OR6500 Impellor explosion

viper357

viper357

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So, last night was a bit busier than normal for me, I had a small problem with my big return pump. It's an Ocean Runner 6500. I got a phone call yesterday afternoon while waiting to pick up my daughter from her afterchool activates, "Dad, something is wrong with the tank", :eek: I honestly think that is the worst phonecall one could ever receive, you just know it can only mean impending doom and lots of clean up work to do. So anyway, apparently all of the water was still in the tanks, so that was a bit of a relief.

Got home and found my return pump was not working. Weird. Tried to spin the impellor, it felt a bit tight and not very smooth so I thought maybe something had got jammed in there. Out came the towels and so started the horrible operation of contorting my body into all manner of weird positions to remove the pump from the sump, these pumps are monstrously huge and frikkin heavy.

And here was the result of my investigation....an exploded impellor!!!

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How does that happen? Twice? Yes twice, I have 2 impellors from OR6500 pumps that this has happened to.
 
I would say that it got water in underneath and started to rust. The rust is expanding and this just caused it to split open. Did you buy both the pumps more or less at the same time? Maybe it was a faulty batch of impellers.
 
When the impeller and shaft wear, the impeller rubs against the stator and wears the plastic exposing the magnet. Check the stator for damage. If the impeller has warne the stator, water will get into the windings and cause copper and/or iron to enter the aquarium.

This sort of thing is normally caused by the lack of willingness to get into awkward positions and do the maintenance thing. :tt2:
 
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mariusmeyer said:
Did you buy both the pumps more or less at the same time?
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Yes, bought them both at the same time from the same person although both pumps were 2nd hand so no way of knowing if they were from the same batch.

Nemos Janitor said:
This sort of thing is normally caused by the lack of willingness to get into awkward positions and do the maintenance thing.
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Damn right! :p

AfricaOffroad said:
How old is that impellor?
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No idea, been running on my system for about 2 years probably, but being 2nd hand it could be quite a few years old.

:lol: @ Sean, was that Keith in his younger years?
 
Maybe "explosion" is a bit too strong of a word, expansion is probably better.

So if anybody is running OR6500's it's probably a good idea to take out your impellers and check for signs of splitting or rust, this looks like it's probably taken a while to happen, may have started off with slight cracks and as the rust got worse it slowly built up and expanded the impeller until it went all out of whack. But my fault nevertheless, too lazy to do proper maintenance, but who checks their return pump impellers anyway?:p
 
Yup. Somewhere here on MASA i got a post with a pile of them in a box in my garage. Moved on from those pumps a looooong time ago.
 
Had the same with lots of pumps... Definite lack of willingness to get into awkward positions etc...
 
I'd say by the look of it it's a flaw in the seam of the impella, that rust looks old. And the only way it's got inside is inbetween the seams.

Hate to see what the inner side of the pump looks like?
 
Hi Viper i found that happen with me once before,lack of cleaning impellor will cause impellor to slow down while the pump is forcing it to spin, and then the impellor or pump heats up and cracks,you so lucky its not your pump but impellor,it could also be a cheaper impellor and not a aquamedic 1,also check pump inside for a ridge,if you find 1, dump your pump
 
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