Any experience with rather unique Cross Manifolds

Harold

I need to replace manifolds. While looking for replacements I found the Cross Manifolds brand. They appear to be quite new and not well distributed yet. Kinda looks like a start-up bought by Ultra-fin. Information a bit disjointed. This is their web site. http://www.crossmanifold.com/

It is quite a unique device. A robot arm turns valves on and off. It appears that the valves are essentially regular rotation water valves. As such, they should probably last forever. No rubber to replace (my guess). No slow pistons moving up and down driven by expensive actuators. The valves are turned on and off rather quickly. No bouncing internal pistons. It is not even priced unreasonably.

The only real drawback I see is that they have to have power. That could be a bit of a problem in places where manifolds live. It needs 24V at 20VA. So if you could get a low voltage wire to it, it would be fine. Their supplied wall wart is rated at 30W. From what I have read, when nothing is happening, very little power is used.

It fixes a number of issues with manifolds. How long will it (and parts) exist. Ultra-fin is an established company.

If anyone has had experience with this, please share.

duffy_4

I have used them on three different jobs this past summer and am impressed with the design and function of the manifolds. Will see this winter how the operate ,they simplify the wiring process when you have multiple zones.would like to see a larger manifold size where you could use it as a distribution manifold to supply remote manifolds

duffy_4

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

I like these guys. Easy to set up and a real time saver.

Thanks duffy and thanks to Matt who came to our jobsite in San Francisco and changed out a split valve a day after I called. What's not to like?

Harold

Could you please explain what caused the valve to split? Are you talking about the valves driven by the moving arm mechanism or something else? Splitting kinda seems like a bad thing.

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Harold:

I asked Matt why the valve body split and he thought it might have happened during shipping because they pressure test their manifolds before they go out. It can also happen if you over tighten the connectors. That's why they say to hand-tighten only.

The valves are made of Dupont Zytel and the new generation available soon is beefier.

I like that all the parts on the manifold are modular. It took about 3 minutes to change out the valve.

Harold

Thanks.