Disable ORP for a better performance outcome?

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Indoor and outdoor situations are very different.

If the ORP reading is above the set point, the unit should not be producing chlorine. So it isn't obvious how you can get up to an ORP reading of 732. In some situations, the ORP reading can continue drifting up after chlorine production stops, especially around dusk/sunset. Is that what is happening for you?
 
Lazyman - Sorry I wasn't around yesterday but I'm glad to hear that things are looking up. It appears that I was wrong and the CYA was the issue. Regarding your ORP going up, are you sure the setpoint was at 600 and it was still producing cl? Doublecheck that today. It does seem that you are at least getting reasonable ORP levels now for your FC level. Also, where is your CYA at now?

Idowatsu - When is the last time you cleaned or changed your ORP probe?
 
JasonLion said:
In some situations, the ORP reading can continue drifting up after chlorine production stops, especially around dusk/sunset. Is that what is happening for you?
Click to expand...


Yes, the orp was that high at the end of the day. Are you living in my backyard? lol jk. Seriously, is there anything you don't know about pools? You're an encyclopedia. Hey, I'm not complaining, I'm very grateful.

Now the orp is 532 with (600) setpoint. Here we go again...

FC 7.5 this morning.

If I have to, I'll reduce CYA yet again.


Aquaman, how dare you enjoy this holiday weekend while I have pool issues! lol Hey, I thank you for all the replies. Have some fun.

I haven't checked cya again. I've used all my chemicals up from the test kit. Replacements are coming in the mail! I would say 40 is a good guess. I doubt it would change much from 2 days ago.

When you say "Still producing chlorine", do you mean the display showing.
"On" after the orp reading? The PP display says "orp 532 (600) ON" or sometimes it doesn't say "On" after the reading and setpoint. I didn't notice if it said "on" after the setpoint was overcome. I only noticed the FC tests kept getting higher with the test kit.


I have a question about how to read the orp display. What is normal function of the orp display? Is it supposed to stay at setpoint or very close to it like the PH setpoint? My ph never drifts more than .02 from 7.5 while the orp of course is all over.

So normal readings should be, for example, 590-610 while the setpoint is at 600? When it goes over the 600, the cell turns off. When it goes under 600, the cell goes on? Is that all I'm looking for?

I just want to know what to expect to see when all is working fine.

IF all gets working fine.

Hope everyone is having a great holiday. Thanks again!
 
Yes, theoretically ORP should hover around the setpoint, usually 10-30 mV swing either way depending on the hysteresis (control range) of the controller and how the feeder is sized. In your case the SWG is the feeder.

If the feeder feeds at too fast of a rate the pool will hover over the setpoint, too slow and it's below the setpoint while the feeder catches up. Some system use proportional feed to help overcome this. In that scenario the controller doesn't just turn the feeders off and on but it slows them down and speeds them up (usually based on time) depending on how far away from the setpoint you are. I don't believe your TC uses proportional feed.

SWG systems usually don't have the problem of producing too fast and I think you mentioned yours was at 1% so I wouldn't worry about that. Once it's basically working we can fine tune it.

Back to the pit for me now! Pulled pork, sausage fatties, and some drunk cheekens today!
 
ORP will wander around the set point a little, as Aquaman95 said. The PH control can hold the PH very close to 7.5, but the ORP control has more noise in it, so it moves around a little more. ORP will also jump up in the evening, and jump down in the morning. Something about sunlight causes the ORP reading to be lower. These jumps are usually around 25 to 45, so smaller than what you saw yesterday.
 
Thanks guys. Aquaman, save me a burger please.

I've capitulated and lowered the orp setpoint to 500. The orp reading is still rising, but it's only at 532 now and it is not "ON". I'm guessing it will stay like this until the natural FC is reduced from the pool over time, then I'll see what the FC reading is from the test I perform later.


Oh, the ph has drifted lower for the first time. It has drifted to 7.40 steadily dropping from 7.5, 7.49, 7.48... Not sure when it will stop. It must definitely be from the lowering of the orp setpoint, as it happened directly after that. Never any hint of it before. Not like this at least.

