Tecma toilet not emptying

[Odana]

We have a toilet mystery. Last night our Tecma silence macerator toilet was working fine. The control has two phases when you press the button - first a dose of water then the 'suck and mince' extraction phase. Never had any problem in 3 yrs since we owned it (system is maybe 8yrs old?)

 

This morning it is pumping water in OK, though that phase seems to go on a bit longer than usual. There is then a 'click' audible in the control panel for the next phase but nothing happens. It's not like the pump is blocked - simply nothing happens, no noise. From what I can check without removing the toilet itself the wiring is fine. But I'm guessing this is something electrical.

 

Any suggestions on where to start looking? Or what I'm looking for? Is it likely to be control panel or macerator end? Many thanks.

[Klim 1]

I have a macerator set up of different make so might not be same in operation,but.......if macerator/extractor is not operating then its not being told to...(controls) or it is being told to and is not operating..(motor and associated cabling). My set up has an extraction only button,if yours is the same then does this work? if so then pump and cabling is ok,if not its not being told to.

Altenatively,if you have volt meter and gain access to 12 supply to pump motor connections,operate extraction and see if voltage is present at pump,this will also tell you if pump is benig told to operate or not. Not the end of diagnosis but will identify if its controls or macerator.

Just to add...Are you positive it is not blocked/jammed

[sjc]

From the age and description it could be the motor not starting because the brushes are worn. This happened to us and we swapped out the motor ( luckily a warranty issue for us ! ). You may be able to tap or wiggle it ( gently ) into life intermittently, which would confirm the diagnosis. This assumes you have done nothing to it, or near it recently, that may have affected the wiring, first thing would be to check fuses, wiring, and a voltage on the motor terminals when it should be flushing.

[John V]

The motor of my Tecma has been in use for 7 years (heavy use, two people liveaboard) the previous motor was in use for 3 years and was changed due to damage of the pump blades caused by a foreign object (scent sample bottle) neither have given any problem electrically or due to normal wear and tear. so unless your pump has been in use for a long time it might be worth carefully checking everything else first.

The wiring loom with my toilet has an inline fuse carrier between the control box and the pump if yours has ...obvious first check.

 

Put a test meter on the motor and check it actually gets 12v when at that point of the cycle. (or unplug the double lucas connector that connects the pump and replace the pump with a 12v lamp.

 

If this fails to light and you can hear the click of the relay that should operate the pump then that checks out the electronics. and would suggest the relay contacts have failed........if you know someone with a small soldering iron and some experience with electronics this can be replaced fairly simply. (If you know what you are doing) and alternative replacement relays are readily available.

 

If the lamp does light then it's the motor .

 

If there is no click corresponding to the point when the main macerator pump should operate then that would suggest a fault in the controls with very little other choice than replacing the unit.

Edited April 24, 2016 by John V

[Odana]

Thanks all, and excellent tip on the lamp.

I don't think it is blocked, as the flush pump worked perfectly last night, no sign of struggle, then this morning it never made a sound - dead. Nothing had gone in there overnight other than pee and paper.

 

Results of tests so far so far are:

Switch seems to be sending power through to wires that feed motor. The lamp lights. However, one strangeness.

What *should* happen on pushing the flush switch is - Click#1=water, Click #2=macerator and first extraction, Click#3= Macerator again and final water extraction. What *is* happening according to voltmeter/lamp is that clicks 1 and 3 send power to the motor lead, and click 2 does nothing. Click 1 sends power to the solenoid controlling the water as expected, then clicks 2&3 do nothing for that line, also as expected. The click sound is in the control panel - at the motor end I hear nothing. Question- does solenoid for water valve also do something to motor power? If not then it's as if the control panel is giving out incorrect instructions.

 

To eliminate control panel from the equation we tested power to the lamp straight from the 12v boat supply. Worked Ok. Then we attached the wires feeding the motor to the same 12v supply, and it just sparked a lot. Why would it do this? I am suspecting this may mean dead motor? Anything else to check? I can't believe I have 2 simultaneously occurring problems.

 

 

(May I take this opportunity to say I hate the principle of pump outs at the best of times - never get this kind of grief from a porta potti!)

