Reefmat 1200 drive / motor fails.

[Aframereef]

Hi could I get a list of others who have had issues with there reefmat 1200 drive unit failing. What did you do to fix it: change motor, change entire drive unit?

Not talking about a mechanical jam but the unit failing to advance when pressing the buttons.

 

[Freddie83]

Happened to me. RS replaced the entire drive unit.

 

[Aframereef]

One of my two failed after about 6 months. Motor was dead. Even removing the floss and spindle the motor would not work.
I opened the unit and unplug the motor to jumper an external bench power supply. The motor spun forwards and backwards just fine. Even with a full roll on the take up side it had no problem pulling the floss. Plugged it back into the drive PCB and it would not work at all.
Started looking at the motor driver Chip and determined it was immediately going into current limit to protect itself from a overload. The firmware in the drive unit does not seem to retry. You get one pulse for like a millisecond and that's it.

The motor driver Chip current limits around 1.5 amps. Once the motor is running it only draws around 1/4 Amp.
The issue is at startup the motors will draw a lot of current.

It may be the motors are undersized and get dammage from high current spikes or it could be cheap China motors. Or just normal wear on the brushes.

I am testing a fix. I made a modification to the PCB and my unit went from not working at all to working 100% for the last 5 days.

I want to get more testing before I say if this is a permanent fix.

 

[Browser]

One of my two failed after about 6 months. Motor was dead. Even removing the floss and spindle the motor would not work.
I opened the unit and unplug the motor to jumper an external bench power supply. The motor spun forwards and backwards just fine. Even with a full roll on the take up side it had no problem pulling the floss. Plugged it back into the drive PCB and it would not work at all.
Started looking at the motor driver Chip and determined it was immediately going into current limit to protect itself from a overload. The firmware in the drive unit does not seem to retry. You get one pulse for like a millisecond and that's it.

The motor driver Chip current limits around 1.5 amps. Once the motor is running it only draws around 1/4 Amp.
The issue is at startup the motors will draw a lot of current.

It may be the motors are undersized and get dammage from high current spikes or it could be cheap China motors. Or just normal wear on the brushes.

I am testing a fix. I made a modification to the PCB and my unit went from not working at all to working 100% for the last 5 days.

I want to get more testing before I say if this is a permanent fix.

Any more info on that? I have the same problem....

 

[Aframereef]

Any more info on that? I have the same problem....

Do you have the ability to do surface mount soldering, SMT?
So far my fix working, I wanted to test it with a true motor jam to ensure the controller properly detects it but have not had time yet.
I am a little hesitant to show it off yet as I would not want to damage someone controller if it didn't work right.
It takes a fair amount of soldering experience for the fix.

 

[Browser]

Do you have the ability to do surface mount soldering, SMT?
So far my fix working, I wanted to test it with a true motor jam to ensure the controller properly detects it but have not had time yet.
I am a little hesitant to show it off yet as I would not want to damage someone controller if it didn't work right.
It takes a fair amount of soldering experience for the fix.

I do, but i do not believe my case is the same.
When i reset the jammed issue, i press the manual forward, and if i help the gear with my hand, it starts to move. For a while. After that it stops again.
So i believe it is a combined issue of the controller AND the gear motor.

Sad thing is that i issued a ticket in red sea, they asked me almost immediately my invoice and a video of the issue with their remarks on the actions, i sent it to them, and then silence......
Truly sad....

 

[metalle]

I do, but i do not believe my case is the same.
When i reset the jammed issue, i press the manual forward, and if i help the gear with my hand, it starts to move. For a while. After that it stops again.
So i believe it is a combined issue of the controller AND the gear motor.

Sad thing is that i issued a ticket in red sea, they asked me almost immediately my invoice and a video of the issue with their remarks on the actions, i sent it to them, and then silence......
Truly sad....

That’s not good… maybe an employee with a bad attitude? Why would anyone buy their product if that is how customers get treated? I always thought of Red Sea as high quality and great customer service. Maybe it’s changing?

 

[flashsmith]

This is one time i'm glad I thought it through and didn't board the hype train and cut my sump up to install one of these.

 

[Browser]

That’s not good… maybe an employee with a bad attitude? Why would anyone buy their product if that is how customers get treated? I always thought of Red Sea as high quality and great customer service. Maybe it’s changing?

