New Pool Robot Manufacturer... with Brushless Motors(!)?

[lykedoctor]

Hi All,

After going through the messy and laborous process of replacing the two propulsion/drive motor brushes on my Dolphin M400 it now looks like I'll have to repeat the process again on the impeller motor. Well, I started investigating to see if there were any robots on the market with brushless motors (like all new premium cordless drills) to avoid this major failure point. It seems that the Dolphin Premier advertises brushless motors but I can't find anything outside of a Maytronics marketing bullet point to verify this. But in my googling around I stumbled on a brand new robot called the Chasing CM600. Chasing seems to be a Chinese underwater drone/robot manufacturer but the model they have released looks suspiciously like the current Dolphin ones with some minor cosmetic changes. But, Chasing states they added custom brushless motors to their model. Does anyone know anything about this? I am wondering if it is an unlicensed clone of a Dolphin or a real partnership white label (like Pentair) with Maytronics.

chasing

潜行创新移动端官网

www.chasing.com

And does anybody know of a robot with confirmed brushless motors?
Cheers

 

[JoyfulNoise]

You’ve discovered what many of us have to come to realize - most robots are built with cheap electric DC motors that are unsuited for the task but are used anyway so that the robot manufacturers can maximize profits. I, personally, have given up on robots and went back to using my suction side cleaner. They are, in my opinion, simply not worth their cost no matter how “efficiently” they clean. They are designed with a finite lifetime and the major manufacturers offer useless warranties. They have a revenue model that works for them and they’re not going to change it.

Not sure I can say anything constructive about the Chinese manufacturer you found but, if their track record is like lost Chinese companies, their will be cheap imitations if what’s already available and poorly made.

You can look into AIPER and see if they are using brushless dc motors since they are offering cordless robot products. I would think they would need to use brushless motors in their designs.

 

[lykedoctor]

You’ve discovered what many of us have to come to realize - most robots are built with cheap electric DC motors that are unsuited for the task but are used anyway so that the robot manufacturers can maximize profits. I, personally, have given up on robots and went back to using my suction side cleaner. They are, in my opinion, simply not worth their cost no matter how “efficiently” they clean. They are designed with a finite lifetime and the major manufacturers offer useless warranties. They have a revenue model that works for them and they’re not going to change it.

Not sure I can say anything constructive about the Chinese manufacturer you found but, if their track record is like lost Chinese companies, their will be cheap imitations if what’s already available and poorly made.

You can look into AIPER and see if they are using brushless dc motors since they are offering cordless robot products. I would think they would need to use brushless motors in their designs.

Yep, it's a gravytrain profit model as the 2 and 3 year warranties all perfectly coincide with the time it takes the 50 cent carbon brush to wear out. It seems people are in a continuous cycle of replacing huge assemblies or entire robots every 3 or 4 years. I don't see myself leaving the robot world due to pure laziness I'd love to see a youtuber do a video on a brushless motor upgrade. No small feat with new power requirements and logic boards and to keep it sealed up underwater. Aiper is a good suggestion, I'll check it out next time. I pulled the plug and got a dolphin explorer e30.

 

[tstex]

Matt nailed it...my dolphin pwr supply just cratered and still no pwr supply after placing an order 2 weeks ago and i have useless dolphin just gathering pollen dust. The shark I had before was so poorly built that virtually everything was replaced on it during the warranty period: the entire motor, power cord, the handle 3 times, countless other parts. It was in the service shop 7 diff times. The service center was 25 miles round trip so that was 175 miles of driving...that wasn't covered under warranty....and I always took it out of the water after it ran its cycle, hosed it down and put it under cover..

To conclude, after this matronics product dies, no more robots for me either...renting a robot for $500/yr is not a good investment IMHO...

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Yep, it's a gravytrain profit model as the 2 and 3 year warranties all perfectly coincide with the time it takes the 50 cent carbon brush to wear out. It seems people are in a continuous cycle of replacing huge assemblies or entire robots every 3 or 4 years. I don't see myself leaving the robot world due to pure laziness I'd love to see a youtuber do a video on a brushless motor upgrade. No small feat with new power requirements and logic boards and to keep it sealed up underwater. Aiper is a good suggestion, I'll check it out next time. I pulled the plug and got a dolphin explorer e30.

I think if you have the expectation in mind that it will only last 3-5 years before something major happens, then you won’t be as disappointed by having to potentially replace it. But it does lock you into the roughly $200/yr cycle to clean a pool. I get it that most busy people will gladly pay that much to not have to think about it but it’s just sad how poorly engineered these robots are.

Brushless motors are great but they’d require a different power output design for the control board. So I don’t see Maytronics scrapping their control board design (big costs associated with that) all to add a more reliable motor to the robot which would only reduce their revenues … doesn’t make any financial or business sense on their part.

