Ecotech Vortech Controller Malfunction

[redfishbluefish]

I have old Vortech MP40s that I run on "reef crest".....the yellow light. I'm sitting in the fishroom tonight and open up the panel exposing all my controls and the one controller is red???




So I'm figuring there must have been some little burp and all I need to do is click through the modes to get back to "yellow." So I click through the modes, starting with:

Red - Blue - Orange - Nothing (which should be Green) - Purple - back to Red

Hum....a "nothing" and no yellow???? That's a puzzle.

So clicking through the other controller:

Yellow - Blue - Orange - Green - Purple - back to Yellow

So the order of most of the other colors are there, but no yellow.....which is now a red.

Has anyone else seen this?

My Vortechs are slightly out of warranty.

So I'm leaving that one on "Red" thinking that it's just an LED issue.

 

[Be102]

I have old Vortech MP40s that I run on "reef crest".....the yellow light. I'm sitting in the fishroom tonight and open up the panel exposing all my controls and the one controller is red???




So I'm figuring there must have been some little burp and all I need to do is click through the modes to get back to "yellow." So I click through the modes, starting with:

Red - Blue - Orange - Nothing (which should be Green) - Purple - back to Red

Hum....a "nothing" and no yellow???? That's a puzzle.

So clicking through the other controller:

Yellow - Blue - Orange - Green - Purple - back to Yellow

So the order of most of the other colors are there, but no yellow.....which is now a red.

Has anyone else seen this?

My Vortechs are slightly out of warranty.

So I'm leaving that one on "Red" thinking that it's just an LED issue.

I could be wrong, but I actually once came home to find my pump was on a red mode as well. I did a quick search and i believe it just needed some sort of restart.. I'll see if I can find what I used to get it back to normal.
http://ecotechmarine.com/faq/troubl...hat-do-the-different-led-error-codes-indicate

Maybe this will help out? It was what immediately came up to my google search when I originally typed in "vortech pump shows red"

This might help as well.


Q: My pump’s driver is blinking red, what should I do?

A: The most common cause of a VorTech pump driver blinking red is because the auto-disconnect calibration was performed improperly. In order to enable disconnect auto-shutoff protection, you must perform a calibration step. This procedure is outlined in the instruction manual. An important aspect of this procedure is that the dry side of the VorTech pump must go through the calibration sequence while holding it in your hand. If you leave the pump attached to the aquarium during this calibration process, it will result in blinking red errors that will remain until the calibration is cleared from the pump’s memory. To clear the calibration, you must perform the following steps:

1. Hold mode (pump blinks white)
2. Hold mode and set (pump blinks yellow/white)
3. Cycle power to the pump by un-plugging and re-plugging it in

Upon re-powering, the pump should operate normally. If you would like to re-enable calibration properly, remove the dry side from the aquarium, hold it in your hand, and follow the directions for enabling pump disconnect auto-shutoff protection in your user manual.

 

[Diesel]

So what you saying is that even the controller says red the pump is still working on the yellow mode which is the reef crest.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Upon further investigation, it's not just the light.....crap!

Putting my ear to the "yellow" dry side, I can hear it speeding up and slowing down.....normal for "Crest Mode." Putting my ear to the "red" dry side, I hear no change in the speed of the powerhead.....constant speed. That's not right.

 

[Diesel]

Upon further investigation, it's not just the light.....crap!

Putting my ear to the "yellow" dry side, I can hear it speeding up and slowing down.....normal for "Crest Mode." Putting my ear to the "red" dry side, I hear no change in the speed of the powerhead.....constant speed. That's not right.

Do a hard reset.
Just don't ask me as I forgot how to do that on these old controllers.
Some times unplug the power supply from the controller will bring it back to regular schedule.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Thanks @Be102 and @Diesel

I did the button pushing @Be102 recommended:

1. Hold mode (pump blinks white)
2. Hold mode and set (pump blinks yellow/white)
3. Cycle power to the pump by un-plugging and re-plugging it in

And here's the weird thing....I have wireless controllers, but don't have the module, and when I did this "reset" the one next to it also started blinking??? And the one I just tried to reset blinked yellow and then went back to red. Now I unplugged the good one and repeated the reset.......AND IT WORKED!!! Thanks guys. One of these days I'll read the manual.

 

[Be102]

Thanks @Be102 and @Diesel

I did the button pushing @Be102 recommended:

1. Hold mode (pump blinks white)
2. Hold mode and set (pump blinks yellow/white)
3. Cycle power to the pump by un-plugging and re-plugging it in

And here's the weird thing....I have wireless controllers, but don't have the module, and when I did this "reset" the one next to it also started blinking??? And the one I just tried to reset blinked yellow and then went back to red. Now I unplugged the good one and repeated the reset.......AND IT WORKED!!! Thanks guys. One of these days I'll read the manual.

Happy to have helped!

 

[Diesel]

Btw, the QD's are sooooooooo MUCH betterrrrrrrrrr

 

[NCreefguy]

Thanks @Be102 and @Diesel

I did the button pushing @Be102 recommended:

1. Hold mode (pump blinks white)
2. Hold mode and set (pump blinks yellow/white)
3. Cycle power to the pump by un-plugging and re-plugging it in

And here's the weird thing....I have wireless controllers, but don't have the module, and when I did this "reset" the one next to it also started blinking??? And the one I just tried to reset blinked yellow and then went back to red. Now I unplugged the good one and repeated the reset.......AND IT WORKED!!! Thanks guys. One of these days I'll read the manual.

