Electric Pump Comparison

I agree the cock cushions are amazing!

My pump doesn’t seem to leak any oil unless you are talking about a small amount of excess oil inside the case.

Yeah mine bumps the lid slightly on each stroke when closed. My release valve isn’t as sensitive as yours though, it takes about a 1/4 turn to change the pressure on mine.

I’m extremely happy with my pump overall though and I have already seen a huge decrease in the discoloration I had before from manual pumping. I hope it continues to decrease. Its only been a few days of use so far. If I had known it would help the discoloration problem I would have been willing to pay for the pump just for that.

Hi guys

I read all these posts and on that basis ordered the 3000 ultra. After great difficulty, I found a converter to actually get it going, the difficulty is now keeping it going. I am at a loss as to how so many of you can switch on and forget about it for hours on end, when I for a start, was advised by Chris at CTC, to stop after 1hr as is it on a 1hr cycle, whatever that is?

Two of us in the forum have the same problems at the same time, though I can get mine working at least, some of the time.

Any feedback would be appreciated, and I will pass it on. Thanks Rouss.

I would suggest getting in contact with Chris at CTC and asking him to explain the “one hour cycle”. If they are selling and shipping pumps to the UK, they should know how to straighten out the problems you guys are having.

Thanks Thunder for taking the trouble to reply, I, indeed we, appreciate it.

Numerous e-mails have already been sent and replied to by Chris, but we are still none the wiser.

It is good to know that not everyone has a problem, just us in the UK.

Thanks again for your consideration. Rouss.

Hey rousseau,

Post a good detailed account of what the problem is, including the company responses and maybe someone here can help. We have a lot of sharp people here that are in the UK, might as well take advantage of them. ;)

We tried to get a converter and we did, but it was unsuitable, so we tried the next up a VR03 from Malpin.co.uk. It worked for me, though it gets very hot, and not at all for Fortex, so we tried the VR05, which causes the motor to get red hot and then it is the pump which cuts out not the converter. So 10 minutes max, until it cools. We have both sent numerous emails to Chris at CTC and he has tried to help, but he has never had anyone with a problem before, so he can,t give any more advice, apart from trying another supplier, which is unlikely to work.

The last email was the one which mentioned the one hour cycle information, which has appeared from nowhere.

We have a converter which matches the specifications suggested by Chris, but all our subsequent research, suggests it will be impossible to use the CTC pump as intended in this counrty.

Any suggestions would be appreciated as we have no idea what to do next, other than send them back if we can.

Thanks Rouss.

Perhaps there is an electrical whiz kid lurking somewhere in the forums, we hope so.

rousseau506

If the motor still has the spec tag attached, (rpm, hp, etc.), maybe you can find a motor made in the U.K. that will fit and run on the electrical supply you have.

Might be worth looking into.

wantmo

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rousseau,

Wantmo’s suggestion is a really good one. I looked at the pictures and that is a very standard motor, and should be no real problem for any appliance shop to replace for you. Probably won’t even cost much. A number of boaters who travel back and forth carry small motors in both voltages for their refrigeration and air-conditioning and just swap them out rather than purchase expensive and temperamental voltage conversion devices. It can get pretty expensive to change 50hz to 60hz (as you are no doubt finding out.)

I can’t believe the manufacturer does not ship any unit to Europe with a usable motor - they are available here, and could easily be fitted. Perhaps you could convince him to refund the price of a new motor? I find shipping a part overseas that will not work without all your messing around to be very poor form, especially when it is so easily dealt with on the front end, especially for an expensive device like that one.

The only other thought would be to run it off a car battery with an American inverter. You could get a small inverter for a pretty good price on, say, eBay that would run a 110v motor off a 12v battery. You would need to know the power draw of the motor first, to get the right size inverter. But if you sized it right, it would run marvelously well (I do this all the time on my boat). But were I you, I would just skip all the inversion and conversion and just get a motor that works on your local current. Again, I am betting any good small appliance shop could swap that out for you. Tell them it’s a vacuum pump for making fiberglass laminates for your boat, they won’t know any different as long as you leave the penis cylinder home. And then send a copy of the bill to CTC and make some noise.

Thanks guys, for your time and advice, this is what makes Thunder’s Place so special.

Even as a mechanical and electrical illiterate I did wonder why it could not be modified in production to run in the UK, indeed I thought it had, as there was no mention of a need for a converter until it all started to go wrong, it’s not as if we are the only two customers in the whole United Kingdom. You have confirmed that this would have been possible.

The motor does have a tag, even if it does include CTC XL ultra, but I’m guessing no-one would have heard of it here, so I will research a source and hopefully manage to fit it all back together. It beats my fanciful idea of training the largest fan I could find on it, to keep it cool, just kidding here.

I will or course let you know how it goes, and hopefully we don’t end up with the most expensive tool boxes in England, (gosh that makes us sound like top of the range rent boys).

A plastic tool box at that. Thanks again , Rousseau

Rousseau

If Malpin.co.uk has a website, post a link and I’ll look at the specs for your vo3/5 and see if I can figure something out. When I look at the specs for similar gearmotors in my Grainger catalog, it says the motor will run on 115v 50 or 60 Hz. Maybe your converter is dealing with the 60 to 50 cycles per second and not stepping the voltage down to 110-120v. It’s been a few decades since I’ve been in the UK but I seem to remember that 220v is the standard household outlet voltage.

wantmo

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Thanks wantmo, it is good of you to research the specs, of the converter.

I hope we made you welcome in the UK when you were here and you have fond memories of our country from your visit. Perhaps we can entice you back to renew your acquaintance.

I have sent the information hopefully which you require and look forward to hearing from you. Rouss.

Have the problems with the converter now been sorted?

Hi jo90

I have the same problems as rous, only the pump will not run for more than 10 minutes at a time with either the 200 or 300W converter.

Has anyone been able to get the CTC pump to work properly in the UK?

fortex

No, not sorted, but wantmo is working on it. Hi Fortex

Hi Rousseau,

I had a similar problem here in Australia (we have 240 volt power). Like you I was p—‘d off that I had to turn around and spend big money on a Step Down Transformer.

I bought mine from a large Electronics chain here ( Dick Smith’s Electrical). Told the salesperson that I wanted the heaviest duty model available to work a large aguarium pump. The specs I just rewad off the plate give it as model M1153 (possibly their own code/serical no.) Step Down Trabsformer, Input 230/240 AC. Output 115 v AC 500VA (4.34A).

This set-up has worked fine for me over the past year. BUT I definitely agree that CTC SHOULD have models available with the correct voltage motors already fitted for countries such as U.K. Australia etc. Other similar companies can do it e.g. the makers of the Venus 2000 sex aid.

Best of luck.