SOG fan blowing, not sucking.

[George Collings]

Sog having got their own back did the right thing supplied a new on and stopped you getting your own back = Result

[ken the kontiki]

I guess we never really noticed the dodgy fan as any smells have always been masked by the blue we use in the cassette. Now that the fan is working correctly, maybe we can cut back on some, if not all, of the blue.

 

 

[RogerC]

ken the kontiki - 2015-10-14 6:31 PMI guess we never really noticed the dodgy fan as any smells have always been masked by the blue we use in the cassette. Now that the fan is working correctly, maybe we can cut back on some, if not all, of the blue.

I was always of the understanding that the SOG was designed to operate without additive chemicals?  I seem to reacal reading on the Australian SOG web site that chemicals detract from the effectiveness of the unit.

We have had one fitted to our MH from new and never suffered whiffy 'blowback' into the van and have never used chemicals since having it fitted.

 

[George Collings]

As I understand the principle the SOG works on is the regular intake of fresh air promotes the bacteria that break down solids. Anything that slows the process is counterproductive.

 

The smell at disposal time or downwind of the vent has been described as strongly natural. For me its no worse than when fluids have been used but then I have mucked out a few cowshed in my time.

 

 

[outdoorbits]

Just had this thread pointed out to me and thought I should just clarify our involvement here.

We were asked if we could help, we checked with SOG in Germany as we are the UK SOG Distributor and they did indeed state they had seen a similar fault on one system before where a diode was faulty in the fan housing itself.

As the fan was out way out of warranty and not supplied by us anyway we obviously couldn't exchange it as SOG Germany wouldn't have reimbursed us, however they must have decided to exchange it for the OP which was good of them with it being out of warranty.

 

I don't believe we were at fault with our actions and we didn't point blank refuse to help as we were the ones who looked into the problem and got an answer for the OP !

 

[StuartO]

outdoorbits - 2016-01-08 3:45 PM....As the fan was out way out of warranty and not supplied by us anyway we obviously couldn't exchange it as SOG Germany wouldn't have reimbursed us, however they must have decided to exchange it for the OP which was good of them with it being out of warranty.

 

I don't believe we were at fault with our actions and we didn't point blank refuse to help as we were the ones who looked into the problem and got an answer for the OP !

Neither did you cover yourself in glory, I suggest. You could have tested the fan and then contacted SOG in Germany and got approval to replace the fan FOC, rather than leaving the customer to have to go over your head to the manufacturer. That would have been much better customer service than making a decision not to help. I hate it when the current distributor refuses to help simply because "we didn't supply this unit" or because the warranty has expired. Thank goodness the manufacturer recognised that this was a manufacturing fault.

[outdoorbits]

Stuart, it wasn't just out of warranty it was 2 or 3 years out of warranty I believe. It had failed at some point I am sure as any self respecting installer would have tested it at installation and it would be easy to see the smoke being blown back into the toilet compartment instead of being sucked down into the toilet.

 

If I contacted manufacturers every time a product was reported as faulty many years down the line after warranty had expired they would soon tire of me.

 

The OP got a good result of which I am glad, SOG are usually supportive and helpful.

 

We didn't make a decision not to help ? We did assist in the OP enquiries as I said.

 

It may either have been a defective diode which either was defective right at the beginning but then wasn't identified by the installer even though the instructions for installation clearly state to check the smoke direction etc or it failed once installed at some point (more likely). It wasn't identified as a failed unit until 4 or 5 years old.

 

You wouldn't ordinarily expect the distributor or retailer of a product to swap for a completely new one that far out of warranty. We have assisted others in the past where the warranty has been out but not by this much of a margin.

 

[Derek Uzzell]

Just for the record...

 

Historically, a SOG-system extractor fan-unit was fitted with a blocking-diode. The effect of this was that, if the fan-unit’s two wires were incorrectly connected to a 12V DC power supply, the fan would not operate. This prevented a wrongly connected fan-unit from running in reverse and blowing air into the toilet-cassette rather than sucking air out.

 

This may no longer be the case as (although some on-line SOG installation instructions still state that the fan-unit will only operate if its cables are connected ‘right-way-round’) the instructions for a Thetford C-400 SOG Type D system contain the following caveat:

 

“CAUTION

The extractor does not have a blocking diode (no protection for connection the wrong way round) and if plus and minus were reversed would turn in the wrong direction and therefore provide no extraction. Therefore check extraction is functioning.”

 

 

[StuartO]

outdoorbits - 2016-01-08 8:59 PM...If I contacted manufacturers every time a product was reported as faulty many years down the line after warranty had expired they would soon tire of me....

 

The OP got a good result of which I am glad, SOG are usually supportive and helpful.

