Joseph225
Member
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2012
- Messages
- 159
I need to take a minute to give the folks at Sapphire their due. I've had my SS570 for four years, now. It's an absolute beast of a machine, and I've been very pleased with it.
Now, over the course of four years, every once in a while something minor goes wrong. This is to be expected, right? I've got a couple of different people who have helped me with various things, from the kid who worked with me last summer (he placed 6th in the state level FFA small engine repair competition this year), to a good friend who is a high-level mechanical engineer. These guys have all proven very helpful, and the engineer expressed surprise at the level of design, the first time he helped me. There was a wiring issue where a wire had broken loose from the connector on a wiring block, and he was helping me track down the problem.
The other day I came outside to mix up some more cleaner, and there was water pulsing out from the side. Turned out to be a pinhole in a hose that connects to the pump. I called Harlib at Legend Brands and he explained that it was a pulse hose. It's not like a regular hose, in that it's "flexible", and it does something to stop the hoses from jumping around.
Being a lowly carpet cleaner, it didn't make a lot of sense to me, so I got the part number, and texted the engineer I mentioned above. He explained that with a displacement pump, there's a piston forcing water into a chamber to create pressure, much like a piston compressing fuel in an internal combustion engine. He said that he'd be skeptical how well it worked unless the length was around 100x the diameter of the hose. We did a little math, and sure enough, it came out to 96x.
I'd been freaking out, because no one had this thing in stock, and I needed to be back to work ASAP. He told me a regular pressure hose will work in a pinch, while I wait for the new pulse hose to come from Sapphire. Once again, he expressed admiration for the level of engineering that went into this machine, telling me that the only other time he'd come across something like that was when he'd had to build something to clean the steam generators in a nuclear reactor. Also, FWIW, with a regular pressure hose the pulse port, my hoses jump around significantly more when the pump is on.
Sapphire builds some very high level machines. I've been very happy with mine.
Now, over the course of four years, every once in a while something minor goes wrong. This is to be expected, right? I've got a couple of different people who have helped me with various things, from the kid who worked with me last summer (he placed 6th in the state level FFA small engine repair competition this year), to a good friend who is a high-level mechanical engineer. These guys have all proven very helpful, and the engineer expressed surprise at the level of design, the first time he helped me. There was a wiring issue where a wire had broken loose from the connector on a wiring block, and he was helping me track down the problem.
The other day I came outside to mix up some more cleaner, and there was water pulsing out from the side. Turned out to be a pinhole in a hose that connects to the pump. I called Harlib at Legend Brands and he explained that it was a pulse hose. It's not like a regular hose, in that it's "flexible", and it does something to stop the hoses from jumping around.
Being a lowly carpet cleaner, it didn't make a lot of sense to me, so I got the part number, and texted the engineer I mentioned above. He explained that with a displacement pump, there's a piston forcing water into a chamber to create pressure, much like a piston compressing fuel in an internal combustion engine. He said that he'd be skeptical how well it worked unless the length was around 100x the diameter of the hose. We did a little math, and sure enough, it came out to 96x.
I'd been freaking out, because no one had this thing in stock, and I needed to be back to work ASAP. He told me a regular pressure hose will work in a pinch, while I wait for the new pulse hose to come from Sapphire. Once again, he expressed admiration for the level of engineering that went into this machine, telling me that the only other time he'd come across something like that was when he'd had to build something to clean the steam generators in a nuclear reactor. Also, FWIW, with a regular pressure hose the pulse port, my hoses jump around significantly more when the pump is on.
Sapphire builds some very high level machines. I've been very happy with mine.