I had one that did this as well. From what I was told was that this pump could not be reset while the good pump or "master" pump was plugged in. Weird thing to me was that this WAS the "master" pump in my system. After I told the tech this he said that the remaining powerhead switched to master after this one stalled.I was trying to find my notes on it but I'm glad yall got it figured out.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Well it was nice while it lasted....all of five days. The red light is back on with that same controller. I tried the reset again.....four times....and each time I got the red light back. I'm guessing the controller is toast!

These are antique controllers and I might have someone who updated his controllers...that he's willing to give me the old ones.

At least the powerhead is providing flow.

 

[NCreefguy]

Well it was nice while it lasted....all of five days. The red light is back on with that same controller. I tried the reset again.....four times....and each time I got the red light back. I'm guessing the controller is toast!

These are antique controllers and I might have someone who updated his controllers...that he's willing to give me the old ones.

At least the powerhead is providing flow.

Have you tried switching the power supplies between the two controllers and see if this changes anything? I remember several years ago I had to get another PS when mine started acting up.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Ah, great minds! I not only changed power supplies, I flipped the two controllers to the two different MP40's I have.....and no dice....the suspect controller was still malfunctioning.

This is the second Vortech controller I've lost....the other was a newer MP10 controller that crapped out about two years ago. I had to pick up a new controller for that MP10

Lucky for me I've got a local club member who upgraded his old MP40 controllers, and he is willing to give me his old controllers....same models I have now. I'm not even sure if the new Vortech controllers would work with these antiques I have.....FYI, the date on the controller board was 2006.


Interesting, is that as I wait to pick up these replacement controllers, the malfunctioning one is still pumping water, but at a lower flow rate....and turning the adjustment knob does nothing.

 

[NCreefguy]

Have you considered a rabbits foot?

Just messing...Your luck sounds just like mine. My dad always said "Boy a rabbits foot aint good enough for you" lol

Switching the PS was the last thing that I could think of. If you had an electronics guru around you could take it to them and let them see if maybe a small capacitor or something is burnt or broken.If you have replacements now though,you should be good.

I've got two of those same old ones on my 210 along with two new qd versions and man there is a huge difference in noise between them. If you happen to get a chance,I recommend trying the new ones.

Edit:I took the cover off of one of mine(had a lose cord because the rubber grommet had moved and fixed it) and mine has 2006 on the circuit board as well.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Yet another "Doh!" moment for me.

We have an extremely generous person in our local club who gave me two old controllers to replace the supposedly malfunctioning one I had.....along with a bag of old spare Ecotech bits and pieces. As soon as I got home from this friend, I switched out the controller and voila, everything was back to normal.

Now I sat down and went through this bag of goodies. One thing I found was the MP40 Manual and one additional slightly larger page that appeared to be an added page of new features. I looked at this page and there was a section titled "Pump Disconnect Calibration." This actually is what @Be102 suggested, except for the part of removing the dry side.....and the waiting 60 seconds until it re-calibrated. As soon as I got the double flashing, I was removing the power.




Out of curiosity I went and found my manual and cracked the crisp pages of this manual for the first time. I'm a man and I don't ask for directions and certainly don't read directions/instructions. If a company can't make something that's intuitive, than it's not made for a man. Anyway, sure enough, there were these exact instructions included within the pages of my manual. Doh!

So now I'm curious if this is a fix for my problem and I'm now going to go flip the controllers again and try this "Disconnect Calibration" and see if it is a double Doh! moment for me. I'll be back!

 

[hybridazn]

A solid red light is a update/firmware failure. If you haven't yet I would email ecotech to solve the issue.

(If you have done this already sorry, I didn't read thru the whole thread haha)

 

[redfishbluefish]

Yep! Flipped the controllers putting the bad one back in and did the "Pump Disconnect Calibration" and still got the straight RED.

Thanks @hybridazn for the info but this controller is from 2006 and is slightly out of warranty. What does an "update firmware" require?

 

[hybridazn]

Yea I could def tell it is out of warranty being a gen2 haha. Couldn't hurt to send them a quick email and see if they can walk you thru the issue possibly. They've helped me out on my vortechs and they are both out of warranty as well.

Usually this happens when you try to update the firmware of the driver, but I don't think that's the issue here since you just found it this way.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Thanks, just sent them a note on their customer service page.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Ecotech has some of the best customer service in the industry (IME anyway). They're usually fine with helping you try to get out of warranty stuff up and running again with no hassle. If it's out of warranty and requires work by them, they'll charge for that (logically), but they're fair on their prices IME and really good about fast turn around.

I realize you have the replacement controllers at this point, so you probably won't need to send them anything, but for future reference, maybe this is helpful info.

 

[mfinn]

Thanks, just sent them a note on their customer service page.

I've read about people using the email support and not getting the best customer service. Mostly from what I hear is the volume of email they get.
I do the phone call thing. Sometimes getting through can be tough, but that's what has worked best for me.