Just in case this helps anyone out in the future, I thought I'd lay out my thoughts/review on the Haward Aquavac 650 vs the Hayward TigerShark QC.
So why am I replacing an Aquavac 650 with a Tigershark? Right towards the end of my 3 year warranty period a few weeks ago, the Aquavac 650 died. I can elaborate in much further detail, but short version is it was a shooting an error code indicating it had lots communication with the motor. It's definitely a motor issue and doesn't take long to google around and find that this is a very common problem with those Aquavac's. I called Hayward and explained the situation and the guy said "yep that is definitely the motor. We have discontinued this model and are no longer stocking parts for it. I can send you a brand new Hayward TigerShark QC as a replacement". He went on to say that their TigerSharks are more reliable and the vibe I got is the Aquavac's have probably cost them a lot of money and headache with the failing motor. I didn't love the fact that the Hayward TigerShark QC didn't have remote control capabilities but no big deal as I rarely used it anyway on my Aquavac 650. It was clear the Tigershark didn't have as much features, but ultimitely I thought well I am getting a brand new $1500 robot right at the end of the warranty period + the caddy, so I probably shouldn't complain too much. Here are my observations:
Aquavac 650:
Man I really loved it (until it broke). For 3 pool seasons, it worked flawlessly everytime. It had a finer mesh cover that I mostly used and frankly I never 1 time have manually vacuumed my pool since I've owned it. The big thing about the Aquavac 650 was the emptying of it. When done, you'd pull it out of the water, walk over to wherever you wanted to dump it, open the flap and dump all the water/crud out in one go. Didn't have to hose any filters or anything. Occasionaly I could take two seconds to hose off that fine cover and start to finish, I could have the thing emptied and put away in 60 seconds. It never got stuck at any point that I had it. It climbed the walls effortlessly and always did a great job cleaning while not damaging anything. A few annoyances with floating cable getting tangled but nothing major. That's about the only complaint I could come up with.
Finally abruptly at the end of this season the first thing I noticed is when I went to start it, a red blinking error light would happen indicating that perhaps debris or something was preventing the motor from turning and starting. There were no debris or anything. I manually turned the deal that twists when the motor starts, restarted it, and it worked fine and did its job. That happened 2 or 3 more times and then all of a sudden I got a different error code indicating that the motor is nonresponsive. No matter what I did, that error code remained. Tried it all....unplugging of course both power and the flaoting cable, tried a remote system update, tried it all and it will no longer recognize motor. Called Hayward and told him that and didn't need to hear anything further, saying yes thats common and here's what we are gonna do to replace it.
TigerShark QC:
So within a week, I received a brand new TigerShark QC and the caddy. It was sealed brand new in the box and the serial number indicated it was manufactured July of this year, so I feel about certain it was new. I got it all unboxed, put it together and decided to run it twice in the pool before I closed it to make sure it was working and doing a good job. So the QC has a "Quick clean" cycle that I believe allows it to run for 1.5 hours or the "full cycle" which is around 4 hours. Compared to the Aquavac 650, it just had a start button to press and I would estimate it would take somewhere between 2-3 hours to clean. I did a full cycle and let it do its thing. First thing I noticed is right off the bat it tried to climb the walls but would only get a little bit up the way but then turn around. When I looked later it was climbing the walls so maybe its a little hit or miss but was working.
Then about an hour or so in, I went to check on it and it was stuck on one of my main drains?!?! I googled and found several posts on this website saying that is a known problem with the TigerShark. That really stinks from my perspective because the Aquavac never one time got stuck. My pool pump runs on a low speed so I didn't think that was causing it to stick, but for good measure I did turn the pool pump off. It came with a piece that I now know is called a "Inlet High Velocity" part that attached to the bottom of the vacuum. I initally put that on so that was on there. That supposedly is supposed to help keep it elevated on the drain but obviously that didn't work out. The other thing is it came with something called an "impeller speed limiter" that was attached to the top of the vacuum. I went ahead and removed that, turned the pool pump completely off, set it back in and started it again. Unfortunately within about a half hour it was stuck on one of the main drains again. So now the only other thing to potentially try what's called a "Main drain clip-on" to put on each of the main drains thats supposed to elevate the vacuum up enough to where it won't get stuck. About $20 each. Suppose I can buy that next season and try it because I do not want to have to babysit this thing while its running, especially coming from a machine that worked flawlessly everytime (until it died).
