The Hydraloop detects when too much water is in the T3 storage tank to be safe. To prevent any water damage the tanks are emptied.
How does this technology work?
The Hydraloop uses a height sensor to detect the water level in T3. The technology used for this is air pressure. A tube is pushed inside the water. When the water level raises, the air pressure in the tube increases. This air pressure is then ‘sensed’ by our controller.
The T3 tank needs a way for air to escape and enter. At the top of this tank is a big hole. If water would reach past this level it would overflow outside the unit.
What goes wrong and what does the Hydraloop do about this?
When anything is wrong with the measurements of the tank, the actual level of the tank is incorrect. And we might risk water loss to the ground because of the hole at the top of T3. Luckily we have a backup detection. When the sensor almost reaches the highest point in the tank, we notice this by the fact that the volume of the tank drastically decreases. Making the tank level raise much much quicker than normally.
To prevent any water damage, we immediately stop adding water to the tank. Then we empty the tank completely. And create the ticket. The tanks are emptied to really be sure no water damage occurs. Also they might temporarily solve the measurement problem. But the problem will come back eventually!
A very extreme example is shown below, where T3 slowly over time lowers by the loss of the air in the tubing. Normally the leak is a lot slower and harder to see. It lowers quicker at the beginning because of more air pressure on the sensor tubing for the air to leak out quicker. (See the T3 line in the image)
Why would emptying the tanks only temporarily solve the problem?
As the measurement mistake is almost always caused by an air leak in the pressure tubing, the tubing slowly becomes vacuum. This could be a leak that takes weeks. or days. When the tank is emptied the sensor tube is no longer under water, this removes the vacuum problem. Sadly, when the T3 tank is filled again with water the air leak will slowly shift the tank level again until it is a problem again.
Causes #
The problem of this air leak can be 2 possible causes. As testing if this problem is resolved can take days, it is advised to just replace everything that can be the cause. As this is more cost and time effective.
What can cause the air leak?
- Any tubing along the way of the T3 sensor pipework has some small air leak. This can be caused by all the coupling pieces, but also by any hole in the tubing itself.
- Sadly, it is also likely that the sensor used by our ecu controller (pressure-board) is leaking the air out.
How to solve this?
- First off, it is IMPORTANT that the tanks of the Hydraloop are emptied first. Go to the HDM and to the Hydraloop in question. Then go to the “Maintenance” tab. And run the Maintenance routine “Empty T1/T2/T3”. After all tanks are emptied continue.
- Now replace all the tubing of T3 with a new set.
- Also replace the pressure-board. If you have a system of version V1.X then you have to replace the main Ecu instead. You can see the version of the Hydraloop on the “Device” tab.
- Please note that on V1.X version of the Hydraloop replacing the Ecu is a bigger task. You NEED to use the “Replace Ecu” routine on the “Maintenance” tab for this.
To check if the replacement went well
Please go to the “Maintenance” tab of the device and run the “Fill T3 with backup water” routine. Set the value a high number like 400. And let the Hydraloop fill the T3 tank. After it is filled you can check manually at the “Graph” tab of the Hydraloop to see if the level of T3 stays stable. Any big leak will be tested with this. (leaks that take days won’t). A drop in pressure points of 1 is normal. 2 is more worry some, wait a bit longer to see. And if the tank drops 3 pressure points before 2 hours later, probably means the problem is still there. (note that in the main time having any toilet flush messes with the test)
It is also recommended to run the “Maintenance” routine “Fill T1/T2 with backup water” and fill it to around 150 points. And check if the tanks are getting filled in the “Graph” tab. Why? As replacing the pressure-board also replaces the sensors of the T1 and T2 tanks.