see you like it Tcat.

 

[dbizzle22]

I've had my 4WD breeze for about 1.5 weeks now. I've run it 4 times so far. It does a really nice job of picking up fine particles of dirt and leaves of all sizes and shape. Pulled a nice ~ foot long branch leaf up in even. Pretty impressive!

Problem is right now is trying to get it out of the pool after its cycle. It drops ALOT of what it picks up right back out. Am I doing something wrong? I let the robot runs its course. Then I pull the power and drag it over to me. Pull it up by the handle. Then grab it by its sides and woosh ... all the water inside along with a decent amount of what it picked up drops right back into the pool.

How are you guys fairing with removing these robots from the pool?

 

[mpk1970]

I've had my 4WD breeze for about 1.5 weeks now. I've run it 4 times so far. It does a really nice job of picking up fine particles of dirt and leaves of all sizes and shape. Pulled a nice ~ foot long branch leaf up in even. Pretty impressive!

Problem is right now is trying to get it out of the pool after its cycle. It drops ALOT of what it picks up right back out. Am I doing something wrong? I let the robot runs its course. Then I pull the power and drag it over to me. Pull it up by the handle. Then grab it by its sides and woosh ... all the water inside along with a decent amount of what it picked up drops right back into the pool.

How are you guys fairing with removing these robots from the pool?

The last step where you grab by sides life out of the water SLOWLY!!! Maybe this will help. I've noticed some does get back no matter what, its not totally unpreventable
I think.
Something I was going to try next time is turning it upside down before lifting out of pool.
What happens, if you can see the engineering, there is a slight opening in the port hole (where the Crud gets sucked in) that allows things in out. If you look around the port hole, the flap is not perfectly flushed. Meaning, not air or water tight. This allows the dirt to come in but also a small % to escape. The only thing we Aquabot owners can do is minimize what escapes, not eliminate what escapes.

Hope this helps

 

[tcat]

I watch the flaps when I pull out out. If you stop or don't keep pulling towards you, the flaps open and let stuff out. The secret is a slow constant pull. Fairly poor design; the flaps could have a light spring that's easily opened with the water pressure, but keeps them closed when unit is turned off. If it sucks in a big branch that holds the flap open, stuff I'd going to come out; maybe upside down with fix that.

 

[Izzydro]

Hey guys! You don't know me but I want to thank you guys anyway for all the info I found on this thread which made my decision to finally purchase an Aquabot Breeze 4WD. What made it hard was seeing how some got a great deal on it (under $600) when I was ready to pay $799 lol everywhere mentioned and then some had it back at that price and the cheapest I found was around $740. I decided to purchase a never used display model full warranty from a Hamptons NY pool store off eBay (seller 100% positive feedback) for $650 just now
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem ... 0918915402
I'll follow up w delivery timing and 1st use impression! Have a good day guys

UPDATE...
ordered yesterday received today!!! Condition was new never used as describes and dropped it in around 430pm. Immediately I fell in love..
Disclaimers.
1st vac after manually vacuuming for 3 yes (why did I wait so long????)
Bottom had lots of sand, bugs and tree particles from all the rain this week in NJ.
Have some neighboring trees that dirty my pool.
32x16 kidney shaped salt water pool

Right away it climbed walls and as mentioned by some members it doesn't climb on every pass but does go up 90°. After running for 3 hours I checked back and notices it wasn't climbing at all and wondered if it gets overworked and bogs down until I lifted it and realized the cause was the overly clogged mesh of sand since it is so fine, almost like filtering through a paper towel. After washing everything out I re dropped and it immediately climbed up and almost acted as if it wanted to climb out of the water. I was disappointed that the pool wasn't clean yet until I realized that part. It cleaned like a champ and never really got hung up on anything nor did the cord ever tangle. I still have to figure out how to enable the timer (didn't try at all, wrongfully assumed it was automatic since it does say automatic lol) but overall I am EXTREMELY happy and the pool is as clean as the 1st day I filled it!!!!

Edit...written 2 days ago just wouldn't post

 

[tcat]

No timer other than auto-shut off after 3 hours.

 

[mpk1970]

I watch the flaps when I pull out out. If you stop or don't keep pulling towards you, the flaps open and let stuff out. The secret is a slow constant pull. Fairly poor design; the flaps could have a light spring that's easily opened with the water pressure, but keeps them closed when unit is turned off. If it sucks in a big branch that holds the flap open, stuff I'd going to come out; maybe upside down with fix that.

Tcat, I started to think about my idea of turning upside down. I think this will be disastrous for us owners now that I think aboit it. The flap would be completely wide open upside down I believe letting everything float out.
I agreethe design is the flaw not the process of lifting out of the pool

 

[Izzydro]

No timer other than auto-shut off after 3 hours.

