The Vectra starts shipping this week and this new controllable DC pump from Ecotech Marine is already garnering a lot of attention. It’s not just the hardware of the Vectra M1 & L1 pumps that make them such great water movers, but also the built-in software that makes them silent using QuietDrive, and the great automated features that are possible with the EcoSmart driver and EcoSmart Live.
For us, the hallmark feature of the Vectra pump which is sure to be duplicated by many pumps that come after it, will be the ability to calibrate the pump to a specific tank’s precise plumbing for both the drain and the return outlets. The best part of calibrating a Vectra M1 or Vectra L1 pump is that you don’t even need to be connected to a ReefLink or EcoSmart Live to enable this very clever feature.
Onboard programming of the QuietDrive driver controlling the Vectra pump allows simple button-based calibration of the Vectra pump. On the low end, users can determine their desired minimum flowrate, which Ecotech Marine reccomends to be a “bare trickle” through the return or outlet nozzle to the tank. This non-zero level is set so that ‘feed mode’ doesn’t shut off the pump completely, but simply reduces it to the least amount of flow to keep the return pipe full of water and not back-siphoning into your tank.
On the higher end of flow rate for the Vectra, users can determine the desired maximum flowrate for the Vectra. This maximum can either be the most amount of flow you want for your tank to keep it draining quietly, or it can be the physical maximum the drain can handle from the output of the Vectra before the tank starts overflowing.
It is our sincere hope that Ecotech Marine will eventually implement an option to have two maximum set points, so that users can have an audible maximum, and a physical maximum, with both setpoints being easily accessible to users depending on what state the tank is currently running in (normal operation or high flowthrough for expedited nutrient export and cleaning/clearing). Either way, check out this video from Ecotech Marine showing how easy it is to program the initial minimum and maximum calibration points.
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