Polaris 280, will adding swivels to hose help?

[addinfinitum]

I have a polaris 280 and I was wondering if adding more swivels to the feed hose would keep it from looping and twisting up. I think there are 3 in the feed hose line now but it seems there is too much hose between the swivels. I have played around with the number of floats and the positioning but it doesn't seem to change it. The swivels I have turn freely and don't leak. Only concern is would more swivels actually impart some additional flow restriction.

Pool is inground 16x32 vinyl liner.

Background:
I recently brought this cleaner back to life. It came with the house but had been sitting for a while and appeared to be junk. Had to replace the pump volute and seals, and replumb it with flexible piping since the hard pipe was broken. Needed things like o-rings in the reverser. a wheel screw, and new catch bags and after all that it works quite well. I had to fine tune the head float to get it to climb the vertical walls. No thruster repositioning necessary. It operates fine on the blue restrictor plate which is what it had originally. I also reduced the flow on the tail whip a bit but I still have to verify wheel RPM.

 

[reggiehammond]

They're a real pain, but most people find best success with just replacing hose and swivel. I don't think more swivels is the answer.
There's good knock offs of the hose on Amazon.

 

[HermanTX]

Welcome to TFP.
Swivels are important but if you have 3 that should suffice. The other critical part is hose length and the position of those swivels.
The overall length of the hose with swivels and backup valve should be 6-12 inches longer when you stretch the hose from the wall connection to the furthest point of the pool where the cleaner needs to reach. Remove the cleaner. Stretch the hose to that point and measure no more than 6-12 inches past that point. Mark it with a sharpie.

The leader hose, the one that connects to the cleaner and includes the back up valve should be equal to the maximum depth of the pool. Put a swivel on that point. You may need to cut the leader hose so that part of it is above the backup valve and the other part below to the cleaner

Then the remain hose should be from that swivel to the wall connection. Coming from the wall connection is your latch, the back pressure valve and the inline filter (screen). So from that connection (screen filter) to the swivel on the leader hose is the length remaining. Whatever length that is, divide iit in 2 and put a swivel to connect those 2 halves. Then connect the other end to the swivel on the leader hose and the screen filter.

 

[addinfinitum]

Thanks for the feedback.

I checked it yesterday, and I only have 2 swivels instead of 3 like I had thought. Definitely doesn't seem like enough.

I had previously checked overall hose length and it was about 4' longer than the longest length to farthest corner. I recently set up a new polaris at my GF house in TX, and if I recall it needed to be no more than 4' from longest length. So I assumed mine was originally set up correctly by previous owners/installers. I'll go through and check these other lengths and see where it stands. I ordered a couple of swivels and I can also add as needed.

I D/L'd the manual from polaris 280 and go trough that more thoroughly as well.

 

[HermanTX]

Thanks for the feedback.

I checked it yesterday, and I only have 2 swivels instead of 3 like I had thought. Definitely doesn't seem like enough.

I had previously checked overall hose length and it was about 4' longer than the longest length to farthest corner. I recently set up a new polaris at my GF house in TX, and if I recall it needed to be no more than 4' from longest length. So I assumed mine was originally set up correctly by previous owners/installers. I'll go through and check these other lengths and see where it stands. I ordered a couple of swivels and I can also add as needed.

I D/L'd the manual from polaris 280 and go trough that more thoroughly as well.

I think you find that 4 ft over is way too long and is the main cause of the unit tangling.