Edited April 24, 2016 by Odana

[Alan de Enfield]

Greeny for the last sentence.

[Chewbacka]

If the electric motor wires spark it indicates that current is flowing.

So the question is - is the electric motor stuck and unable to spin?

If so the motor is either jammed possibly because something has gone done your toilet or the motor is poorly.

 

Can you get to the motor shaft - with the power off as you don't want it starting with your finger in there - and see if it is free to rotate?

Do you have a current meter that can measure the motor current and see if it is consistent with a stalled motor?

[Odana]

If the electric motor wires spark it indicates that current is flowing.

So the question is - is the electric motor stuck and unable to spin?

If so the motor is either jammed possibly because something has gone done your toilet or the motor is poorly.

 

Can you get to the motor shaft - with the power off as you don't want it starting with your finger in there - and see if it is free to rotate?

Do you have a current meter that can measure the motor current and see if it is consistent with a stalled motor?

 

Motor all in tidy sealed housing under the toilet bowl. We can lean loo over to look under but there seems to be no way of getting to motor details without disconnecting that, and the icky pipes, and the water, and... I was so hoping we wouldn't have to get to that!

 

Have standard voltmeter, but not sure about measuring stalled motor currents - that may exceed our combined expertise. I see a grubby day ahead tomorrow - yuk

[RichardN]

I am sorry but I don't remember the guy's name but Aquafax in Luton have a Tecma guru who is brilliant but nowadays only works part time.

 

Tecma toilets seem to be relatively bullet proof, the only blockage we have had is when we had an embarrassed teenager on board and most of her now VAT free product went through, what jammed the blades was the plastic wrapper presumably as they had been slowed by chewing through everything else. A while back but I have to say that as far as I remember we had no noise from the motor when we tried flushing.

[Chewbacka]

.....................I see a grubby day ahead tomorrow - yuk

Best you get your self to screwfix and get a pair of these

http://www.screwfix.com/p/ansell-solvex-37-185-chemical-resistant-gauntlets-green-medium/4904h

[John V]

You are correct, there is no way you can access the working parts of the motor with it in situ.

If the motor sparks but doesn't run I would suggest that something jamming the blades is a strong possibility.

You have to remove the large bore rubber pipes off the pump assembly before you can see the pump vanes, you should be able to rotate the impeller with a large screwdriver or the like but be careful, the impeller blades are rigid plastic and will break rather than bend. If they won't move then you can get into it by undoing the ring of screws round the body.

If it is not something seizing the pump then it has to be the motor, and I can't be any help there as I have never attempted to take one apart.

If you are going to have to get the motor out then you will find it easier if you can unmount the ceramic bowl and rotate it so you can get inside it properly, it is quite a tight squeeze to get all the rubber pipes in and out and you need to make quite sure you know how they fitted in, otherwise you will struggle for ages to make it all fit properly afterwards.

I would advise you carefully descale and clean the pipework while you have it in bits, it's a horrible job but at least you can get it all done in one hit. If yours is the model with the small bore pipe between two sections of the large bore rubber pipe (older models) then pay particular attention to cleaning this as it is the most prone to block part (not the fault this time.....with that blockage the pump runs but doesn't pump away because of an airlock)

 

good luck.........(incidentally I can thoroughly recommend "Oust 3 in 1" as a good spray to keep the pong down) John

[Victor Vectis]

Best you get your self to screwfix and get a pair of these

http://www.screwfix.com/p/ansell-solvex-37-185-chemical-resistant-gauntlets-green-medium/4904h

That isn't helpful!

 

FWIW I've been battling with a Tecma macerator system recently and you have my sympathy.

 

CASSETTE USERS LOOK AWAY NOW!

 

Having donned my big boy pants and disposable latex gloves I found the dismantling procedure was not as bad as I thought.

The motor was connected to the rest of the electrical gubbins, two wires, one black, one brown by a connector thingy that just pulled apart.

The water inlet was connected to a Y piece by a jubilee clip so that came apart easily leaving only the 'foul' outlet to be disconnected, another jubilee clip but BEWARE OF BACK PRESSURE!! (You might wonder how I know this )

You can now pull the bowl assembly forward and get to the back. There are two large rubber mouldings that come away easily, more jubilee clips, giving space to get to the macerator bit. The two halves are held together by a number, 8 or 9 I think, of screws. Once seperated you have access to the macerator blades to clear away anything that should not be there and might be causing grief.

