My Dolphin isn't doing a very good job

[wayner]

I have a Dolphin that is about five years old. It is working somewhat as it collects debris, but the pool still has lots of smaller debris in the bottom that the Dolphin is not collecting. When I empty the basket I can see that it is collecting some debris from the pool, including small leaves, insects, dirt/sand, etc. But it is missing more than it is getting.

I don't have a lot of trees near the pool, so I don't get a ton or debris, but normally I almost never have to do a manual vacuum, the Dolphin would do a good enough job. But not this year. Anyone have any suggesions? It isn't giving me any error codes, as near as I can tell. I had an impeller overload a few years ago, and I had it serviced for that and repaired. My pool water is still very cold, around 65F. Does it perform worse in lower temperatures?

 

[JigsawEarth]

Have you inspected the filters? One of mine had a few mm gap at the top allowing a lot of dirt through. Bought some new ones and its fine now.

 

[Mdragger88]

Which dolphin do you have?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Are you sure your Dolphin is actually running a full cleaning cycle? 5 years is close to End Of Life for robot cleaners. When my Dolphin reached the 5 year mark, I remember it starting up and running for about 30mins or so, then I would come back and see that it was in the exact position where I last saw it. Didn’t realize it at the time, but it was shutting down mid-cycle and not cleaning. No error codes thrown and the power supply just had to dumb blue light on. Sadly these units are not very sophisticated and give very little diagnostic info. So you might think it’s running but it could simply be failing when you’re not watching it.

 

[wayner]

I have the S300 that was purchased in 2018. It does seem to be running for the full cycle.

@JigsawEarth - Where are the filters? Do you mean the basket? Yes, I empty that all the time. I tried switching from the pleated paper filter basket inserts to the mesh inserts, but that didn't seem to make difference.

 

[SecoSteve]

Have you checked this part? Mine was ripped and maybe it's letting debris get back in the pool.

9980891 - Dolphin Non Return Flap - Maytronics

This is a Maytronics Non-Return Flap for several Dolphin pool cleaners. These models include: Supreme M4 (2010), Supreme M5 (2010), M3 (E55), Liberty (Battery), Bio, C3/C4, Wave 65/90, Wave 60/80, M400, M500, C3 Dynamic, Triton Plus, M400, M500, Sigma, Odyssey, Nautilus CC Plus, Aquarius XL, and...

www.poolweb.com

 

[wayner]

That flap appears to be intact, but I will have a closer look.

 

[Jimrahbe]

W,

If it drives around ok, then the problem has to be with the suction side.

Have you ensured that nothing is wrapped around the impeller shaft? You actually have to take the impeller off to check.

You could remove the cloth bag from around the inlet, to see if that helps..

I guess it could be that the filter is not allowing enough water to pass through. But.. Unless they are obviously bad, I would not replace them on a 5-year old robot.

I have a review on a new robot that I am working on and hope to release it later today.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[wayner]

Thanks - I look forward to the review. I think I paid a bit extra to get a "smart" robot but the smart features are pretty crappy. You can connect via Bluetooth to the app and manually drive it for a bit, and see some error codes, but that is about it. You can't even start a cycle via the app.

Like much (all?) pool equipment the "smart" functionality is ridiculously expensive and has much lower functionality then what one would expect. Shocking what you pay for smart functionality when you consider what a Raspberry Pi W can do with $20 worth of hardware.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

The “smart” technology on pool cleaners is nothing but marketing BS. There is no “smart” anything with regard to robots. They have no position sensors, they utilize no scanning technology (which really wouldn’t work under water anyway), and they have no sonar/ultrasound transceivers. They are literally just dumb, random walk robots. They move a fixed distance forward and backwards. Then they thrust turn themselves so that the number of CW and CCW are equal. Then they climb up a wall and go back down. That’s it. They rely on random changes in orientation and long cycle times to cover a pool’s surface.

Don’t fall for the hype. And yes, the connectivity to the power supply is ridiculous. They don’t even have a simple countdown timer enables to tell you when the robot will be finished.

Maytronics, like a lot of pool equipment manufacturers, makes a lot of their money on the fact that they can charge premium prices for anything “pool” related because it’s a luxury market …