Resurrecting and old thread.... (see update couple of messages below about JBL sending me a replacement e1501 pump head !!).
Well my e1501, bought in Feb 2012 (so nearly 8 years old), started making quite a load hum/buzz. Water flow unaffected (I think) but sufficiently loud to be not acceptable in my lounge. Changed the impellor and shaft, but no change in hum. Also took apart pump head completely, just undo screws, noticed there was water sitting in the plastic mouldings of the pump head, leaking from somewhere. Thought it was around the self priming mechanism, which I resiliconed greased all the rubber parts, but water was present week later. In the end I think it is actually leaking from the hose connector block, which does have two "O" rings, which I notice are available as spares, so maybe should be changed every couple of years. Hum/buzz unaffected by all this fiddling.
However none of this fixed the loud hum, JBL were nice and supportive in their support, but 8 years old..... I suspect an electrical winding in the pump head has "gone" causing the impellor to not rotate smoothly (had same issue with washing machine drain pump).
So I reluctantly bought a e1502 to replace it @ £155, as I know this is the biggest filter that can be put into a Vision 180 cabinet without cabinet modifications.
Things to note:
- The spray bars are not exactly the same size and plastic, thus e1501 spray bar parts do not plug in e1502 parts. e1502 is a harder more transparent plastic, which hopefully may not sag as much my e1501 spray bars have (ok very slightly but noticeable). So my spare e1501 spray bars parts couldn't be used to extend the e1502 spray bar all the way across the tank (like in the above video). Could of course just reused all the e1501 parts of course, but new parts, why not used them.
- The basket stacking arrangement is different between models, there are 3 layers of foam in e1502 and one ceramics, compared to 3 ceramics and one foam in e1501.
- Scratched chin, drank coffee, swivelled on chair for ages trying to how to think how stack the filter that won't cause major bacterial commentary/opinion problems on this forum. In the end I placed the 1/2 full trays of existing ceramics (F2 & F3) in the bottom of the new 1502 (the baskets fit the same), and left in the upper F3 tray as foam. It is quite a coarse foam.
- Foams have removable centres to place things like purigen, if needed.
- All the "dirty" water and detritus from the old filter was poured into the new filter and quite surprisingly did not end up in the tank when the filter was started, so if is a filter....
- The upper coarse and fine foams (F1 & F5) are a much better arrangement in the e1502. The coarse foam is now the whole area of the filter, which is much bigger than just the edge coarse foams of the e1501 which had a habit of clogging quite quickly (with plant matter) and collapsing and slowing the flow. Hopefully flow will be maintained greater when I don't clean the filter as often as I should.
- Also gone is the awkward rubber gasket on the e1501 that needed to be placed correctly on the top basket to seal against the "flow plate". Ok later e1501 models had the gasket built into the flow plate.
- Power is only 20W as opposed to 23W, a saving of £4.50 a year in electricity for me (£30 as opposed to £34.50).
e1501 & e1502
Any way all assembled fine and silence has been returned to the lounge. Just a shame the filter did not last very long, my mates Eheim was over 20 years old when he melted it (tank sprung a leak).