 

[jkozas]

Matt nailed it...my dolphin pwr supply just cratered and still no pwr supply after placing an order 2 weeks ago and i have useless dolphin just gathering pollen dust. The shark I had before was so poorly built that virtually everything was replaced on it during the warranty period: the entire motor, power cord, the handle 3 times, countless other parts. It was in the service shop 7 diff times. The service center was 25 miles round trip so that was 175 miles of driving...that wasn't covered under warranty....and I always took it out of the water after it ran its cycle, hosed it down and put it under cover..

To conclude, after this matronics product dies, no more robots for me either...renting a robot for $500/yr is not a good investment IMHO...

where did you buy it from? or was it a warranty replacement? Just be weary of dropshipping companies.

 

[jkozas]

Yep, it's a gravytrain profit model as the 2 and 3 year warranties all perfectly coincide with the time it takes the 50 cent carbon brush to wear out. It seems people are in a continuous cycle of replacing huge assemblies or entire robots every 3 or 4 years. I don't see myself leaving the robot world due to pure laziness I'd love to see a youtuber do a video on a brushless motor upgrade. No small feat with new power requirements and logic boards and to keep it sealed up underwater. Aiper is a good suggestion, I'll check it out next time. I pulled the plug and got a dolphin explorer e30.

I do work on dolphins every day and Can not stress enough that running in high chlorine levels really does cut the life expectancy. I always suggest whenever you shock the pool or bring that chlorine level up leave the robot out of the pool for a day until that level goes back down. ALSO about 80% of our warranty claims come through in April and May and its usually from people throwing it in excessively dirty pools for spring cleaning. the goal is not to strain these motors with large piles of leaves and such. its a common misconception but they are not designed for spring cleaning, they are designed to KEEP your pool clean. Now i do not know what you do with the cleaner and im not saying you do these things but those are two of the biggest trends I see. I see cleaners come back after a year or 2 looking like they are 10 years old and I see 7 year old cleaners looking relatively new.

 

[jkozas]

I think if you have the expectation in mind that it will only last 3-5 years before something major happens, then you won’t be as disappointed by having to potentially replace it. But it does lock you into the roughly $200/yr cycle to clean a pool. I get it that most busy people will gladly pay that much to not have to think about it but it’s just sad how poorly engineered these robots are.

Brushless motors are great but they’d require a different power output design for the control board. So I don’t see Maytronics scrapping their control board design (big costs associated with that) all to add a more reliable motor to the robot which would only reduce their revenues … doesn’t make any financial or business sense on their part.

Agree. However, I would add that the conditions of the water like the chlorine level have a big effect. I tell people there are three mindsets. on one end it's leaving it in the pool 24/7. I tell people in that case you're looking at 2 to 3 years. in the instructions, it says not to leave it or run it in high chlorine which is often ignored. On the other end it's taking it out when not using it and keeping it out of high chlorine. I suggest 5 to 8 years is POSSIBLE as I've seen it many many times. I suggest a middle ground. leave it in but take it out when you shock it and leave it out until that chlorine drops back down usually after a day or two. you get the best of both worlds are that point.

 

[Toxophilite]

Agree. However, I would add that the conditions of the water like the chlorine level have a big effect. I tell people there are three mindsets. on one end it's leaving it in the pool 24/7. I tell people in that case you're looking at 2 to 3 years. in the instructions, it says not to leave it or run it in high chlorine which is often ignored. On the other end it's taking it out when not using it and keeping it out of high chlorine. I suggest 5 to 8 years is POSSIBLE as I've seen it many many times. I suggest a middle ground. leave it in but take it out when you shock it and leave it out until that chlorine drops back down usually after a day or two. you get the best of both worlds are that point.

Good info, and would add that frequency of use has to be great contributor to longevity. Brushes are technically serviceable items, which even in good environment are only worth several thousand hours. If I used mine 2 hours per week, took it out each time, cleaned and stored, I'm sure the longevity factor by which I exceed someone who has 3x the use is going to be much different.

 

[jkozas]

Good info, and would add that frequency of use has to be great contributor to longevity. Brushes are technically serviceable items, which even in good environment are only worth several thousand hours. If I used mine 2 hours per week, took it out each time, cleaned and stored, I'm sure the longevity factor by which I exceed someone who has 3x the use is going to be much different.

