Bitpipe Posted July 4, 2019 Share Posted July 4, 2019 As the old (new) adage goes - if you're not paying for the product, then you ARE the product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitpipe Posted July 4, 2019 Share Posted July 4, 2019 2 hours ago, ProDave said: I am the opposite. I won''t let my stuff auto update for no good reason,. I will update something when it either stops working properly or I feel I need a new feature. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Working for a s/w company, I can tell you that it's always broken so needs continual fixing....:) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinP Posted July 5, 2019 Author Share Posted July 5, 2019 Just had email + callback from Sunamp support! (Big thanks to JSHarris for pointers) It appears that: 1. The heater is '3rd party element' with life expectancy only 2-3 years. Supposedly £30-ish to get the new one. 2. Black overtemp switch is bad, white one is good. 3. Software update (aka new pcb + white switch in the post ) And - Sunamp seems recommending HydroFlow HS38 conditioner thingimagick - but does it actually work for anyone here? So... support is there, its just hard to find 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 18 hours ago, ProDave said: Well when the "flashlight" app on my phone tells me it wants updating? And WHY does the flashlight app use up some data? Some spyware built in it perhaps? Thought about this last night as I remember a warning going out about Flashlight applications being malware, spyware data slurping and just not worth the risk. So why not make a jpeg that is all white, put it as a shortcut on your phone and use that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 7 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: Thought about this last night as I remember a warning going out about Flashlight applications being malware, spyware data slurping and just not worth the risk. So why not make a jpeg that is all white, put it as a shortcut on your phone and use that. The "flashlight" app does not use the screen but turns on the camera illumination (an LED) to act as a "torch" Is there an open source version anywhere that might be free of malware? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 Not on my perfectly functional phone as it does not have an LED for the camera. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 1 hour ago, MartinP said: Just had email + callback from Sunamp support! (Big thanks to JSHarris for pointers) It appears that: 1. The heater is '3rd party element' with life expectancy only 2-3 years. Supposedly £30-ish to get the new one. 2. Black overtemp switch is bad, white one is good. 3. Software update (aka new pcb + white switch in the post ) And - Sunamp seems recommending HydroFlow HS38 conditioner thingimagick - but does it actually work for anyone here? So... support is there, its just hard to find That sounds fairly positive. Not sure about the magic limescale thing, the way these things claim to work seems to have zero basis in any known principle. At best there seems to be limited anecdotal evidence that people are happy with them, but to some extent I suspect this may be due to a reluctance by those who've paid a lot of money for something to believe that it's not really doing much. One thing is absolutely certain; none of these things actually reduce the amount of calcium (or any other) ions in the water. At best they may (through some unknown process) change the way that calcium ions behave a bit. I have doubts as to whether scale build up is a significant issue with the Sunamp PV heater anyway, as the transition temperature for the PCM is 58°C and scale formation generally only occurs at temperatures above this. If there is scale build up on the failed heating element then it may be a possible contributory factor, but I can't really see how this could shorten the life by much. I've known immersion heaters work for decades in high calcium content water, and if anything they seem to fail more often in soft water, due to corrosion of the outer sheath allowing moisture in. The main improvement will come from the software update. This will increase the pump run-on time and so reduce the heat-soak from the element when charging stops. This makes a marked difference to the element peak temperature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinP Posted July 5, 2019 Author Share Posted July 5, 2019 48 minutes ago, JSHarris said: The main improvement will come from the software update. This will increase the pump run-on time and so reduce the heat-soak from the element when charging stops. This makes a marked difference to the element peak temperature. Lets hope so. Then I can put loads of temp sensors and profile the hell out of it until it pops again... Are you gents using polyphosphate dosing - if so, which ones? I've got AcquaBrevetti MiniDos... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 4 minutes ago, MartinP said: Lets hope so. Then I can put loads of temp sensors and profile the hell out of it until it pops again... Are you gents using polyphosphate dosing - if so, which ones? I've got AcquaBrevetti MiniDos... We have a water softener, a Harvey twin cylinder one. Seems to work very well, and isn't expensive to run. Phosphate dosing also works very well at preventing limescale from sticking to surfaces, it's probably the best non-ion exchange limescale reduction system going, IMHO. We went for an ion-exchange softener mainly because our water isn't very hard, just hard enough to be a nuisance. Our boiling water tap was supplied with a phosphate dosing "filter", which seems to work well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simplysimon Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 8 hours ago, ProDave said: The "flashlight" app does not use the screen but turns on the camera illumination (an LED) to act as a "torch" Is there an open source version anywhere that might be free of malware? 8 hours ago, SteamyTea said: Not on my perfectly functional phone as it does not have an LED for the camera. a camera on a phone, what will they think of next, i thought i was doing well with a titanium case ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 7 minutes ago, Simplysimon said: a camera on a phone, what will they think of next, i thought i was doing well with a titanium case ? Someone will put a computer and a GPS receiver in a phone next. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simplysimon Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 20 minutes ago, ProDave said: Someone will put a computer and a GPS receiver in a phone next. not on mine they wont! