Reefmat 1200 drive / motor fails.

Triton_Z · May 24, 2023

Great post. I have a Reefmat 500 and the drive unit would not rotate the spool one evening last week. No attempts or motor noise and a Jam message present in the app with a blinking alarm light on the drive unit itself were the observed symptoms. I tried a couple power resets and a 12 hour power down without any success. The unit has been working w/o issue for just over a year. I contacted RedSea and they quickly replied by email to offer sending a replacement motor. I was surprised they offer internal replacement parts for the drive unit, but the replacement was straight forward and simple to complete. No signs of moisture intrusion or burned components. The replacement motor resolved the concern.

I was curious on what caused the failure. The drive motor (looks like a permanent magnet DC motor) is attached to a plastic gearbox. I removed the motor from the gearbox (held by a plastic strap) and the gearbox turned freely and smooth. Reduction ratio is likely pretty low as it's difficult to turn the output side when the motor is connected. I hooked the DC motor to my bench power supply @ 12.0V and tried a low amperage 1st 100 mA, no movement, 200 mA no movement, the motor finally turned at over 500 mA. After this initial power up, the motor would move @ 100 mA every time. Reinstalled the motor in the gearbox and put some good load on the output end w/o any large increases in amperage draw. I've put the old motor in the parts bin, but I suspect some brush issue?

Thanks for posting the info on the driver side. I'm curious if it uses the same PCB as the 1200. If I have to open the drive unit up again, I'll take some pictures.

Aframereef · May 24, 2023

Yea that is basically what I experienced. Motor would draw a lot of current but once moving it drops way down. The extra chip gives it the boost to get it going. I still think a firmware fix might be possible that would just retry the motor driver a bunch of times before it gives up. They have a separate current sense resistor so they can monitor the current and allow higher currents for startup.

My gut tell me they may just be sending out the same motors. So it will be interested to see what happens 6 to 12 months from now.

mikedoes · May 28, 2023

Aframereef said:
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.

I can’t locate this chip @ digikey.

mikedoes · May 28, 2023

Aframereef said:
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.

I can’t locate the chip @ Digikey.

Aframereef · May 28, 2023

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/diodes-incorporated/zxbm5210-s-13/4567774

DaveWrasse · Jul 5, 2023

I applied some silicone grease where the red spools rotate in the acrylic frame (both sides), this solved the issue for me with the motor unable to advance when the take-up spool was getting filled with dirty fleece (around 100 ft). I have the Reefmat 1200.

Draconas · Jul 20, 2023

Hellow every body,

I have a new question Im using non RED-SEA fleece rolls.
They are muche cheaper and longer I have 4 rolls for the price off 1 roll.
Except they dont fit on the side off the clean roll they are to thick.
So I made something to hang them on the outside but now everytime that my dirty side starts to roll up it go in the error 2.
I think its beceaus on the clean side also is a gear and this is not spinning now everytime it rolls.
Can i fix this on the print or cut this signal out or something?

Aframereef · Jul 20, 2023

Draconas said:
Hellow every body,

I have a new question Im using non RED-SEA fleece rolls.
They are muche cheaper and longer I have 4 rolls for the price off 1 roll.
Except they dont fit on the side off the clean roll they are to thick.
So I made something to hang them on the outside but now everytime that my dirty side starts to roll up it go in the error 2.
I think its beceaus on the clean side also is a gear and this is not spinning now everytime it rolls.
Can i fix this on the print or cut this signal out or something?

They have an encoder inside that makes pulses . Most likely it's a quadrature encoder that gives an A & B phase. With thus type they can determine the direction as well as the distance. Not a simple electronic hack. I think a mechanical solution might be easier. I will have to look at my unit.
You can build a circuit that will take the motor pulses and convert it to a quadrature signal but if you have no electronic experience that may be hard for you.
If you google quadrature genator circuit you should be able to see what us involved. I don't have a lot of free time until later in the year.

paulgriffin971 · Jul 25, 2023

Just happened to me this morning. Reefmat is not even 3 months old. Got an error pertaining to a jam, but nothing, Can't advance with the moror nor can it correct via the reefbeat app/ Also---how many firmware upgrades are there? I'm on 1.8.5 and it seems like every two days there's a new firmware. And...how can the EXACT same drive motor be sufficient for the RM1200 and thee 500? Seems to me the motor would be sized appropriately for the larger 1200, but its the exact same size as the 500.

Lebowski_ · Jul 25, 2023

Gotta love that RS quality control

Morpheosz · Aug 12, 2023

My Reefmat 500 motor died and RedSea sent me a new one within 2 days so that was nice but I asked if I could order another one as a backup (how expensive can they be?) and they said you can only buy them through a dealer. Does anyone know a dealer I could order one from by chance?

exnisstech · Aug 12, 2023

Morpheosz said:
My Reefmat 500 motor died and RedSea sent me a new one within 2 days so that was nice but I asked if I could order another one as a backup (how expensive can they be?) and they said you can only buy them through a dealer. Does anyone know a dealer I could order one from by chance?

ReefMat Drive Unit

ReefMat Drive Unit, R35444

fishtanksdirect.com

Yodaman · Aug 12, 2023

I have a Reefmat 1200 that quit working as well, they sent me a replacement motor that I’m going to install tomorrow

Zestfullyclean · Aug 12, 2023

Mine failed while still on the very first roll. Redsea sent a motor replacement and video below. Simple change out and haven’t had issues since. Only have gone through 4-rolls since new motor though.

blaxsun · Aug 12, 2023

Morpheosz said:
My Reefmat 500 motor died and RedSea sent me a new one within 2 days so that was nice but I asked if I could order another one as a backup (how expensive can they be?) and they said you can only buy them through a dealer. Does anyone know a dealer I could order one from by chance?

They told me the same thing but no one stocks these in Canada. I don't know why they don't just let us order direct from Red Sea like they used to...

Aframereef · Aug 12, 2023

I bet Red Sea pays $0.75 for the motors out of China.

Lebowski_ · Aug 12, 2023

Classic Red Sea

AlexandraDreadlocksPanda · Sep 6, 2023

I’m seeing this with a lightly used unit I bought to replace my Clarisea SK5000 which was a proper PITA to be honest. I’m toying up whether to do the piggy back chip mod, or am also wondering about using a relay triggered from the motor feed just to give the motor 12v direct… yeah I wouldn’t get a jammed notification but it’s more trouble than it’s worth…

2Flash1 · Sep 9, 2023

I’m having the same issue as of Friday.
Is there anyway you can order like 2 extra gear motors? And why the hell doesn’t RS have them for-sale on their site under parts?

I have had zero problems so far…but beginning to see why I usually steer clear of their products. All have issues from tanks to lights…

IceRain29 · Oct 28, 2023

Red Sea just released the newer reefmat 250, it seem to have a smaller drive unit. I think Red Sea should release an updated drive unit for the 500 and 1200 that have a bigger better motor or just sell the replacement motor seperatly for something like $20.
I've been running some custom ordered fleece roll that I friend gave it to me, I think it's a 300 micron fleece. It last a lot longer than the red sea fleece roll, so less stress on the motor.