Yeah that's what i had read but mine never shut off after 3 hours. Went on for 3&1/2 straight which made me wonder if it had to do w the pool being too dirty or a setting not activated

 

[Izzydro]

I watch the flaps when I pull out out. If you stop or don't keep pulling towards you, the flaps open and let stuff out. The secret is a slow constant pull. Fairly poor design; the flaps could have a light spring that's easily opened with the water pressure, but keeps them closed when unit is turned off. If it sucks in a big branch that holds the flap open, stuff I'd going to come out; maybe upside down with fix that.

Tcat, I started to think about my idea of turning upside down. I think this will be disastrous for us owners now that I think aboit it. The flap would be completely wide open upside down I believe letting everything float out.
I agreethe design is the flaw not the process of lifting out of the pool

Think the best way has to be to slowly pull it out next to the skimmer while the filter is on so that the debris that does escape can get sucked out

 

[tcat]

Update. Did my second cleaning today, pool didn't look dirty, but still a bunch of small acorns, bugs and dirt got sucked up. It does tend to do deep end MUCH more than shallow. Maybe 2 cycles would get all the shallow, but really isn't much dirt in the shallow end anyway. The "problem", if there is one, it seems to go up a side wall and doesn't turn often enough to go lengthwise; it does 90% of it's back and forth moves from sidewall to sidewall. It tends to hit the same spots on walls when it does go up a wall (once about every 6-8 passes), because it's always in the deep end. The slope from deep to shallow tends to prevent it from hitting the shallow end (although has no problem going from end to end if headed that way), it does get there 4 or 5 times in the 3 hour cycle. It is boring to watch so I may have missed a few shallow end hits.

I do like it so much better than my pressure-side cleaner, since the 4WD is easy to clean and "pack up", I remove it and use it twice a week (once is probably enough). If you pull it out by the handle real slow, nothing goes back in pool. I took a few videos and spliced them together.... very boring to watch so I added some music (still a boring 10 minutes): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gsmL6zg ... e=youtu.be
(I changed youtube background music so it would accept it)

Added Vimeo link if Youtube doesn't work: http://vimeo.com/68499850

By the way, all turbulence is the robot, there was no pumps going on a calm day... another nice feature.

 

[caycarem]

Tcat thanks for sharing your observation it's pretty much what i see with my bot
mostly I am now concerned it is not going to the shallow end very often

 

[mpk1970]

Guys, I have same problem about the shallow end.
Here is the big but, you gotta just go do some errands. For me, my deep end is the dirty part. Not even close, shallow has very few dirt particles.
Trust me, it does get to the shallow end.

Furthermore, what I did because I didn't want this thing running for a couple hours, I pulled the dang cord and dragged it's butt to the shallow and placed it there.
Sometimes good ole "telling" it where to go works better than waiting for it to go.

C'mon guys this Aquabot is like women, sometimes you just gotta drag their butts to a certain place whether they like it or not (i.e. sporting event)

 

[tcat]

I think my wife would disagree and reverse this comment onto you/me (i.e. shopping)

C'mon guys this Aquabot is like women, sometimes you just gotta drag their butts to a certain place whether they like it or not (i.e. sporting event)

 

[jlongbottom]

Not going to go anywhere near the wife comment.

This is my first contribution to TFP but I have consumed and learned a ton from these forums. I used this thread to help me make a decision to buy the Aquabot Breeze 4WD. I purchased the 4WD thru Amazon but the supplier actually sent me the XLS. I did not realize it at first since I was so anxious to put the thing in my pool. Long story short I used the XLS for a week then realized it was the wrong one. Contacted the vendor(AquaDistPoolSupply) thru AMAZON and not only did they send me the correct unit they also sent me a $20 check for my hassle(I used the XLS for another week while I waited for the 4WD). Since I have used both units in my 27000 gallon plaster pool I can attest to the differences.
Here's my comparison(your mileage may vary):

Cleaning the pool: Both were very good for most debris. The 4WD gets a little more of the dirt up off the pool floor due to the brushes. I would sometimes send the XLS on a round 2 where I never have to do this with the 4WD. I live in Arizona and get a ton of really fine dust in my pool. Unfortunately neither unit gets all that stuff up but the 4WD is slightly better. I have tweaked the intakes on both but the dust in my pool is stubborn.

Walls: Both but 4WD climbs them better.

Steps: XLS Never. 4WD will get them occasionally.

Deep End: Both spend a lot of time in the deep end but the shallow end does get some love.

Speed: XLS is much faster which is probably good for a quick clean but I feel slower speed is more thorough.

Cleaning the units: Both are very easy to clean as mentioned in this thread repeatedly.

Cable: The XLS cable has a harder shielding(almost plastic). The 4WD is more flexible and is rubber. The result is that the XLS cable will tangle and restrict or stop the XLS's movement. I have yet to have a tangle issue with the 4WD.

Adjustable Turning: XLS has it the 4WD does not. This is apparently a way to keep the cable from getting tangled. To me it was a hassle. I messed with this all the time on the XLS and still had issues with the cable.