Honestly In my experience just due to spring cleaning Ive seen that cleaners used year round in southern states last longer than in northern states where we close our pools. The one's year-round are under less strain in terms of cleaning as the pool would rarely ever get insanely dirty since the robot is running often

 

[jkozas]

Hi All,

After going through the messy and laborous process of replacing the two propulsion/drive motor brushes on my Dolphin M400 it now looks like I'll have to repeat the process again on the impeller motor. Well, I started investigating to see if there were any robots on the market with brushless motors (like all new premium cordless drills) to avoid this major failure point. It seems that the Dolphin Premier advertises brushless motors but I can't find anything outside of a Maytronics marketing bullet point to verify this. But in my googling around I stumbled on a brand new robot called the Chasing CM600. Chasing seems to be a Chinese underwater drone/robot manufacturer but the model they have released looks suspiciously like the current Dolphin ones with some minor cosmetic changes. But, Chasing states they added custom brushless motors to their model. Does anyone know anything about this? I am wondering if it is an unlicensed clone of a Dolphin or a real partnership white label (like Pentair) with Maytronics.

chasing

潜行创新移动端官网

www.chasing.com

And does anybody know of a robot with confirmed brushless motors?
Cheers

the dolphin commercial series are brushless motors.. WAVE 60,80,100

 

[jkozas]

the dolphin commercial series are brushless motors.. WAVE 60,80

also the chasing CM600 is a srtaight rip off. BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THAT. The chinese companies have been ripping off a lot of other companies over the last year it is just known within the industry. you will also see a lot of fake websites start to pop up as well.

 

[lykedoctor]

Honestly In my experience just due to spring cleaning Ive seen that cleaners used year round in southern states last longer than in northern states where we close our pools. The one's year-round are under less strain in terms of cleaning as the pool would rarely ever get insanely dirty since the robot is running often

I am in North Carolina and would leave my Dolphin M400 in 24/7/365 and remove it only for swim activities. I would run it minimum once per day. We had a flood where I received a ton of mud in the pool and the m400 performed flawlessly, pretty incredible actually.

I self serviced the unit myself including motor tear downs and resoldering the brushes. I don't see how chlorine levels would affect a sealed unit—and don't forget to reapply gasket lube to keep it well sealed! I just got fed up by the 3rd motor, which happened to be the impeller motor and it is a slightly different design but much harder to crack open. I had been looking for an excuse to upgrade to a new basket style filter design vs. the narrow cartridges. My new Dolphin Explorer E30 was purchased from the Home Depot online.

Where did you find the Wave series contains brushless motors?

 

[lykedoctor]

I think if you have the expectation in mind that it will only last 3-5 years before something major happens, then you won’t be as disappointed by having to potentially replace it. But it does lock you into the roughly $200/yr cycle to clean a pool. I get it that most busy people will gladly pay that much to not have to think about it but it’s just sad how poorly engineered these robots are.

Brushless motors are great but they’d require a different power output design for the control board. So I don’t see Maytronics scrapping their control board design (big costs associated with that) all to add a more reliable motor to the robot which would only reduce their revenues … doesn’t make any financial or business sense on their part.

nailed it!

 

[jkozas]

I am in North Carolina and would leave my Dolphin M400 in 24/7/365 and remove it only for swim activities. I would run it minimum once per day. We had a flood where I received a ton of mud in the pool and the m400 performed flawlessly, pretty incredible actually.

I self serviced the unit myself including motor tear downs and resoldering the brushes. I don't see how chlorine levels would affect a sealed unit—and don't forget to reapply gasket lube to keep it well sealed! I just got fed up by the 3rd motor, which happened to be the impeller motor and it is a slightly different design but much harder to crack open. I had been looking for an excuse to upgrade to a new basket style filter design vs. the narrow cartridges. My new Dolphin Explorer E30 was purchased from the Home Depot online.

Where did you find the Wave series contains brushless motors?

I agree to have an m4 myself its a powerhouse. I'm in no way saying that they can't be used for that. it's not so much mud I mean more huge piles of leaves and twigs. usually those two things. the commercial units tend to have the better stuff. of course there's a higher cost to consider as well. its one of those details not really advertised unfortunately

 

[PoolSweaper]

You’ve discovered what many of us have to come to realize - most robots are built with cheap electric DC motors that are unsuited for the task but are used anyway so that the robot manufacturers can maximize profits. I, personally, have given up on robots and went back to using my suction side cleaner. They are, in my opinion, simply not worth their cost no matter how “efficiently” they clean. They are designed with a finite lifetime and the major manufacturers offer useless warranties. They have a revenue model that works for them and they’re not going to change it.

Not sure I can say anything constructive about the Chinese manufacturer you found but, if their track record is like lost Chinese companies, their will be cheap imitations if what’s already available and poorly made.

You can look into AIPER and see if they are using brushless dc motors since they are offering cordless robot products. I would think they would need to use brushless motors in their designs.

