Tekmar Warranty

[chuck172]

My tekmar 156 controller is experiencing problems. The relay has been sticking. I got in touch with Tekmar in Brittish Columbia. Seems my unit is about 3 weeks over the warranty cut-off date.
Tekmar is really giving me a run-a-round. Obviously they don't want and don't have to honor their warranty.
I like thier products, they are pricy, but I was hoping for a little give and take here.
Just a "heads up" to those of us shopping for controls.

 

[bpirger]

I have the 362 and 363, and a bunch of WellMcClein mixing controllers that will be installed. Operational since 2003 without any problems....really like them.

That said, I'd hope they'd be more helpful.

Are there other companies that offer such a "complete" controller? I must say, I don't know of any, and I sometimes wonder if it would be a reasonable business venture to try and given them competition. These days having some directly integrated into a PC world, but completely stand alone, and highly programmable, would be quite trivial to put together. The hardest part I think would be getting into the market. Trust is a big issue when it comes to a controller.

 

[chuck172]

Tekmar really disapointed me. Very helpful and pleasant customer support, but when it actually came to replacing the controller, they turned!
I'm looking to find a control that would do what the tekmar 157 claims to. Vary pump speed to transfer heat from the boiler to the storage tank using the deltaT.
I can buy the tekmar 157 for about $220.00 and it would work with a taco 00 pump.

 

[ewdudley]

I'm looking to find a control that would do what the tekmar 157 claims to. Vary pump speed to transfer heat from the boiler to the storage tank using the deltaT.

Chuck, how is your boiler return temperature control and storage circuitry set up? Are you using the variable speed to control injection flow into a boiler recirculation loop?

I've been seeing good results with a commodity PID controller running on-off injection.

In effect it gives me good hot return temperature and a constant supply temperature according to the controller setpoint, but it sounds like a constant supply temperature may not be exactly what you want.

--ewd

 

[willworkforwood]

It's disappointing to hear about a company that builds good products, but cannot go the extra mile (in this case just an extra kilometer). I'd guess one of these controllers might cost them maybe around $30 to build. Add in $5 to ship - seems like a nit in exchange for some good customer relations. Plus, I'd like to believe that a REALLY good company would want to research a possible product defect, and put the breaks on it as early as possible. Ah So, perhaps they already are aware of the problem, and are trying to say it's the result of operator error. Sounds vaguely familiar. Anyway, good luck finding another controller Chuck.

 

[chuck172]

willworkforwood, That's exactly how tekmar is handling the situation. Operator error.
ewdudley, I'm now using a tekmar 156 to turn on and off the pump from boiler to storage using the delta t. I'd like to upgrade to throttling the pump (variable speed) with the tekmar 157 controller.