Weight and pulling out of pool: The XLS was lighter but in my opinion the handle on the 4WD makes it easier to pull out of the pool. I can pull on the cable until it gets close then reach in with one hand and grab the unit by the handle. If executed smoothly nothing goes back in the pool. With the XLS you need to use 2 hands to pull it out of the pool.

Timer/Power supply: The XLS has a switch that allows you to toggle between short or long cycle. The 4WD just has an on button.

Summary: I think you get what you pay for. The 4WD is a better cleaner due to the brushes and for me it is less hassle when it is in the pool. No tangled cord, no axle turning, usually gets the entire pool. Overall I am very happy, though I would love it if my fine dust was picked up. As someone else said the fine dust keeps me in the habit of brushing my pool by hand every once and a while. Which is probably a good thing anyway!

Thank you to all for their input here. Fantastic information.

 

[mpk1970]

Not going to go anywhere near the wife comment.

This is my first contribution to TFP but I have consumed and learned a ton from these forums. I used this thread to help me make a decision to buy the Aquabot Breeze 4WD. I purchased the 4WD thru Amazon but the supplier actually sent me the XLS. I did not realize it at first since I was so anxious to put the thing in my pool. Long story short I used the XLS for a week then realized it was the wrong one. Contacted the vendor(AquaDistPoolSupply) thru AMAZON and not only did they send me the correct unit they also sent me a $20 check for my hassle(I used the XLS for another week while I waited for the 4WD). Since I have used both units in my 27000 gallon plaster pool I can attest to the differences.
Here's my comparison(your mileage may vary):

Cleaning the pool: Both were very good for most debris. The 4WD gets a little more of the dirt up off the pool floor due to the brushes. I would sometimes send the XLS on a round 2 where I never have to do this with the 4WD. I live in Arizona and get a ton of really fine dust in my pool. Unfortunately neither unit gets all that stuff up but the 4WD is slightly better. I have tweaked the intakes on both but the dust in my pool is stubborn.

Walls: Both but 4WD climbs them better.

Steps: XLS Never. 4WD will get them occasionally.

Deep End: Both spend a lot of time in the deep end but the shallow end does get some love.

Speed: XLS is much faster which is probably good for a quick clean but I feel slower speed is more thorough.

Cleaning the units: Both are very easy to clean as mentioned in this thread repeatedly.

Cable: The XLS cable has a harder shielding(almost plastic). The 4WD is more flexible and is rubber. The result is that the XLS cable will tangle and restrict or stop the XLS's movement. I have yet to have a tangle issue with the 4WD.

Adjustable Turning: XLS has it the 4WD does not. This is apparently a way to keep the cable from getting tangled. To me it was a hassle. I messed with this all the time on the XLS and still had issues with the cable.

Weight and pulling out of pool: The XLS was lighter but in my opinion the handle on the 4WD makes it easier to pull out of the pool. I can pull on the cable until it gets close then reach in with one hand and grab the unit by the handle. If executed smoothly nothing goes back in the pool. With the XLS you need to use 2 hands to pull it out of the pool.

Timer/Power supply: The XLS has a switch that allows you to toggle between short or long cycle. The 4WD just has an on button.

Summary: I think you get what you pay for. The 4WD is a better cleaner due to the brushes and for me it is less hassle when it is in the pool. No tangled cord, no axle turning, usually gets the entire pool. Overall I am very happy, though I would love it if my fine dust was picked up. As someone else said the fine dust keeps me in the habit of brushing my pool by hand every once and a while. Which is probably a good thing anyway!

Thank you to all for their input here. Fantastic information.

Great write up and comparison.
Appreciate that. Is the fine dust possibly algae?
Today my pool was completely cleaned in 1 1/2 hrs. It picked up loads of fine dirt and sand that I didn't even see on bottom of pool.

Let's hope we gets years of use out of these AWDs.

 

[Izzydro]

Hey guys, if anyone is still looking to buy the 4WD and get a deal, the vendor that I purchased mine from is selling another. The price is discounted because he claims it to be a visual display only and never turned on or used. I bought mine Thurs morning and Friday afternoon it was already in my pool and def fit the description. Also, already used it twice and the 2nd time I did notice that the automatic timer did kick in!
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem ... 0921633555

 

[dbizzle22]

Here's a video I took of my Breeze 4WD after I first ran it. Keep in mind that my pool hadn't been swept or cleaned in a good amount of time. You'll see a ton of dirt, algae, leaves and even I think an acorn in there? Gross but the Breeze did a great job of cleaning it up.

Also, I think I'm getting the hang of taking the robot out without having a bunch of junk falling out. You have to pull it up quickly so the doors close as you pull it up. Keep moving it upwards without lowering and the gravity will keep the doors shut the entire time, thus keeping all the loose debris inside the robot.

Switch it to HD if it doesn't automatically do it for you

[youtube:1yr5zl99]amlWIJA070A[/youtube:1yr5zl99]