Should I try and tweak the ph or probably just wait until/if it gets too low. The message will let me know when it's dangerously low. Curious why it is dropping.
 
The PH is going down because the FC level is coming down. As chlorine is used up the PH comes down. Normally, you run at a fairly uniform FC level, so the PH remains steady.

It is fine if the PH comes down a little, but if it goes below 7.4 you should add a little borax to bring it back up. The SWG will raise the PH eventually. However, the ORP reading is affected by the PH. For uniform results you don't want the PH changing very much.
 
Jason, thank you. I wish I can share my beer with you. They're ice cold. lol

It dipped below 7.4 to 7.3 and change. I think it will be a while until the swg starts working again because the setpoint is at 500 and the reading is at 550 or so. It went up a little but it never said it was actually on and producing.

Either way, it seems like the ph will keep drifting down if I leave it. So, I'll put the recommended amount of borax in when everyone gets out of the pool.

Happy Fourth!!
 
I'm in a bit of a pickle here now. It's 1 AM and I just tested my FC again. Yeah, I'm getting hooked on this stuff. The FC has been falling steadily over the course of the day. It is now 6.5 which is still high but now the CC has gone up too.

The lower cya reading of 40 seems to be getting my FC levels down which is to be expected, but without the swg producing any chlorine, again, because I set the orp down to get the FC levels down, I think there is a problem now. My CC reading was 1 before, and now it is 1.5

Orp reading is 750. Is all hope lost for this or should I take one more crack at lowering cya?

Should I shock the pool with bleach because of the high CC test? I have a printout of the chart for shock suggestions but there is not a line for swg pools with 40 cya levels.

Sleepless in NJ.
 

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Yes, you should shock. Shock levels are the same for regular pools and SWG pools.

It doesn't really matter what the ORP reading is, especially at night, if the system is maintaing reasonable FC levels.
 
Is it possible for CC to go down on it's own? If so, it did. If not, I must have taken a wrong reading or something. I really don't think I did, as I am very meticulous about the testing process, but anything can happen.

This morning the FC read 6.5 and CC 0. Hmmm, is it possible, just from my guess, I doubt it.

I will check again to make sure. If this test proves to be the same as this morning, perhaps last nights test was wrong.

If it is indeed at FC 6.5 (or even less) with 0 CC, should I still let the FC drift downwards to suggested levels while the swg is not producing chlorine? I'm still waiting for the FC to get down low enough for the unit to start running.


***EDIT*** I just tested again.

There's good news and bad news.

The good news- It seems I 'may' have made a mistake last night/1AM this morning (after a lot of drinks) and the FC level after I just tested it a second time is 7 with CC at 0. Seriously, this is boggling me. It was 6.5 before, but it was close.

The bad news-
I have turned this thread into a mess, probably breaking 12 different forum rules while doing so. Asked questions I should know by reading other threads, and causing widespread havoc in the internet world. All for selfish reasons.

You guys have been more than generous with your time and knowledge. Thank you!

If this thread is done, I'll leave it alone. If it needs more updating to stay on topic, whatever that may be, I'll do that as well.

Thanks.
 
Update.

FC is holding at 5.5 - 6.0 without the swg producing anything. It has been off for a couple of days. The FC has been getting lower over the past few days with the swg off, but not overnight, and the CC has been either 0 or .5.

The orp reading is highat 662 with a setpoint of 500. I'm going to assume this won't work properly as it is. The reading has not gotten below 550 too much, if at all since I lowered it.

My fear is the FC getting low enough where I need the swg to produce chlorine and it does not turn on.

Since it is Monday, I may call tech support and they could help me with the "no flow " selection we made earlier in the week.

PH 7.4
FC 6
CC.5
orp 662
TA 8 - 9
 
You don't want the set point down at 500. That is too low given how little experience you have with the pool. I suggest you try 600, or only a little lower than that. Work you way down slowly.

With CYA at 40, you should be losing more than half of your FC level each sunny day, not so much on cloudy days. So things should get back into balance quite soon.
 