They just responded through email, that they will send me a new motor.
May be someone reads this thread

 

[Browser]

This is one time i'm glad I thought it through and didn't board the hype train and cut my sump up to install one of these.

Don't know about that, but the effectiveness of a roll mat comparing to socks is at least uncomparable!

 

[Aframereef]

They just responded through email, that they will send me a new motor.
May be someone reads this thread

Great. I want to know if they are just sending a new replacement unit or have they fixed the issue.
Will be interested to know if anyone ever has a replacement unit go bad.

 

[Aframereef]

I do, but i do not believe my case is the same.
When i reset the jammed issue, i press the manual forward, and if i help the gear with my hand, it starts to move. For a while. After that it stops again.
So i believe it is a combined issue of the controller AND the gear motor.

Sad thing is that i issued a ticket in red sea, they asked me almost immediately my invoice and a video of the issue with their remarks on the actions, i sent it to them, and then silence......
Truly sad....

Sounds a bit different. What I observed was the motor driver would fail on the first pulse that was over its current limit and the firmware in the unit didn't retry. It's possible if they did a firmware upgrade to retry the motor for a few more pulses that it might fix the issue. I would have to check the datasheet on the motor driver to see if there is a timeout period before you can retry. I didn't brother because I can't easily do a firmware fix.

 

[ConsummatePro]

My 1200 just reported the fleece was jammed, but it was the uptake motor making a groaning sound and not pulling the fleece through. I loosened the feed side and it did a couple manual advances easily but then jammed up. Sent a support request just now.

Edit: motor is still advancing, just jams (now at the end of my 4th roll).

As others mentioned, it seems they need a more robust motor for the 1200's.

I just weighed my roll - it is pretty moist and it weights 1852 g (just over 4 lbs)! I think this is a lot of load on that motor. This is with a roll that is almost finished (110 feet out of 115 feet). I cut if off early so the motor can finish the rest with less strain.

 

[Browser]

I believe it has nothing to do with the weight of the roll.

Now that i removed the motor while waiting for the replacement, i manually rotate the roll during the day.
Two points i noticed that affect the "power" need for the motor.

One is how dirty is the fleece when you try to rotate it. The dirtier the fleece, the stickier it is to the inner sides of the filter. Also, when it is very dirty, the amount of water pressure is quite big inside the filter, especially if you have the filter mounted high enough in comparison with the sump water level.

The second thing is the dirty roll diameter. Less the diameter in the beginning is needing less torque to rotate. As it gets bigger in diameter, the torque needed increases dramatically.

They send me also instruction video of how to replace the gearmotor. When i saw the size of it, i literally start to laugh.
To tell you the truth, if i have seen this video before i buy the roller mat, most probably i would choose something else....

 

[IceRain29]

My reefmat 1200 drive unit broke just after 3 and half months, the red sea representitive is offering me the replacement motor asking me to open up the drive unit andreplace it myself?!?!? Is this a joke or something?

 

[ConsummatePro]

I had them replace mine and they sent the whole drive unit which just snaps in. I’ll bet this is what they’re offering.
Still seems like a design flaw for the 1200’s and the load they experience with full rolls.

 

[hart24601]

I had mine fail recently and they sent me a new drive unit quickly. I’m still happy with the unit and resolution. I do hope they beefed them up a bit

 

[IceRain29]

Thanks guys, I asked the rep to send me a new drive unit. Hopefully they'll make some improvement to the drive unit. I think the unit is too small for the 1200.

 

[blaxsun]

Thanks guys, I asked the rep to send me a new drive unit. Hopefully they'll make some improvement to the drive unit. I think the unit is too small for the 1200.

I'd tend to agree, though I've found if you use a 1" strip of green painter's tape (or similar) on the waste roll it "grips" a lot better (this has eliminated all jams for me at least).

 

[Aframereef]

Ok after my modification I ran an entire roll with no issues and it detected the end of roll just fine. This is what I did.
I added another motor driver Chip in parallel by soldering it on top of the existing one. Now this is not something I would normally do in one of my designs, I would just design in a more powerful chip. But I needed a fix fast and I had my chip from digikey in a day. What this does is allows the motor to draw more current at start up. Each chip gets 1/2 the load so it doesn't trip the current limit built into the chip. I really think they need to redesign the PCB but I am going to go with this for now. I will let everyone know if I come across any issues but this went from not working at all to working 100%.

You have to be very good at soldering. You can see the double stacked chip in the picture.