The other big negative? CLEANING IT! I'm very spoiled I know coming from a vacuum where you pressed one button and it dumped out all gunk along with the water is was holding in the basket. With this, I felt like I had to spend 5 minutes hosing down the 2 filter pieces and I still didn't get 100% of the stuff out of the filters. When I ran it the 2nd time it went quicker (was extra dirty the first time because I went about 2 weeks without a vacuum) and it was easier, but still took seveal minutes to hose it all off.
So all in all, this TigerShark QC feels like a significant downgrade compared to the Aquavac 650. I will say when it wasn't stuck on the main drain (had to pull it off several times), it did do an equally good job of getting the pool clean. So it does do its job of cleaning but it definitely feels like more of a hassle cleaning it and getting it all put away compared to the aquavac. I suppose a pro could be that maybe this will last me longer? I saw a post of a guy saying his tigershark lasted 14 years! I obviously don't expect that but if I can get even 6-7 years out of it compared to the 3 I got with this one I guess that would be a win.
Questions for you guys:
1. Is my plan of buying a clip from the "Main drain clip-on" site the best idea going forward for it to not get stuck on the main drain? Any other things to try that may help? Should I actually remove the "Inlet High Velocity" part and see if that does anything? It causes the middle portion to be elevated maybe 1/4" or so. Maybe it needs to not be elevated?
2. Is there any information/literature/posts anywhere detailing perhaps an easy way to fix that motor on the Aquavac 650? I do still have the Aquavac as they didn't want me to send it back. A new motor from 3rd party sites is $5-600 which stinks (the popular dolphin nautilus can be had for $7-800 so hard to justify that for a motor when other parts may break too). Hayward will give no support on how to try to fix the motor as its supposed to be sealed and not meant to be worked on but if there's any information anywhere I would definitely love to try to fix it. I'd probably spend a few hundred on Ebay or somewhere for a motor as it would be worth it to me to continue to use the Aquavac, but can't justify $600.
So why am I replacing an Aquavac 650 with a Tigershark? Right towards the end of my 3 year warranty period a few weeks ago, the Aquavac 650 died. I can elaborate in much further detail, but short version is it was a shooting an error code indicating it had lots communication with the motor. It's definitely a motor issue and doesn't take long to google around and find that this is a very common problem with those Aquavac's. I called Hayward and explained the situation and the guy said "yep that is definitely the motor. We have discontinued this model and are no longer stocking parts for it. I can send you a brand new Hayward TigerShark QC as a replacement". He went on to say that their TigerSharks are more reliable and the vibe I got is the Aquavac's have probably cost them a lot of money and headache with the failing motor. I didn't love the fact that the Hayward TigerShark QC didn't have remote control capabilities but no big deal as I rarely used it anyway on my Aquavac 650. It was clear the Tigershark didn't have as much features, but ultimitely I thought well I am getting a brand new $1500 robot right at the end of the warranty period + the caddy, so I probably shouldn't complain too much. Here are my observations:
Aquavac 650:
Man I really loved it (until it broke). For 3 pool seasons, it worked flawlessly everytime. It had a finer mesh cover that I mostly used and frankly I never 1 time have manually vacuumed my pool since I've owned it. The big thing about the Aquavac 650 was the emptying of it. When done, you'd pull it out of the water, walk over to wherever you wanted to dump it, open the flap and dump all the water/crud out in one go. Didn't have to hose any filters or anything. Occasionaly I could take two seconds to hose off that fine cover and start to finish, I could have the thing emptied and put away in 60 seconds. It never got stuck at any point that I had it. It climbed the walls effortlessly and always did a great job cleaning while not damaging anything. A few annoyances with floating cable getting tangled but nothing major. That's about the only complaint I could come up with.
