Bubbles in return lines

For the last month or so I have seen the occasional bubbles in the return lines but it was not constant. I did the typical clean and lube of all caps and o-rings. Still there.

Friday, I left around 7am for a mountain bike ride and when i returned around 8:30 am my back yard was flooded :eek:

I went to the equipment and the salt cell flange where it screws onto the housing had broken and the pool was pumped down to the skimmer level. The pump was still running but it was dry and very hot so i don't know if it was damaged and will not be able to tell until I get the cell fixed.

So, here's the pisser part. The unit is an EcoMatic ESC and this is the second time i have had a failure at this exact flange. Last time it happened I had to buy a complete new cell (saved the old cell as a back up) but I did a little research this time and located a company that process a rebuild kit that includes the flange, o-rings and bolts needed to replace the broken piece. $80.00 instead of $400.00 is nice but I really suspect a design flaw and would have to assume this will happen again.

Here's my thought. The cell screws into the housing horizontally and when the system is running you can see/feel a slight vibration in the housing as the water runs through it. My thought is that if the cell screwed in vertically instead of horizontally it would take the stress off the flange. But, I'm concerned that adding all the pipes and angle to get it vertical would create a negative impact on the system (I may be way off and just need to do some cutting and gluing ) ...

Here are a pic of the cell (w/ broken flange ) and the housing in it's current location ...

Any opinions?


Welcome to summer all !!!!

Well, I guess my IMG code will not allow me to post images.... Whats the secret handshake :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phillbo

Well, I guess my IMG code will not allow me to post images.... Whats the secret handshake :)

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Email your pics to the site admin at: poolforum@gmail.com along with a link to this thread: http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...n-return-lines and PoolDoc will post them for you. Send the highest res photo you have and he'll crop 'em up for you if necessary.

Don't you just love how I volunteered someone else's services?

email sent ... I told him to send you the bill :)

So, how long can a pump run dry before it destroys its self?

My timer comes on at 7 am and I would assume it would only take about 10-15 minutes to pump it down to the point that the skimmer was dry and start sucking air so it could have run dry for an hour.

What symptoms would it display that there has been damage done (other than the obvious bearing noises etc...) ?

Rebuild kit just showed up on the Big Brown Truck... Slapped it together and installed. I'm generating chlorine again, the bubbles are gone (only ran for a few minutes, will confirm when the run cycle kicks in tomorrow) and the pump appears to be undamaged.

I still think I need to mount the cell vertical so if we can get the pics up, I'll look for opinions on adding the number of 90* angles it would take to do so... I'm thinking 4.

Your pictures (sorry, but we've been slammed for the past 4 days!)

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-D...2013.02.39.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-c...2012.50.26.jpg