Ecotech VorTech MP40

OK so get this, after all this time I figured the freezing up thing was just bad luck until I read the post from Mocarski.

I contacted Ecotech spoke with Steve the tech manager, he had me break the wetside apart and take pictures which I sent to him. It seems there was a batch of these (and a large one from what Steve said) that had bad shafts is how he described it I think. Anyway for those with the bad shaft the send replacement parts like Mo said.

Well I caught them between orders or whatever and they did not have the replacement parts so and here is the KICK ARSE part-Steve has shipped me 2 brand new complete wetside units, not parts but the whole freakin wetside.

How is that for customoer service. I am going to PM Guitarman incase he isnt subscribed to this thread-

Thats awesome!!

 

Thanks for the pm, I will keep this in mind, although I have had not problems since then, it's been about 5 months now, but it's good to know the issue and that their willing to fix it. I'll tell you what, customer support like that will get them a lot more business, I will definitely buy another one.

 

I got my second MP40 a couple of weeks ago and finally got around to installing it and getting both synced up. I spent about 1 hour playing around with the setting creating different wave patterns. WOW you can create some wicked wave patterns. Having them synced up and using the Reef Crest mode seems to work best for me. Well worth the money and I cant see going back and using any other type of power head.

 

I really like these things for what they do with the water flow but I do agree that for this price point there should be no issues. Glad to see they are still providing good customer service and that was my experience. They've been relying on the bad parts story a litle much IMO too. I was told by them that they had supplier issues and fixed them and then the fix still had probs. My second hasn't had an issue since I bought it so hopefully they've finally got it all straightened out. These things do kick butt so as long as they provide the customer support and nothing better comes along i'll keep spending the money on em.

The difference between gen1 and gen2 as I understand it is that gen1 had incoated magnets that rusted and the programming. Coated magnets alone are worth avoiding gen1. The programming isn't a big deal if you have a buddy with a gen2. One of the great features of these is that you can wirelessly upgrade the programming on the gen1 from a gen2 unit and it basically becomes a gen2 controller unit.

Personally I could have wished that they imply threw in a lock washer or something simple. I'd rather see them working on new features like letting me write my own programs for it or letting me hook it up to my rke or apex cobtoller than on troubleshooting issues.

 

I really look forward to what advancements they can make to them as well, I would love to be able to program my own wave modes somehow or allowing external controls somehow.

Hopefully now that they've released powerheads for pretty much the entire tank size range they'll be able to look at doing some other cool stuff.

 

Looks like they announced an interface so these can be controlled by external controllers like the apex and RKE. No word on a release date that I can find.

 

Sweet! I just checked their homepage and sure enough! Thanks for the tip.

New Product Announcement: Controller Development Kit | EcoTech Marine