Sick and Tired of Waveline pumps
 

Ok, so long story short I've gone through 3 controllers on my Waveline 12000's. 1st gen controllers were awesome! But they burned out their poorly designed cooler fans, thus in turn burn't out the controllers.
2nd Gen controllers = very poor pump performance (at least on high head applications)
3rd Gen - no change from 2nd gen (at least the ones I got)

I have to say, there is a definite, audible difference in RPM from my 1st Gen to the other two, so it seems like it allows the impeller to ramp up further.

Now I hear there is another gen that is Apex ready.

My question (because it appears RLSS customer service doesn't like it when you keep asking them why their products suck):
Does anyone know if these pumps are PWM controlled or how to test if they are?

How can I mod something to drive these pumps?

Yup! Feel your pain. I scrapped both my 10,000's and went back to the tried and true mag drives.

The DC's are great pumps for a while, but unless you fork out huge cash for the big name brands, they will just end up in the garbage.

What happens when the controller dies? It doesn't have variable speed or it doesn't work at all?

Waveline
 

Myka, when the controller dies, everything dies :(
Fishy,Fishy: I was under the impression (when they first came out) that Waveline were the top of the line. These are definitely NOT Jabeo pumps.

Codfather:You are my hero! Has it been working well? Mind if I pick your brain a bit? My boards are way different than yours, but I don't mind poking about a bit to figure out what's going inside. Unfortunately my boards are also not as nicely identifying what wires are doing what. Here's a pic of the latest gen board:

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psi3ilgzq8.jpg

The wires in the top left are what's coming from the AC/DC Meanwell power supply. The black, White and green wires are headed to the pump. I tried metering them out with my voltmeter but the readings were haywire, constantly moving all over the place. Any idea's?

This is the power supply they're using:
http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3xasxugs.jpg

Well that's lame. I didn't read all that other thread. Wouldn't there be a fairly easy way to just go around the controller and use it as an on/off pump? Or, could you buy a controller from a different pump (they have replacements I think for other brands, don't they?) and integrate it?

Everyone thought the Waveline pumps were top of the line until the big players released DC pumps that were in the $500+ range and we realized that the Waveline is a cheaper model (and performs as such). Not as cheap as the Jebao, but it may as well be with all the failures.

Ya, what's weird is with the 1st generation controller I got with the pump, I was probably pushing over 1000 gph. According to the factory charts I should be able to push over 1300 gph at 12' of head, so I figured it was probably close.
A friend had their's running far earlier than mine, but it fried the controller because of poor cooling design. RLSS sent us all new controllers even though I hadn't even run mine yet. My friend ultimately shut their tank down and got out of having a tank because of the damage everything caused - but that's a whole other story....
So I finally have mine up and running and since I still had old controllers, I decided to run them side by side with the new controller to see the difference when I filled up my 210. I'm running 2 separate returns that run side by side so the comparison should be spot on. Well the new controller I bet doesn't put any more than a few hundred gph. It totally sucks compared to the old controller.

I would TOTALLY be open to running it wide open with no control. With the head pressure I'm running at I need all I can get. I just need to figure out how to make that happen without burning up the pump :)

I was talking for like red dragon, abyss, ecotec etc. As far as top of the line.

I had to run a powersource similar to that one, but due to the moisture in the fish room, it too eventually died.

Only way to chase a signal such as PWM is with an oscilloscope. Costly piece of gear, although these days there are dongle options available that work with a PC. Aside from the controller, it's good to know more about the pump motor as well. Is it a brushless PMG DC motor, any additional circuitry in the motor or pump housing?