 

Or not in my case, the 'back pressure', see above, should have been a hint that the blockage was/still is further downstream.

 

Hope this helps and let us know how you get on.

 

ETA: Looks like I've cross posted with John. Would agree about descaling that little pipe, I used cheap cola. As for this Tecma guru, who is this fine fellow? I want to be his new bestest friend

Edited April 24, 2016 by Victor Vectis

[rustydiver]

I had to disconnect mine a few weeks ago, non return valve blocked , not nice.

But it was straight forward to take apart.

The main problem we found that there was not enough water to make the waste runny. found the flow tap and turned it up.

[saltysplash]

Greeny for the last sentence.

Ditto

[Odana]

So... the past few hours have been spent dismantling toilet.

 

Two wet wipes are the culprit (not sure how long they have been there - one of us must have had a thoughtless moment after 15 years of being sensible with boat toilets, can't blame anyone else recently), combined with many years of crud which was a) building up so thick that it was interfering with smooth blade movement and b ) flaking off in lumps and getting in the way. And that breather pipe - also blocked solid.

 

I had de-scaled the toilet the other day with some Steradent - may have been the thing that tipped it over the edge. And on reflection I had noticed the sound of the pump was different over the past months - that would have been it trying to crunch up flakes of crust!

 

John is off buying a stock of cheap cola to soak everything in for the afternoon now I have chiseled the worst off. The motor now turns by hand which is promising. I haven't tested it on the power yet until it is clean - there's enough mess around from the dismantling.

 

As I was saying - you never have to do this kind of thing with a portapotti! But I confess I am finding it a fascinating process - esp as the toilet had not had any, err, heavy use in the day before it jammed so it isn't nearly as icky as I imagined. Do you want photos for future reference?

Edited April 25, 2016 by Odana

[Barry]

No thanks.....

[Odana]

No thanks.....

Wuss!

[Barry]

Wuss!

 

There are some things......

[David Mack]

But are you both walking around now with crossed legs and clenched buttocks until the job is finished?

[Victor Vectis]

Do you want photos for future reference?

Well, we could compare notes.

 

But are you both walking around now with crossed legs and clenched buttocks until the job is finished?

I can recommend a blocked toilet as an excellent cure for constipation!

[Odana]

But are you both walking around now with crossed legs and clenched buttocks until the job is finished?

 

Of course not - I got the emergency portapotti out and it is sitting smugly in the kitchen rolling its eyes at the silly over-technical overpriced ceramic and electrickery contraption.

 

Well, we could compare notes.

 

I can recommend a blocked toilet as an excellent cure for constipation!

 

I have had a fascinating time investigating and chipping away and scrubbing. But then, I WAS meant to be marking coursework, so I suppose pleasure is all relative... I did notice I wasn't hungry for lunch though.

 

And good news - the motor works. Blades still a bit 'crunchy' from all the limescale fragments, but it works. Will leave everything overnight in the coke bath

Edited April 25, 2016 by Odana

[TheBiscuits]

Pictures or it didn't happen!

 

Wait until people are eating though.

[Odana]

Pictures or it didn't happen!

Wait until people are eating though.

Before (I assure you this is all solid limescale, not surprised the thing was poorly!)

After a Coke bath, chiselling, scrubbing and a second Coke bath.

 

And this, ladies and gentlemen is what Coke can do for your insides!

Next stage, reassembly.

[cuthound]

I regularly use Leesans descaler, so hopefully my pipework is limescale free.

 

Don't fancy pulling it apart to find out though!

[rustydiver]

Before (I assure you this is all solid limescale, not surprised the thing was poorly!)

After a Coke bath, chiselling, scrubbing and a second Coke bath.

And this, ladies and gentlemen is what Coke can do for your insides!

Next stage, reassembly.

image.jpegimage.jpeg

Nice. And thanks I'm having my lunch and was just eating a chocolate bar oh we'll best carry on eating.

 

You've inspired me to take mine apart sometime to see how scaled up it is.

I wish I took a photos off my blocked non return valve now so that we can compare them.