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Thread: loud Wav pumps

  1. #1
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    loud Wav pumps

    Hi Guys.

    Ive got my hands on my lovely new Wav pumps but they are doing my head in.

    The run at 40% during the day and 10% in the evening. The produce such an annoying hum if the room is quite that i am starting to wish i stayed with my Gyres.

    Im not sure if i am doing anything wrong. if i put the pumps on Pulse mode the pumps produce a hum*hum*hum*hum that sounds as if next door has some heavy base music on.

    I hace to run them on constant as the nose from the other patterns is much worse.

    I have checked all the mountings but these look fine. Any ideas ?

    i have previously had gyres, Mp40s, Jecods etc and all have been much quiter, that leads me to think i may be at fault with these.

  2. #2
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    Are both pumps make this noise?
    Have you tried to take the cages off and remove the impellers to see if they are not seated correctly?
    Also make sure that the cable coming off the pumps are not resting on anything that vibrate against and cause the humming noise.
    Jon

  3. #3
    Frequent Contributor iamchadster's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mrt88 View Post
    Hi Guys.

    Ive got my hands on my lovely new Wav pumps but they are doing my head in.

    The run at 40% during the day and 10% in the evening. The produce such an annoying hum if the room is quite that i am starting to wish i stayed with my Gyres.

    Im not sure if i am doing anything wrong. if i put the pumps on Pulse mode the pumps produce a hum*hum*hum*hum that sounds as if next door has some heavy base music on.

    I hace to run them on constant as the nose from the other patterns is much worse.

    I have checked all the mountings but these look fine. Any ideas ?

    i have previously had gyres, Mp40s, Jecods etc and all have been much quiter, that leads me to think i may be at fault with these.
    I experienced the same thing. Nothing wrong with my pumps as far as I could tell, but when they would run it reminded me of a very faint noise like a car running outside the house. The hum and vibration was definitely more pronounced than my MP40 QD's.
    Chad

  4. #4
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    Hi guys,

    so i went through and cleaned what i could. Swapped the impellors over but no improvement.
    Im sure the noise is coming through the way they mount onto the plate and the glass. If you suspend them the noise is much less. I have tried taking the mounts apart and rebuilding them but no luck.

    For not as i can't find a fault i have gone back to my older powerhead.

  5. #5
    Frequent Contributor iamchadster's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mrt88 View Post
    Hi guys,

    so i went through and cleaned what i could. Swapped the impellors over but no improvement.
    Im sure the noise is coming through the way they mount onto the plate and the glass. If you suspend them the noise is much less. I have tried taking the mounts apart and rebuilding them but no luck.

    For not as i can't find a fault i have gone back to my older powerhead.
    Agree. I did the same thing. The noise and over-the-top flow for my 120 made me switch back as well.
    Chad

  6. #6
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    Mine are completely silent. Other than the click in pipeline mode the only time they have ever made noise is when they needed to be cleaned. I suspect some slight deviation in the manufacturing for a hand full of devices out there. I would suggest swapping the impellers between the two and see what happens.

    Over the top flow for a 120? I can see that for sure as I run mine in a 60 cube, but I have mine adjusted down to 40% to keep the water in the tank. If I had an inch or two more of room on the water level, I would love to run them at 100%. Mu alc and calc consumption is crazy with the higher flow.

  7. #7
    Frequent Contributor iamchadster's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MHG View Post
    Mine are completely silent. Other than the click in pipeline mode the only time they have ever made noise is when they needed to be cleaned. I suspect some slight deviation in the manufacturing for a hand full of devices out there. I would suggest swapping the impellers between the two and see what happens.

    Over the top flow for a 120? I can see that for sure as I run mine in a 60 cube, but I have mine adjusted down to 40% to keep the water in the tank. If I had an inch or two more of room on the water level, I would love to run them at 100%. Mu alc and calc consumption is crazy with the higher flow.
    I was able to test two different sets of WAV pumps and impellers were swapped but all had the same result. I would guess there are many reasons such as the previous post spoke of, but all those that I tested had the same low level hum. My tank sits on a wooden Marineland stand so it may exaggerate the noise a bit.

    Yes, as far as the flow is concerned it's great. For my tank it's over the top as it is too direct and blows my aragonite all over the place if I try to put them on the back wall and direct them forward. Running them on any setting about 1% to 5% caused little spots in the front corners that exposed the glass of the tank bottom. Putting them on the sides opposing eachother was a little better but the footprint in the tank was too much for me. The flow is also a little more direct, like a tube coming straight out of the WAV pump vs a broad fan shape type flow coming out of my MP40's.
    Chad

  8. #8
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    Just installed a pair of these too on a 750XXL. They’re very loud. A resonant low frequency hum that you can feel in the floorboards across the room. Not cool.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by techdef View Post
    Just installed a pair of these too on a 750XXL. They’re very loud. A resonant low frequency hum that you can feel in the floorboards across the room. Not cool.
    In my experience any time I hear a hum or noise from the WAVs it was caused be the cords vibrating against the tank. Either pinning them down with cord holders are moving them so they weren't touching the tank frame made them silent again.

  10. #10
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    Yeah, that helped as did moving them from tank ends to rear glass. Not sure if that was luck or what. Thanks

    My wife is a vibrations engineer and she walked in the house, froze, looked at me and said “somethings wrong with your tank!”

  11. #11
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    ...wait till a snail decides to take a ride on one.....it will wake up the dead!

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