Finally abruptly at the end of this season the first thing I noticed is when I went to start it, a red blinking error light would happen indicating that perhaps debris or something was preventing the motor from turning and starting. There were no debris or anything. I manually turned the deal that twists when the motor starts, restarted it, and it worked fine and did its job. That happened 2 or 3 more times and then all of a sudden I got a different error code indicating that the motor is nonresponsive. No matter what I did, that error code remained. Tried it all....unplugging of course both power and the flaoting cable, tried a remote system update, tried it all and it will no longer recognize motor. Called Hayward and told him that and didn't need to hear anything further, saying yes thats common and here's what we are gonna do to replace it.
TigerShark QC:
So within a week, I received a brand new TigerShark QC and the caddy. It was sealed brand new in the box and the serial number indicated it was manufactured July of this year, so I feel about certain it was new. I got it all unboxed, put it together and decided to run it twice in the pool before I closed it to make sure it was working and doing a good job. So the QC has a "Quick clean" cycle that I believe allows it to run for 1.5 hours or the "full cycle" which is around 4 hours. Compared to the Aquavac 650, it just had a start button to press and I would estimate it would take somewhere between 2-3 hours to clean. I did a full cycle and let it do its thing. First thing I noticed is right off the bat it tried to climb the walls but would only get a little bit up the way but then turn around. When I looked later it was climbing the walls so maybe its a little hit or miss but was working.
Then about an hour or so in, I went to check on it and it was stuck on one of my main drains?!?! I googled and found several posts on this website saying that is a known problem with the TigerShark. That really stinks from my perspective because the Aquavac never one time got stuck. My pool pump runs on a low speed so I didn't think that was causing it to stick, but for good measure I did turn the pool pump off. It came with a piece that I now know is called a "Inlet High Velocity" part that attached to the bottom of the vacuum. I initally put that on so that was on there. That supposedly is supposed to help keep it elevated on the drain but obviously that didn't work out. The other thing is it came with something called an "impeller speed limiter" that was attached to the top of the vacuum. I went ahead and removed that, turned the pool pump completely off, set it back in and started it again. Unfortunately within about a half hour it was stuck on one of the main drains again. So now the only other thing to potentially try what's called a "Main drain clip-on" to put on each of the main drains thats supposed to elevate the vacuum up enough to where it won't get stuck. About $20 each. Suppose I can buy that next season and try it because I do not want to have to babysit this thing while its running, especially coming from a machine that worked flawlessly everytime (until it died).
The other big negative? CLEANING IT! I'm very spoiled I know coming from a vacuum where you pressed one button and it dumped out all gunk along with the water is was holding in the basket. With this, I felt like I had to spend 5 minutes hosing down the 2 filter pieces and I still didn't get 100% of the stuff out of the filters. When I ran it the 2nd time it went quicker (was extra dirty the first time because I went about 2 weeks without a vacuum) and it was easier, but still took seveal minutes to hose it all off.
So all in all, this TigerShark QC feels like a significant downgrade compared to the Aquavac 650. I will say when it wasn't stuck on the main drain (had to pull it off several times), it did do an equally good job of getting the pool clean. So it does do its job of cleaning but it definitely feels like more of a hassle cleaning it and getting it all put away compared to the aquavac. I suppose a pro could be that maybe this will last me longer? I saw a post of a guy saying his tigershark lasted 14 years! I obviously don't expect that but if I can get even 6-7 years out of it compared to the 3 I got with this one I guess that would be a win.
Questions for you guys:
1. Is my plan of buying a clip from the "Main drain clip-on" site the best idea going forward for it to not get stuck on the main drain? Any other things to try that may help? Should I actually remove the "Inlet High Velocity" part and see if that does anything? It causes the middle portion to be elevated maybe 1/4" or so. Maybe it needs to not be elevated?
2. Is there any information/literature/posts anywhere detailing perhaps an easy way to fix that motor on the Aquavac 650? I do still have the Aquavac as they didn't want me to send it back. A new motor from 3rd party sites is $5-600 which stinks (the popular dolphin nautilus can be had for $7-800 so hard to justify that for a motor when other parts may break too). Hayward will give no support on how to try to fix the motor as its supposed to be sealed and not meant to be worked on but if there's any information anywhere I would definitely love to try to fix it. I'd probably spend a few hundred on Ebay or somewhere for a motor as it would be worth it to me to continue to use the Aquavac, but can't justify $600.