My Dolphin: Now I'm getting rid of it

[CarlD]

The pads are just fine. My Blue Pearl has similar sort of pads - two big ones rather than 4 small ones and they are rock hard when dry, but get nice and soft and spongie in the water quickly.

Yeah, they did that on mine too. As I said, I was less concerned--first, there was a notice wrapped around them saying expect them to be hard and let it soak in the pool for a few minutes before the first run. The brown concerned me but, while ugly, it's not critical.

As far as getting caught on the ladder I used to have that problem with my Polaris. What I did was get a couple of sections of 2" (or maybe it was 1.5" - I forget) PVC pipe and I cut out a section of the pipe longitudinally that was maybe an inch or an inch and a half wide so I could force the pvc pipe over the verticle sections of the ladder. This made it a smaller opening between the ladder edge and the pool wall so the cleaner would not get stuck in there.

What a GREAT IDEA! I have plenty of 1.5" stock--and with a cap glued to the bottom to keep from scratching the liner...WOW! That could really work well! Form a picket! Completely different from the barrier I had in mind. Maybe bungee them to the ladder, too. Easy!

THANK YOU!

BTW, has anybody got any experience with a Diamond in a vinyl pool with perfectly vertical walls? Is there abrasion on the liner where the unit turns to climb the wall?

[Unabomber007]

And a slight correction Carl. The Blue Diamond is made in the USA. Maytronics' stuff is made in Israel. Please keep your opinions coming as you see them happen.

[CarlD]

This morning the guy at the AquaTron International service center (for Blue Diamond) told me that the Blue Diamond is made in Israel.

Maybe HE'S wrong, but that's what he told me.

I'm, of course, aware that Maytronics is in Israel (on some kibbutz over there).

[Rescue30]

The brown stains on the brushes should come off after a few cleanings, as far as wearing on the liner goes, it happened it 2 spots in my pool . nothing major, just a drop of rubbed off pattern, no noticle difference in texture or strength in those areas.It is a great a great cleaner, I'm on my third season.

[Unabomber007]

Is there some Israeli swimming pool cleaner mafia going on here or what?

[VOLDADDY]

Carl,

Good luck on the Blue Diamond. I have had an Aquabot Turbo for 3 years now and love it. If it gets stuck somewhere, it will back up in a minute and keep on cleaning. If you send your Diamond back, I highly recommend the Aquabot Turbo. Their customer service is fabulous as well.

[CarlD]

Right now, I pulled out the ladder and it seems to be working just fine. I cut one "picket" to clip on the ladder but it doesn't help--it tried to climb the vertical 1.5" PVC! I think with 2 it will work better--or a cheap 1/2" wrench hung nearby to loosen the two ladder bolts.

It has a weird pattern of only climbing the walls every ood number of times. But if that's how it's designed, that's how it's designed.

An Israeli mafia for pool cleaners? Apparently that's the fact. But that's NOTHING next to the Taiwan mafia that makes EVERY motherboard in every PC in the world--all in a strip about 10 miles long and a few miles wide.

[cheshamjim]

I got my Dolphin back from a SmartPool repair depot. Put it in the water in the shallow end, and after a pass or two, it settled in the deep end and there it stayed. I tried ths thing for two days and it never came close to covering the whole pool. Just went back and forth across the width of the pool in the deep section.

I got the O.K. to return it and it is going back Monday.

I talked to a couple of guys at the pool store who have Dolphins and they love 'em. Oh well ...

-Jim

[cleancloths]

All these Dolphin problems are starting to sound like they have a problem in the microprocessor that they claim controls these beasts. I wonder if they go a batch of bad chips?

[CarlD]

It sure sounds like a bad microprocessor or a bad batch of ROM chips, doesn't it.

I'm sorry to hear the Smart Pool keeps sending people's Dolphins back without fixing the problems, claiming they are fixed.

Meanwhile I haven't heard from MayTronics in Israel. I will send the reference to this thread along and let THEM see what they think!

But I WISH I could catch a break..

The Blue Diamond works perfectly if I loosen the 2 bolts and pop the ladder out. I tried using just one picket on the ladder but that didn't work--I need to have 2 but I havent cut the 2nd yet.

So I let it run during the night with the ladder out. This morning I'm coiling up the cable--and there's a slash in it! Luckily it's not all the way through the insulation, just the surface, but it means when it came up the wall it gobbled the cable and damaged it! D*** thing is BRAND NEW!!!!! The cable does NOT uncoil as smoothly as the Dolphin's and does not get straight the way the Dolphin's does, and isn't as tough or as hard-shelled. The Dolphin NEVER did this.

The power supply stores UNDER the Diamond--How stupid is THAT??? and isn't nearly as sealed as the Dolphin's. For a device that costs a lot more, some more thought should have gone into parts of it.

But it works. Still, how come I can't catch a break???