Robot or nobot

[rajung]

I have had my PB Max vac for 5 years and still works great but I do maintain it every time I use it, such as to make sure it is out in the sun to dry laying in different angles to make sure any water caught gets drained the best it can. Also the lithium battery change was due to the fact they weren't available when I purchased mine originally with the standard NiCad, but it still worked.
The smaller vacs might be good for kiddie pools or spas such as the ones at Menards.
The Blaster for main source of cleaning would be a real challenge, depending on how much needs cleaned out.
You would be changing/ cleaning the bag a lot.
And most likely the battery would be drained dead in a large pool.
Just my opinion, but I would say the pool blaster max and up from there, anything smaller I would not mess with, better off going the skimmer port and hose vac routine.
So my best opinion for your situation, I would skip the vac to skimmer option, get the Dolphin E10, and hold off on the vac on a pole, get a good test kit, a couple brushes different sized if needed, and brush once a week.
If you decide to get the Dolphin and have a lot of fine dirt that you have to deal with like I do and did, since I don't get many leaves, get the extra ultra fine basket also, its 60.00 but way worth it, my Aquabot pool rover I originally bought even with fine bags could not compare to the Dolphin, Good for leaves and larger things but that's it.

 

[Costas > DownUnder]

I have found this device handy when vacuuming a lot of pool building debris recently: MultiCyclone 16 Centrifugal Filter - Waterco

I was in a situation where I wanted to clean the pool floor but there was a lot of heavy debris (heavy sand, gravel, bits of concrete etc) on the floor which I did not want stuck in my pump or plumbing.

I found that using hairnets over the skimmer basket trapped all the heavy debris and the Multicyclone trapped the majority of the finer dirt before it ended up in my filter.

It resulted in minimal backwash time (around 30 secs) before my filter was clean again. The Multicyclone itself requires very little water to flush so my overall water consumption for the whole exercise was quite minimal.


My pool floor before the clean:

Heavy debris caught in skimmer hairnet... I went through around 4 hairnets while vacuuming:

Initial short/quick run to see how well the hairnet would work.

2nd hairnet:

Multicyclone pre-filter mounted on outlet of pump:

After the cleaning process... A lot of fine dirt captured in the unit which did not end up in my main filter...!

Gave my M500 its first ever run in the pool... Not that I had missed much...

 

[pitguy3]

MrB, that is exactly what I was referring to... We have issues with flying ants and they are small enough to make it through the basket and into the sand. With the knee high, it traps them there and I can just hose them off and reinstall it. I do have to change it out every week or so, but hosing it off seems to work well.

As for my Pool Blaster, I am am going on my 3rd year with it. My Dad gave it to me after he used it for 2 years. I recently had the batteries changed out and purchased a better charging system other than the standard one. It works wonders for me!