Not understanding the lure of robotic cleaners..

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Plettschner said:
If my Dolphin T45 died tomorrow, and I couldn't fix it (it is totally serviceable), I would replace it immediately. Never going back to manual vacuuming. My pool has never been cleaner.
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Agree. I bought one a few weeks ago and in two hours, my pool is immaculate. Also noticing the need to shock the pool isn't as great as before as it is making the pool cleaner to begin with.
 
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doug527 said:
For the price point robotics do not seem to be worth it. $700 plus and you are lucky to get a couple trouble free years out of them from everything I have read. Maybe it's the cool factor of having new technology clean your pool, but they just don't seem to be there yet and worth of the cost. With such small filters, I can't see them cleaning any good amount of debris. On the other hand looking at the suction vacuums they all seem to have their problems. Units costing $ 400, 500 seem to have issues...Any recommendations? I don't mind spending $500 for something that works, I would spend $700 on a robotic if I knew it would work trouble free for many years.

Thanks
Doug
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Doug,
The title of my reply is What the heck Good is a 3 Year Warranty if You Can't Get the Parts???
Short story - after 2 years of fine functioning (I replaced the foam rollers after one year) my Maytronics Dolphin Premier (purchased late summer of '19) stopped moving last week. Water is still pumping out the impeller, power supply has lights etc. It simply will not move and of course, shuts down after several minutes of running and not moving. I have a 3 year warranty, so I call the local Maytronics guy and he said with those facts, it must be a failed motor/drive. The bad news is he had no replacement units and said he would call Maytronics (that was on Sunday) on Monday, yesterday. I called back and he said that he would be happy to fix it under warranty but the "factory" has no units to give him and will not have any for about 3 weeks. REALLY?
I bought the Premier (I think the online cost was around $1200) specifically for the wall and waterline scrubbing which it did just great, and the leaf bag which I really needed due to overhanging trees etc. So basically all good until the drive failure that can't be fixed for weeks - "no units in stock" make me wonder if a lot of these are failing. Repair says all models use the same drive unit.
 
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Well I cheaped out and got the Dolphin E20(pow pow-kids named it). It came in yesterday. I've had fine dirt and pea gravel in my pool since we started landscaping. I was worried about the gravel. I threw pow pow in the pool and powered it up. I watched it for about 20 mins. I was starting to get worried about its capabilities.... then I told myself- stop worrying and go do your chores. Came back 2hrs later. Pow pow was sleeping and the pool was spotless. Fished it out of the water and checked the filter. All the gravel and dirt was in there. I was surprised. I am pleased with this $600 purchase. My fine filter cartridge will be in this afternoon.
 
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Lineman7 said:
Well I cheaped out and got the Dolphin E20(pow pow-kids named it). It came in yesterday. I've had fine dirt and pea gravel in my pool since we started landscaping. I was worried about the gravel. I threw pow pow in the pool and powered it up. I watched it for about 20 mins. I was starting to get worried about its capabilities.... then I told myself- stop worrying and go do your chores. Came back 2hrs later. Pow pow was sleeping and the pool was spotless. Fished it out of the water and checked the filter. All the gravel and dirt was in there. I was surprised. I am pleased with this $600 purchase. My fine filter cartridge will be in this afternoon.
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I am almost positive the E20 is the internet version of the Active 20 and S200, the most recommended bot on the forum :) Great choice
 
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abramcalhoun said:
anyone use what the pros use like Hammerhead or riptide vacuum?
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I purchased a Riptide XL, and used it very successfully to clean our pool one time. The following weekend I purchase a robot - a Leslie's branded Polaris VRX iQ+ (same as Polaris's ALPHA IQ+ except for color scheme), and I have no plans to ever use the Riptide XL again.

I understand why paid pool maintenance people - I have a hard time calling them "pros" now that I practice TFP methods - have Hammerheads hanging from the back of their pick-up trucks, but I also understand why we don't need them at home.

Pros:
- large 12v. car powered vacuums allow you to remove dead algae (especially effective with a 60 micron bag) from pool floor in a single pass; this dramatically reduces the need to constantly clean cartridge filters during a SLAM (or numerous back-flushes for other filter types). I suspect this is why this style of cleaner is a staple for paid pool maintenance guys and gals - they need to maximize what they can do in a single house visit.
- this style of cleaner would be really awesome for the seasons when the volume of leaves in a pool dramatically exceed what typical pool cleaners and robots can hold without emptying; this is certainly not awesome enough though for me to want to take up space to store this thing during the rest of the year

Cons (for homeowner's only, not necessarily cons for pros):
- slow and patience is preached here and I believe is definitely the best way for maintaining one's home pool; robots are AWESOME (brushing floor, walls and tile) or, powered side cleaners are good (for picking up debris, leaves, worms, etc.).
- the surface area of a 60 micron bag is tiny compared to our 320 sq. ft. Pentair Clean and Clear cartridge filter, so while you can completely remove silt, sand, dead algae in a single pass, the bag clogged and had to be cleaned about 6 times to remove the calcium particulate and dead algae from our medium size pool after a mega-shock.

Knowledgeable TFP'ers can now laugh with me - or at me - for my pool treating methods prior to this past March...

