I have a three year old IC-40 that worked perfectly until a week ago. Cell light began flashing. Removed cell, cleaned as directed, even though the cell looked clean. The cell light begins flashing about five minutes after the pump is turned on. Not producing chlorine. All other lights are solid green. What to do?

Bill in Pensacola, Fl

Which light on your cell is flashing? Are you using an Easy Touch to control it? (may not matter-that's just how ours is set up so it's what we know) According to the IC-40 manual, the cell only produces chlorine for a certian percent of the time that water is flowing through it every hour and that time is determined by your IC-40 settings that you input. When you increase the cell output, you are basically setting it to produce chlorine more minutes out of each hour the pump is producing flow. Lower output would simply be producing for fewer minutes each hour of flow. Check your IC-40 settings and visully check the cell throughout the run time. Perhaps you are only seeing the cell during the down time.

I know that the cell light comes on and goes off as it makes chlorine for a certain time based on input (20, 40, 60, 80, 100). This is not what's happening. The cell lights flashes green, telling me that it needs inspection and cleaning. But the cell is clean and still flashes.

which cell flashes?

Ok, sorry if I insulted your intelligence with my reply. We have not encountered this issue yet, but may I suggest calling Pentair tech support? We've had really great results when we called them for tech support in the past. If tech support had nothing other than purchasing a replacement to offer, I would probably clean it a few times and try it before I replaced it just to be sure it is totally expended. Ours came with a 3 year warranty so you may still be in your window for that as well. I recall the IC-40 manual listing the useful life as somewhere around 5 years. Super chlorinating can use up SWG life sooner (so they say at the pool store) so we've been adding bleach/shock weekly to help it out and hopefully extend the life of the cell. It's easy & supposedly cheaper. I realize this does you no good with your present issue, but may be useful for future reference. Any others out there with solutions to this one?

It's the "CELL" light that constantly blinks. The Salt, Power, Flow lights are all solid green. Doesn't matter what output % I put it on. I am going to clean the cell again, but the cell looks really really clean when I look thru it. Thanks!

If you hold the "More" button for about three seconds all the lights will flash and then the sanitizer output lights will go to a percentage. 20% would mean 20% of life expended, 50% would mean 50% life expended and so on. This will give you and indication of how much of the life has been used up. I would like to know what you come up with because these cells are supposed to last 5 years. If yours is only 3 years old I am worried.

Here's another thought on your problem. This afternoon I cleaned our fliter. Psi was about 35 with the vs3050 turning 3000 rpm and the cell light (same one you mention) was flashing. After cleaning psi is about 17 and the light is green. Our Easytouch shows the salt level at 3140 (a little lower than the 3300 printed on the cell) and it lists status as no issues. All lights on the cell are green after cleaning. I haven't read anything in the IC-40 manual about psi being too high, and I'm sure the flow was quite restricted as well, but the flow light was still green. So perhaps you may want to try cleaning your filter and see if that makes a difference. This was just something noticed and I thought it may be a potential solution for you.

Hello, first, thanks to all who responded to my post.

I cleaned the sand filter and psi is at 10. Also cleaned the cell again (3rd time). Except for chlorine, all other levels are in range; salt is at 3400. I checked the life of the cell by pressing "more" button and holding it down. Told me the cell is at 60%. After I put the cell back in, the cell light went solid for about 10 minutes, then started blinking again. Have contacted Pentair hoping for a replacement cell since this one has a manuf date of 2009, should still be in warranty.

Well, contacted Pentair and they tell me my cell is not under warranty. I had my pool installed in 2008, but my pool guy changed out the cell at no charge in 2009. Pentair says the warranty period for the new cell began when the old (original) cell was installed. So I got a cell that was manufactured less than three years ago, and only at 60% of its life. I would have thought Pentair could have at least given me a prorated discount.

I bet they have no idea how many of their customers & potential customers are watching your experience! I would have thought a company like Pentair would at least do you a solid and offer to pro-rate a replacement.

Ken & Shari...I agree, especially since I own a total of four Pentair products. I've asked Pentair to reconsider but haven't heard back. I think I'll try your suggestions and backwash the filter again and clean the cell a few more times. Might start looking at alternative swg's. Enjoy the rest of the year's swimming weather

Hmm. I was thinking of getting a Pentair IC60 when we switch over to salt (plus IntelliFlo, EasyTouch and IntelliBrites). But, based on your experience and those of several others here, now I'm not so sure. I really get peeved when companies don't support their customers.

So far, so good for us with Pentair. We've only been pool owners for almost 9 months now, but the support was incredible when we were installing and learning how to use our Easy Touch. No wait on the phones, and the area rep at our home to replace a bad board in the ET. Of course this was during the winter months when they are not very busy and was right after we installed our pool. Hope it continues when needed & hope your IC-40 issue gets resolved.

I sent this thread to Pentair. If they are smart they will read it and modify the way they do business. I am also a Pentair customer and am concerned with the way this issue was handled.

Response I got from Pentair. Would like to know if they take care of it.

Hello Carlos,

Thank you for sending your letter of concern, as well as info to the link on our customer service. I looked it over and sent it to the appropriate people. Customer satisfaction is a top priority at Pentair, and this will be taken very seriously. Again thank you for bringing this to our attention. Have a great weekend.

Thank you.
Mark Wingate

Carlos, thanks for your help. If I do hear from Pentair I'll post the results. Thanks to you, I might get a better resolution.

Well, still no response from Pentair. Not unexpected, but disappointing. Apparently they are more interested in sales than customer service.

Thank you for posting your experience. Realizing that the intent of TFP is not to intentionally slam anyone in the industry, but rather to share information that we all find useful. The collective real world experiences of the community are very helpful to many of us in making purchasing decisions. Please conutinue to update any resolution you receive from Pentair. I will be watching this one as I am sure many others will.

Moyer02,
I wrote another email to Pentair. I told them that I was concerned as a Pentair customer that they had not even contacted you about the issue you have.

Later that day I got a phone call from Mark Wingate from Pentair. He wanted to talk about the email I sent him. I told him that I do not have any issues with my Pentair products but was concerned for Pentair and their customers. My concern for them as a company is the large number of people at TFP that read these bad reviews. My concern for the customers, like you, is the lack of customer support on an issue that, at least to me, appears to be a premature failure of the cell.

He asked me if you had contacted Pentair and I told him you had. I told him that the technician that came out tested your water said your phosphates were too high and left.

We then got into a discussion about phosphates. He told me that the fact you had phosphates in your water may have been at least part of the issue. He said that with phosphates in the water the unit cannot keep up. I told him I did not agree with that position and tried to explain to him how phosphates do not mater in a pool if you maintain the proper FC level. I really did not get very far with trying to convince him that phosphates were not a concern. It is apparent that Pentair has a strong opinion that phosphates do contribute to higher cell settings or even the inability of the cell to maintain FC. He at least agreed to read posts from TFP that I will send him debating the phosphates issue.

Mark wanted to know if I knew your name and I told him I did not. If you PM me your name and phone contact information I will be happy to pass your information along to him.