JasonLion said:
You don't want the set point down at 500. That is too low given how little experience you have with the pool. I suggest you try 600, or only a little lower than that. Work you way down slowly.

With CYA at 40, you should be losing more than half of your FC level each sunny day, not so much on cloudy days. So things should get back into balance quite soon.
Click to expand...


I was just going to HD to pick up a pump to empty the pool some more. Should I lower cya a bit more? The siphoning hoses are retired. they took way too long.

Yes, I lowered setpoint to 500 when I panicked at the 700+ orp readings the other day. I could raise them, but they have not hit anything that low yet, and I'm afraid of keeping the FC at a high number. I was waiting for it to drop first.

I will raise it to 600 and see what happens.

My guess is the orp reading is not correct. That is why I asked about lowering thre cya a bit more. Maybe to 30. One more attempt at this and I'll disable the orp sensor if it doesn't work. At least I could say that I tried. I'm a little disappointed, but it's not over yet.

I'll call tech support now. No clue what they'll tell me.


Should I lower the cya to 30? Give me the word and I'm off to HD. thanks!
 
It depends on what you want the system to be able to do. From the sound of things, it is maintaining an appropriate FC level right at the moment, and it may well continue doing that without much further adjustment. The behavior isn't necessarily what you would want from an "ideal" automation system, but for the moment at least it does appear to be usable.

There is "noise" in the system. ORP levels change in response to a number of things other than the FC level. The lower the CYA level, the "louder" the response to FC levels, the less the "noise" matters.
 
1). Don't be afraid of high ORP values

2). I don't know the details of how the hysteresis is handled in your controller so your mileage may vary.
3). Your last set of test results looked reasonable. You will want to experiment but most likely will find a happy ORP threshold around 580 - 630. Higher ORP set points become less reliable as an indicator of FC.

4). It would not be uncommon for your FC to fluctuate between 2.0 and 8.0 ppm depending on the bather load, sunlight, pH , etc, etc. As long as it doesn't "run away" with higher levels of FC I would just consider it to be mildly shocking your pool. Every once in a while you may see a "breakpoint" in oxidation after which the ORP may abruptly jump 100 a 150 mV. At FC levels betwen 5 and 9 this can sometimes take a whole week to achieve depending on a lot of factors.

Good luck

Lee
 
Sounds good, but we can't know that it has been working OK since it has not turned on in 3 days or so. It hasn't called for chlorine either, so it's still a toss up. I do see the orp readings all over the map. They are higher in the evenings like Jason has mentioned they might be.

The FC today after a lot of sun and a few swimmers was down to 3. The orp reading still hasn't budged from 662 area. Should I now change the setpoint to 650 or keep it at 600?

FC keeps going down slowly, yet the orp reading doesn't correlate with it. I don't expect perfect synch, but I would have expected "Up" = "UP", "Down" = "Down" or a ballpark of some kind.

Setpoint is still 600. I'll have to check really closely now to make sure it doesn't get down past 2, right? Or is that 1? If it gets to 2, I'll change the setpoint to whatever the orp reading is at that time, correct? It might still be at 660 range.

Thanks!

I literally had a nightmare about this last night. lol My pool was pure green and black and sludgy and creatures were coming out of it. Seriously. I didn't even know it was a dream and I feverishly tried to get the water cleared up, but a creature came out of it and startled me. Then I woke up. GEEZ! Seriously.
 
6:30PM No more sun, swimmers are done. The FC is 3 with .5 CC. Orp is showing 652 with 600 setpoint. Perhaps 650 is what I should keep it at after all. I'll measure later, and tomorrow morning and ummm, every two hours or so, for the heck of it, to see how things progress.

Yes, it seems like things are working, BUT like I mentioned before, I had an FC level of 10 and 8 and still had orp readings in the 650 range at those levels. anyway, we'll see. I'm starting to have more faith.

Thanks.

CYA at 40, I won't worry about refilling and subsequent cya levels, when it rains and splash out. I now have wiggle room to go down a little. Puts my mind at ease this way. I stress a lot.
 

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