I'll have to explain a mega-shock - before finding TFP, when we returned home after being gone for one month, one end of our pool was green just like some of the gnarlyest photos we see here for "green pool." The Polaris Quattro was limping and only serving one end of the pool, Too, there was no chlorine at all for probably about 3 weeks. So, my mega-shock treatment was to add about 3 lbs. of Cal Hypo (granular shock) one day and brushing the whole pool. Then on day 2, I added another 1lb. of Cal Hypo to really keep Mr. Algae from not even thinking about starting a new colony. Nobody here needs to tell me this is not a good idea, but that's what I did for many years before finding this web site. Too, our white pool plaster (16,000 gal. gunnite pool / spa) is 30 years old now and will be replaced sometime in the future. It embarrass me to think what a proper test would have revealed for chlorine level, pH, and other levels during a mega-shock! I do know now that my CYA was up to 164 PPM at that time :). @JoyfulNoise - possibly Matt could guestimate what my CL PPM might have been!?

I'll end on a positive note now - I've never had to SLAM, and based on how clean and clear our pool has been since April, I may never need to. Test, treat, learn, and repeat along with learning from here is truly a great way to live.

Jim
 
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EngineerNerd said:
Knowledgeable TFP'ers can now laugh with me - or at me - for my pool treating methods prior to this past March...

I'll have to explain a mega-shock - before finding TFP, when we returned home after being gone for one month, one end of our pool was green just like some of the gnarlyest photos we see here for "green pool." The Polaris Quattro was limping and only serving one end of the pool, Too, there was no chlorine at all for probably about 3 weeks. So, my mega-shock treatment was to add about 3 lbs. of Cal Hypo (granular shock) one day and brushing the whole pool. Then on day 2, I added another 1lb. of Cal Hypo to really keep Mr. Algae from not even thinking about starting a new colony. Nobody here needs to tell me this is not a good idea, but that's what I did for many years before finding this web site. Too, our white pool plaster (16,000 gal. gunnite pool / spa) is 30 years old now and will be replaced sometime in the future. It embarrass me to think what a proper test would have revealed for chlorine level, pH, and other levels during a mega-shock! I do know now that my CYA was up to 164 PPM at that time :). @JoyfulNoise - possibly Matt could guestimate what my CL PPM might have been!?

I'll end on a positive note now - I've never had to SLAM, and based on how clean and clear our pool has been since April, I may never need to. Test, treat, learn, and repeat along with learning from here is truly a great way to live.

Jim
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The “mega-shock” you refer to is not all that laughable, pool techs do it all the time. They use a "shock & floc" method for killing an algae infested pool. Essentially they drop the pH below 7.0 typically going to almost zero TA and then they raise the FC to about 100-150ppm. AT that pH and FC, there is a huge amount of HOCl in the water and nothing biological can survive. They let sit for 12 hours or so and then will return late in the day to add floc. The floc causes all the dead algae to settle and then they come back 24 hours later to vacuum everything to waste. That's enough to clear all the algae out and get the water back to hazy blue. Usually they will then instruct the pool owner to maintain chlorine at shock levels (that's what they call 5ppm ... hahahahah) and brush/vacuum until the water clears. It's a very fast, and dangerous, way to clear a pool. It also relies on a pool owner having a vacuum to waste option which uses a ton of water with all the floc removal. But, if you're a pro and willing to do it, it can get a pool clear quickly. However, the chemical balance will likely be way off with low TA and high CC's until the chlorine has had time to oxidize everything. Most unsuspecting pool owners know nothing about that so they just see clear water and think, "wow! that guy was amazing at clearing up my swamp pool..."
 
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I used a Polaris 280 for years. It was good at getting large sand type dirt, leaves, flower petals, bits of grass, but nothing fine. I bought a Triton PS Plus (Basically, a bright orange S300i) and threw it in the pool with the ultrafine filters. WOW! The pool has never been cleaner. There is always some ultrafine silt in the filters that would at best be caught by my main filter. It cleans the walls and tile (minimizing brushing) while only using 0.4kWh per day, vs. 3kWh per day for the Polaris 280. I like the fact that I can set the times and cleaning type for each day. T.O.M. lives in the pool.
I did buy a Pool Blaster Max. This is a li-ion powered mini-suction system. I love it for cleaning the spa (2 minutes), steps and spot cleaning the pool anywhere T.O.M. misses.
Add in a SWG and workload on the pool drops drastically. Test once a week. Make adjustments once a week. Brush the areas of the pool the robot can't. Clean the skimmers daily. I don't know why someone would hire a service when they could have a SWG and a Pool Robot.
 
I have a polaris 949 sport. we get sandstorms on a regular basis. the super fine cannister has saved me so much time from having to vacuum, then wash the cartridge filters.
 
jdang307 said:
I don’t think so. Active 20 has a longer cord, swivel, and I think two brushes vs 1.

I’m thinking of springing for this exact model as it’s fairly cheap.
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They are Identical. Same cord, same length, same 2 brushes - 1 active, etc. S200 has a darker color scheme. T35 is also the same and the Quantum.

The Triton PS and a few others are similar, but they do not come with the the ultrafine filters.
 
Selenap said:
I have a suction side vacuum. $100. It just meanders around on low speed. It climbs the walls. It will get stuck at the steps though. It picks up everything, including baby walnuts. A robot would be cool but finding a big enough one for a 43’ long agp that don’t cost more than my actual pool has been impossible. The cool thing about what I do use is that it rotates my water. That comes at the price of no skimmer use while it’s attached. I’ve thought about the pressure side types but since what I got is working fine, I can’t justify spending money until it breaks.
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what model is this ?
 

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