Sequence Dart users?

[Delphinus]

How hot does your Dart pump motor get? Mine gets insanely hot. There is no heat transfer to the water it pushes at least but the pump motor is way too hot to the touch.

I keep reading that this is sort of normal but is it really? I really don't like how hot this pump runs. I even put a fan on it blowing laterally across the core, since the motor fan itself doesn't seem to do much by itself .. but even with that it doesn't seem to make much difference, it's still dang hot.

So .. is this really normal?

What are good alternatives to a Dart these days?

[H22_TURBO]

on my closed loop I run a dart, it gets warm but not that hot that I can't touch it. my oceanmotion 4way on the other hand gets too hot to touch

[whatcaneyedo]

Both of mine run quite hot, I wouldn't be able to touch them for very long before I'd need to pull my hand away.

[Delphinus]

Ok, that's sort of where mine sits as well. I read up comments on users and some say this is normal, others say just warm to the touch. I would guess I can maybe hold a finger to the motor core on mine for maybe 2-3 seconds max. I worry because you'd think that much heat is going cause some kind of failure somewhere ... seeing as it's NEVER turned off.

I have 2" pipe on the inlet side but there is a 90 degree bend right at the bulkhead. After that it's straight for at least 14" or so. Maybe too much pipe on the inlet?

[FishyFishy!]

I had a 2" inlet with a 90 to the dart, then the 1.5" out to 6 foot of pipe on the return side, and it was insanely hot all the time. To the point where I could barely touch it without screaming like a little girl. It ran constant for 4 years no issues.

[Dyspnea]

Is the fan motor unobstructed and clean? I give mine a puff of compressed air every once and a while. My pump is warm, I could probably leave my hand on it all night, certainly not as hot as you describe.

[Delphinus]

It's actually reasonably clean. It does get some dust over time but I've cleaned it out before. I can't blow it out with air but the first time I thought it was too hot I took the whole cover right off and wiped it all clean.. didn't seem to make a noticeable difference.

[Dez]

Mine's always been insanely hot. It's 3rd hand and I've been running it for 2 years.

[e46er]

i have a snapper hybrid which also came with the dart impeller to convert it to a dart mine is running as a snapper now because my CL was only piped with 1 1/2 pvc but its not hot hot i held my hand on it for 10 sec and it never to to the point of uncomfortable

[Lampshade]

There's 2 different motors, and they run much diff. tempratures apperently. The Baldor I have is warm, but never hot. There's another motor they have that doesn't have cooling fins around it, forget who makes them, but that one apperently runs hot.

[plutoniumJoe]

I have the larger Baldor motor and it warm but never hot.

[lastlight]

The cheaper AO Smith motor runs much hotter. I believe Sequence has returned to only using Baldor motors but I'm not 100% on that.

[Parker]

All three of mine put out different amounts of heat, one is like yours, a little too hot to touch for very long another I could hold onto all day long, it warm but not hot and the third falls in between.

[Delphinus]

Interesting how it's so variable. Robb, are all 3 mounted similarly in terms of the inlet side plumbing? I use 2" plumbing on the inlet side, and this is huge .. they say you can step it down to 1-1/2" without consequence and I've seen this, so I would have thought that the 2" compensates for the one 90 degree bend I have right at the bulkhead. But then I do have a strainer on the bulkhead inside the sump. Maybe I should try removing this and see if I notice a difference.

I think mine is a Baldor motor. It has a fan on the end, I thought the AO motors were fan-less. But what's weird is that the motor core is much smaller than other Dart pumps I've seen that have fans. So it seems there are more than just 2 options out there for the same pump model..

I tried putting a 4" box fan on the floor blowing laterally onto the pump to see if that would cool it off, it actually didn't, so I took it off. Might as well save a few watts on electricity if it's not doing anything.

[Parker]

Interesting how it's so variable. Robb, are all 3 mounted similarly in terms of the inlet side plumbing?

I think mine is a Baldor motor.

All three are mounted in a similar fashion, all with 2" intake plumbing, 1 1/2 discharge, all down hill fed to the pumps. The front and back one are the closed loop pumps fed from the bottom of the tank and the middle is the return pump, which through two 90's has about a 2/3 drop from the sump to the pump.

None of mine are the ones with the Baldor Motors.

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa180/RParker_07/Tank%20Build/IMG_2634.jpg

[Delphinus]

Well, aren't I observant. Looking at the pump last night I noticed it said "AO Smith" on it. Sooooo .. I guess that sort of explains that. For what it's worth, it has a fan though. I keep reading that AO motors don't have the fans and it's the Baldor motors that do. Well, I guess the AO motors do have fans - they just don't do much..

[untamed]

My three are all AO Smiths...and they have run hot for 4 years straight now.