If your product knowledge was up to scratch and your relationship with the manufacturer was good enough to allow you to know how they would probably react to a situation like this, you could have been more helpful more quickly to the customer. Being a distributor isn't just about handling stock for new customers and taking a margin on new sales in UK, you are part of what sustains the product's reputation and SOG has a very good one. You put the customer to the trouble of contacting the manufacturer themselves. It doesn't matter whether they had bought from you, you are SOG's current UK distributor. Try harder to be helpful.

[Derek Uzzell]

As far as I’m concerned Outdoor Bits did as much as a reasonable person might reasonably expect from a distributor of a fairly inexpensive item.

 

In 2006 I bought a SOG system for my Hobby motorhome’s Thetford toilet and fitted the system myself.

 

As I said earlier, although the SOG fitting instructions prescribe a ‘smoke test’ to confirm that the system works properly, the possibilities after my installation had been completed would have been limited to:

 

1: The fan-motor would have run in the correct direction and noticeable air extraction from the cassette would have taken place.

 

2: The SOG fan-motor would not have run at all (wiring polarity wrong or a total motor failure).

 

3: There would (it now appears) have been a remote chance that a diode-related fault would have resulted in the fan-motor running in reverse.

 

When the fan-motor is running in the correct direction it’s obvous that air is being extracted from the toilet-cassette, so if either 2 or 3 had happened I would have immediately become aware of it. If the fan-motor had not worked at the installation stage, or had run in reverse, I would have contacted the supplier (which was not Outdoor Bits) and expected a replacement motor to be provided. If the motor had subseguently failed within the warranty period or started to run backwards, I would have also expected an under-warranty replacement motor.

 

Once outside the SOG system’s warranty period, if the fan-motor had suddenly begun to run backwards or failed to work at all, I might have contacted the supplier to see if there was a known problem that might have led to the backwards-running/falure, but I would not have expected a free-of-charge replacement motor.

 

If the supplier had told me that, having checked with the German manufacturer, there was the possibility that the motor’s reverse-running/failure was due to a manufacturing fault, I would have welcomed that advice and done as Ken did, contacting SOG directly and (if given the opportunity by SOG) sending the fan-unit to them for inspection. If SOG had provided a new fan-unit as a good-will gesture as they did in Ken’s case I would have been pleased, but if they had said “It’s out of warranty - tough luck!” I would not have been surprised or particularly aggrieved. Whatever SOG’s response had been, I would not have let it influence my gratitude to Outdoor Bits for getting in touch with SOG about my fan-motor problem.

 

It’s overwhelmingly improbable that, when Lowdhams installed the SOG system in Ken’s Swift motorhome in 2011, the fan-motor fan in reverse. Even if the installer had failed to carry out a smoke-test, or had failed to notice that air was not emerging from the exterior filter-housing through which the fan-unit blows, I don’t believe the owner of the motorhome (who would have just forked out for the SOG installation) would have overlooked the fact that the system was not extracting air properly from the cassette and/or would tolerate that situation for 3 years.

 

I can (sort of) understand that Ken might not spot that the SOG fan was running backwards, as he obtained the SOG system ‘free’ when he bought the Swift and (presumably) had no previous experience of how the system should perform. But I would definitely have identified a backwards-running SOG fan-motor at the installation stage and, if the motor reversed its running-direction at some point during the 8 years I owned my Hobby motorhome, I’m sure I would have noticed that too. I’m confident other forum-members who have fitted a SOG system themselves, or had the installation carried out for them, would also rapidly become aware if the fan-unit was not extracting air properly.

 

There is a lot of twaddle on motorhome on-line forums. For instance Ken said

 

“...Having to spoken to several SOG "specialists", after many years of people making their own SOG kits using some genuine SOG items, SOG hiked their spares prices right up to discourage such practice. The fan can't be taken apart for repair as it's encased in resin and the fan frame is part of the 90 degree door fitting. Typical of the Germans but I can see their point.”

 

Whatever the SOG ‘specialists’ told him, it’s not the case that the SOG fan-unit was originally inexpensive and the price was increased radically to counter people taking a DIY approach. The fact is that the asking-price of a SOG fan-unit was ALWAYS around 50% of a complete SOG ‘kit’.

 

While it may well be the case that the high spares price was deliberately chosen originally by SOG to discourage DIYers, it certainly did not result from DIYers once being able to obtain the fan-units cheaply and SOG then bumping up the price to discourage DIYers from buying them.

 

For as long as I’ve been motorcaravanning DIYers have been installing toilet-cassette ventilation systems mimicking (usually badly) the ’SOG principle’, but employing a computer fan-unit instead of the SOG fan. And the reason for choosing the computer-fan has been because it has never been possible to source the SOG fan-unit cheaply.

 

The SOG fan-unit is a tough cookie and the original UK supplier (Symonspeed) used to exhibit the SOG system at shows with the fan-unit connected to a 12V battery and the fan running continously under water in a small fish-tank all day long. This was to demonstrate the durability of the fan-motor and how little 12V power it demanded. Try that with a computer-fan...