I have an Aiper 1500 cordless robotic cleaner that I purchased in the fall of 2021. I have been very happy with its performance up until now. when new and fully charged the 1500 would climb walls like a dream all the way up to the water line. Sometimes it climbed walls more than it would follow along the pool floor, which was somewhat annoying, but it has a big debris basket and would still tend to pick up a lot of debris on a single charge. What I have never liked about the 1500 is the long charging time of 8 hours which makes it impractical for daily cleaning, unless you keep up with making sure to retrieve from the pool and charge every evening. Not practical for most people, IMO. After 1 1/2 years it has stopped being able to climb walls. It tries, but mine can only get up 1/4 of the wall before falling down. It’s also started to do a flip over and back on a regular basis, that it did not do prior. The last con is that it has no mapping system, so it doesn’t always move to where the debris is located, which just makes you have to use it more often to clean up the entire pool. I wouldn’t purchase the 1500 today, with what I paid for it.
But, I am considering the newer version of the Aiper 1500, which is the Aiper Pro, that marketing claims has a longer run time of 180 minutes, and only a 2.5 hour to fully charge. My concern is am I going to run into the same problem with Aiper’s newer, more powerful cleaner after owning the older 1500 version for only 1 1/2 years before it stopped working efficiently, because the cost is prohibitive if these robotic cleaners are only going to last less than 2 years before they start to degrade in use.

 

[R3mixMC]

Hi All,

After going through the messy and laborous process of replacing the two propulsion/drive motor brushes on my Dolphin M400 it now looks like I'll have to repeat the process again on the impeller motor. Well, I started investigating to see if there were any robots on the market with brushless motors (like all new premium cordless drills) to avoid this major failure point. It seems that the Dolphin Premier advertises brushless motors but I can't find anything outside of a Maytronics marketing bullet point to verify this. But in my googling around I stumbled on a brand new robot called the Chasing CM600. Chasing seems to be a Chinese underwater drone/robot manufacturer but the model they have released looks suspiciously like the current Dolphin ones with some minor cosmetic changes. But, Chasing states they added custom brushless motors to their model. Does anyone know anything about this? I am wondering if it is an unlicensed clone of a Dolphin or a real partnership white label (like Pentair) with Maytronics.

chasing

潜行创新移动端官网

www.chasing.com

And does anybody know of a robot with confirmed brushless motors?
Cheers

In addition to the Dolphin Premier, I came across advertising that suggested the Dolphin Sigma has brushless motors as well. I contacted an online retailer and asked to confirm. They thought the Sigma had brushless motors but weren't 100% certain so the customer service rep said he would reach out to Maytronics to confirm. The next day they contacted me to confirm that both the Dolphin Premier and the Dolphin Sigma have brushless motors. Interestingly, these two bots have 36 month warranties instead of 24 months like most of the other Dolphin bots. This has me wondering if the reason Maytronics offers the 36 month warranty is specifically because they know the brushless motors last longer? If so, then maybe all the Dolphin bots with 36 month warranties have brushless motors (just my hypothesis, not yet confirmed). In 2023, the following Dolphin bots have 36 month warranties, listed from lowest to highest MSRP: Premier, Sigma, Nautilus CC Supreme, M400, M600, Active 60, Explore 70, Liberty 400.

 

[lykedoctor]

In addition to the Dolphin Premier, I came across advertising that suggested the Dolphin Sigma has brushless motors as well. I contacted an online retailer and asked to confirm. They thought the Sigma had brushless motors but weren't 100% certain so the customer service rep said he would reach out to Maytronics to confirm. The next day they contacted me to confirm that both the Dolphin Premier and the Dolphin Sigma have brushless motors. Interestingly, these two bots have 36 month warranties instead of 24 months like most of the other Dolphin bots. This has me wondering if the reason Maytronics offers the 36 month warranty is specifically because they know the brushless motors last longer? If so, then maybe all the Dolphin bots with 36 month warranties have brushless motors (just my hypothesis, not yet confirmed). In 2023, the following Dolphin bots have 36 month warranties, listed from lowest to highest MSRP: Premier, Sigma, Nautilus CC Supreme, M400, M600, Active 60, Explore 70, Liberty 400.

Interesting theory. But I can 100% confirm that the M400 has brushed motors. I replaced the brushes on 2 of the 3 motors in my m400. Kinda a pain in the butt, and quite dirty, but the motors worked like new after. I think the 36 month warranty is to just give the buyers of $1K+ models a little bit more piece of mind about their purchase. It's definitely the brushes that wear out after 3ish years though. It's insane that Dolphin doesn't sell replacement brushes for a few cents or even a replacement motor for 50 bucks or something vs the entire $300 motor housing.