How to replace Onzen niche and revision history
Hello. What we’re going to talk about is Onzen some more. I’m going to go over some of the new changes that we’ve made, some improvements we’ve made on it, and we’re also going to run over the reasons for these improvements and some ways to deal with service calls in the future because of these improvements and how we can carry on with the whole Onzen. So let’s get to it. I’ve got an extremely old Onzen, one of the first versions there that we’ll be removing out. So if we were going to go and replace, these would jump up right now. Here is the latest version, all right? It’s the Onzen eight, with a niche which is this piece right here. I’ll explain how this operates in a little bit. And before that we went to just a regular version eight.
Now, what we would do with the version eight is we would replace this older one with the version eight, and the cell was removable by the consumer so that they could change the cells out in the future themselves because we realized that this is definitely a consumable item and you don’t need a tech to do it. So we made it easy enough for the customer to change it. What came up with this one, though, was the electrical connection. The socket inside of here is susceptible to the salt water in the spa. So you’d still have to drain your spa to change this cell out. Otherwise you’d have damage on the inside. So to simplify that, we went to the one with the niche so you can thread this whole part of the cell out and you’ve got four feet of cord. So you can keep the spa full of water, run this up to the top edge of the water, and then unthread the cell without having to worry about the connections for the cell getting wet and corroding later on. Because that’s definitely something to worry about.
Now what we’re going to do, is if you’re going to change the cell, if you have the room, and this is the first thing you ever want to do, is you want to take a look and see. I’ve got this recess here. Now if I was going to a regular version eight, I don’t trust that that’s going to fit. in fact I checked earlier with the nut, and it’s going to ride up on the edge of this recess. So in a situation like this, where it’s not going to fit, we’re going to have to look around the spa to find somewhere else to put the cell in. We’re lucky, we’re fortunate, right here over on this side we’ve got two suction spots. So we can drill out the hole for the suction, otherwise we’d be reaming this guy out over here.
Okay, come back around and face me again. What you’d end up doing is, if we were going to drill this guy out, and you had this original size, you’d use a three inch, or two and seven eighths. Three inch works, but it’s a little tight. Two and seven eighths actually fits in really nice. So you take the two and seven eighths on the inside, the outside here, this is a three and three quarter for the niche. Three and three quarter for the niche, two and seven eighths or a three inch for your older style. And then once we bust this off, it would just sit inside. This guy would sit inside of the hole, hold it centered, while we drilled out the new hole. Now if you’re taking the early version eight out, that’s a three, oh where’d it go? Three and one quarter. So we’d have a three and one quarter inch.
Same story again, we’d remove this, you’d have a hole in the shell. This would lock inside the hole to hold the hole saw centered and we can drill the hole out for the niche. We don’t need to do either of those, because we’re going to be drilling a hole brand new from scratch.
Now in a situation like this as well, because you have the old cell sitting in there, we do prefer that you remove that cell and put a two inch plug in to close that off. And then you’re going to take the hose, and run it to a three quarter inch coupler and just run it up to the drain inside of the spa and tap it off so that we can have the old cell back. I’m going to go to this side. Easier access. So now we have our new Onzen installed, siliconed in place. Now this can work, because now we have it as a user serviceable item and we have it so that they don’t have to drain their spa to remove the cell. They can unthread the housing, run this above the water level, and they can remove the cell outside of the water. Take it in, get it exchanged. There’s no need for a technician to go to their house anymore.
Now what we found as well, is that the current limiters, they’re working fine, the generators are working fine, these housings are working fine as long as no water gets in there. So once we have this installed, there’s no reason for a technician to have to go out. This can be completely considered a user serviceable item. So once we have this system installed in a spa, there’s no reason to have to go out there. Put it back in, I’m just going to feed that in, threat that up, and they’re go to go with the new one. Now back to the original version eight, really for all intents and purposes, if this one shuts down I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t just explain to the customer, say, “You know, the next time you drain your spa, run it with some chlorine for the time being, next time you drain your spa, remove the cell, make sure it’s nice and dry inside.” They can remove it, bring it into the shop, you can give them a replacement, they take it back. Everything’s good to go.
Another quick note just for you, for the techs, for anyone. It’s just for your knowledge. We are always continually improving the product. So every time we’re coming out with new cells, we’re constantly working on the compositions within them, how they work, how they’re performing, what’s causing them to break down. So every so often we come out with new batches, so we are continually improving these cells.
When you get a customer to bring their cell in, it’s probably a good idea to confirm that. Like, I mean we probably talked to the customer on the phone, do some on phone diagnostics, make sure their salt levels are right. And their water levels, and whatever water chemistry and everything’s sitting all right. And when you get them to bring it in, I would definitely have a system running in the show room where you can test their cell, right? It’s be easy enough to even have one of these styles, plug this in to a running Onzen system in the show room. Thread their cell in, throw it over the edge of a spa running in the show room or a test spa in the back, whatever you have. And just confirm that the cell is not running, and then you give them a new one.
Everyone already should be aware, but just to run past you again, your salt contents, we can run a thousand to fifteen hundred parts per millionth for these cells, versus what the old ones were. Salt water is is corrosive. So we wanted to bring that down, get it down to one thousand to fifteen hundred, definitely. So that’s your new version eight, little bit of information, improvements we’ve made. If you have any questions, feel free to call me any time, too. So that’s how you fix it.
Hey, I’m back. One more thing I was going to bring up. The cell warranty. Warranty on Onzen and warranty on the cell, is for two years. The cell is considered a consumable item, which means that it does need to be replaced for maintenance and to keep the system running. For two years, we’ll cover the cells for the two years, as it stands now. We’ll cover the cell for the two years, but the customer needs to understand that beyond that two years, yes we will warrant it over those years, but they break down at different rates depending on what water chemistry is. After that two years is up, they are expected to purchase the new cells and to keep their system running as a consumable item. User serviceable consumable.