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nickfromwales Posted July 6, 2019 Share Posted July 6, 2019 21 hours ago, MartinP said: Just had email + callback from Sunamp support! (Big thanks to JSHarris for pointers) It appears that: 1. The heater is '3rd party element' with life expectancy only 2-3 years. Supposedly £30-ish to get the new one. 2. Black overtemp switch is bad, white one is good. 3. Software update (aka new pcb + white switch in the post ) And - Sunamp seems recommending HydroFlow HS38 conditioner thingimagick - but does it actually work for anyone here? So... support is there, its just hard to find Have you cleaned out the inline Y-strainer? Of the few I've serviced or replaced ( for an Uniq ) the filters have never been cleaned and were full of carp. That could cause the flow rate to reduce and add to the element routinely running at the higher temp thresholds. I'm not sure how 'linear' the pump / heater modulation is and if it reacts in time, but that could also be a contributory factor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted July 6, 2019 Share Posted July 6, 2019 1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said: Have you cleaned out the inline Y-strainer? Of the few I've serviced or replaced ( for an Uniq ) the filters have never been cleaned and were full of carp. That could cause the flow rate to reduce and add to the element routinely running at the higher temp thresholds. I'm not sure how 'linear' the pump / heater modulation is and if it reacts in time, but that could also be a contributory factor. TBH, I doubt this would have any effect on a Sunamp PV, as the water heater circuit is a closed loop inside the unit. The pump only circulates water around the internal heating loop, and there's no strainer in that AFAIK. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryE Posted July 6, 2019 Share Posted July 6, 2019 On 04/07/2019 at 13:30, JSHarris said: I'm not sure who here still has a Sunamp PV installation. @TerryE does, and I think there's at least one other member with one. Our's went back to Sunamp in exchange for a Uniq about a year ago. Yup, we've still got 2×SunAmp PVs and we've had no problems so far except that the total actual thermal capacity seems to be a bit less than stated. Perhaps as a bit of kit, this is over engineered. Given that I love my little Willis (which heats our UFH) and the probs that many of the UniQ users have had, I think that if I did have to replace the PVs then I'd go for something like a UniQ HW 9 with an external Willis and pump to top it up -- that way I can do the heating control integrated into my overall heating strategy. One Q for Martin: do you use a water softener on the HW supply-side? IIRC, when I talked to the SunAmps guys, they though one pretty essential, so we use a Harvey and no complaints here. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nickfromwales Posted July 6, 2019 Share Posted July 6, 2019 13 hours ago, TerryE said: One Q for Martin: do you use a water softener on the HW supply-side? IIRC, when I talked to the SunAmps guys, they though one pretty essential, so we use a Harvey and no complaints here. 100% agree you should have a softener with any SA unit if there is even a sniff of hard water. Why folk wouldn’t put one in anyway to protect the rest of the plumbing is something I find a bit unfathomable. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinP Posted July 8, 2019 Author Share Posted July 8, 2019 On 06/07/2019 at 15:08, TerryE said: One Q for Martin: do you use a water softener on the HW supply-side? No softener, just poly-phosphates (AcquaBrevetti MiniDos) Y-strainer still ended up with about a teaspoon of scale flakes every 6-9 months. (That was with 'old' PCB/firmware with no extra overrun time, new one is in the post) FYI: Current price of the heater is is £30+VAT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryE Posted July 8, 2019 Share Posted July 8, 2019 (edited) Martin as Nick says, limescaling is a slow killer for plumbing systems. It knackers everything over time. See https://youtu.be/yF_dLlQ6RIo as an example of what I mean. This is what is happening inside your SunAmp if you don't use a softener. Edited July 8, 2019 by TerryE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinP Posted July 15, 2019 Author Share Posted July 15, 2019 Ok, so I have just received replacement heater, white 85degC overheat switch and... piece of wire with 3-way WAGO. The instruction is to connect neutral from the heater to supply neutral +pcb neutral. Considering that there's already PCB trace - doing the same - this hints that said trace is undersized (looks like 3.5mm wide so... about 10amps?) - but if that is the case, why no-one cares about 'the other end' of the heater - both traces seem to be the same width. Insights, anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted July 15, 2019 Share Posted July 15, 2019 On 05/07/2019 at 11:13, MartinP said: Sunamp seems recommending HydroFlow HS38 conditioner thingimagick - but does it actually work for anyone here? Given they are £145 and probably cost less than £10 to make I would read all of this.. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/advice/9862512/Jeff-Howell-will-a-Hydroflow-stop-limescale.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted July 15, 2019 Share Posted July 15, 2019 PS In the UK the ASA typically prevent companies selling magnetic water treatment devices from claiming they make the water softer. See... https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/water-treatment-devices.html Selected quotes: The ASA and CAP understand that magnetic or electromagnetic conditioning devices are not capable of “softening” water and as such should not be claimed to be equivalent to water softeners (International Bathrooms WTS b.v., November 2010). Snip The ASA understands that no universally accepted theory about how these devices operate and no evidence to support the contention that the devices can inhibit scale formation generally exists. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinP Posted July 16, 2019 Author Share Posted July 16, 2019 Managed to disassemble PV. The heater itself after 13months with polyphosphates looks worse than the previous one without them! (not just scaled, pitted with rust too) Need softener, period. Can you recommend one? Ideally slim vertical to fit behind PV, or in the cupboard next to it. 2 people 2 bathrooms... NB Tectite brass pushfits in hard water area are fun to disassemble... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 That looks pretty dire for just 13 months use. Makes me wish I'd taken our old Sunamp PV heating element out after three years to see what it looked like. Harvey softeners are pretty slim and look fairly neat. We have one and it seems to work very well. They are sold under a few different names, as I think Harvey has licenced the core technology. We have this model: https://www.uk-water-softeners.co.uk/product/dimensions/ 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vivienz Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 Not the best of photos, but this is my Harvey water softener, boxed up and shortly to be installed in the garage. The void is for a standard 600mm kitchen cabinet where my dishwasher will go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moira Niedzwiecka Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 I've just bought a Kinetico Kube from Costco at a good price. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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