Pentair Easytouch Wireless Remote Problems

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EskimoPie

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LifeTime Supporter
Jul 27, 2007
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Sahuarita, AZ
Hey all,

I have a Pentair EasyTouch system with an 8 channel wireless remote. For almost 3 years now the remote has worked great. Never had any troubles with it. Now for the last 6 months or so, I'm having serious connection troubles.

99% of the time now the remote will just say "No Comm". While saying "No Comm" it'll periodically cycle with "sync". If I keep hitting the power button, eventually after a couple of minutes I'll achieve sync and give me the normal display with the pool temp and time (which will be correct). Unfortunately that appears to be just a brief connection to enable that screen as hitting any of the channel buttons such as the pool light or spa light (or even trying to go into the settings menu just pauses for a second and then says "communications timeout" without enabling the circuit. If I press the button maybe 50-100 times, It'll usually work and trigger that circuit. It's as if the wireless connection is having VERY intermittent connections.

The base station operates normally, still controlling my pump and other circuits and running my schedule normally. The trouble is limited to the remote. I've called Pentair tech support who have been really helpful, but they say it must be an RF interference issue. They said it's really common and their only advice is to try moving the transciever antenna unit to different locations. I've tried that with no success, but I need to try with a longer cable so I have more options. I'll just use some bulk ethernet cable I have laying around.

I borrowed a friends easytouch wireless remote and it had identical symptoms, pretty much crossing the remote off the list of possible causes.

I've also tried replacing the transciever antenna board (bought one off e-bay for ~$300) and it had the exact same performance. So I'm pretty convinced that it is a RF interference issue, but I'm at a loss for how to deal with it. Pentair said the common source is baby monitors. I suppose a neighbor somewhere likely had a baby recently.

Has anybody else had this trouble and does anybody have any ideas on how to better troubleshoot? It's really frustrating not being able to use my remote, especially when I'm in the spa!

Thanks!

And BTW, if anybody is in the market for a slightly used wireless transciever board, I'm selling one! :)
 
Ugh... so nobody else with an easytouch remote has had this difficulty I take it? I was going to play around this weekend with 100 feet of ethernet cable and try my remote out with the transceiver at different locations. Unfortunately the weather was just too Dang beautiful and I ended up just playing in the pool all weekend with my wife and kids. Maybe next weekend.
 
EskimoPie said:
Ugh... so nobody else with an easytouch remote has had this difficulty I take it? .
Click to expand...

I'd turn off every breaker in your house, except the one feeding the easytouch, then test the system.

If it doesn't work, take a chainsaw, and cut a tree down on the power lines of the neighbors houses one by one until it works. I'd ask for permission first of course

dumb questions

1. have you tried new batteries?
2. have you tried re addressing both units?
3. what lights are on on the transciever board?
 
Sorry I didn't read this earlier.

It certainly sounds like RF interference. Baby monitors use the 49mhz band.

Along with Racket's questions, here are a few more.
4. Have you added any new appliances lately?
5. Have you added or changed your home wifi setup or equipment?
6. Have you or a neighbor dug an old cordless phone out of the closet recently? (ok that's a joke) they used 49mhz several years ago. :)
7. Have you added a wireless thermometer or weather station lately?

I second Racket's suggestion of powering things down to see if you can find the culprit.
 
racket said:
1. have you tried new batteries?
2. have you tried re addressing both units?
3. what lights are on on the transciever board?
Click to expand...

1. Yes, I've replaced the batteries several times since then in the remote.

2. Yes, I've tried re-addressing the units several times. It always says it works (channel found), but doesn't improve the reception.

3. If I recall correctly, there are two LED's on the board, one would blink slow and regular (about once a second), while the other would flicker intermittently and irregular.
 
Bama Rambler said:
4. Have you added any new appliances lately?
5. Have you added or changed your home wifi setup or equipment?
6. Have you or a neighbor dug an old cordless phone out of the closet recently? (ok that's a joke) they used 49mhz several years ago. :)
7. Have you added a wireless thermometer or weather station lately?
Click to expand...

4. No new appliances that I can think of.
5. I did get a new router, but I've tried pulling the plug on it and then testing the easytouch remote and it had no effect. I actually have a couple of baby monitors also (that I've had for the duration of the pool and never caused any problems before). I tried turning those off also and it had no effect.
6. No new phones.
7. No weather stations.

Thanks for the ideas guys, I don't think I have any of those transmitters but I wouldn't be surprised if a near neighbor did. Not much I could do about it anyway though other than trying to re-locate the transceiver right? I might actually try turning off my entire house breaker just to ensure I don't have some other culprit I can't think of. Maybe I'll even go flip the neighbors too!
 
I've used a piece of metal window screen to block stray signals. You might get lucky an be able to figure out which direction they're coming from if you have a piece about 2' square lying around. Place the screen on one side of the antenna and the remote on the other and rotate around the antenna until it works. The stray signal is coming from behind the screen. The screen has to be metal.
 
I have a Jandy PDA and experienced similar troubles. Have you had a smart power meter installed recently? Smart meters use a lot of the 915 - 924 MHz band and were causing me a lot of trouble. Depending on the channel allocation you might be able to change your channel so as to avoid overlap between the smart meter and the EasyTouch.

As I recall, the Jandy default channel is 4 which happened to be the worst possible channel in terms of interference with my smart meter. I switched to channel 5 (the best possible channel) and the problems went away.

Trial and error may suffice, but you can look up your device on the FCC website by the FCC ID number. I believe the EasyTouch is P4HEASYTOUCH.

After looking at the manuals and specs, the EasyTouch uses "addresses" instead of channels. They might be the same, or not.

If you don't have a smart meter, try looking for other sources of 900 MHz interference, i.e. old cordless phones, remote control devices, wireless video, and so on.

I hope this helps..
 

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No, I have not completely solved my issues. What i did is take some bulk ethernet cable and made a very long cable for the transducer. I then tried moving the transducer around the yard to various points and then trying to use the remote at various locations. I am quite confident the issue is RF interference as I was able to find a location for the transducer which produces some 'sweet spots' for the remote where it works about 75% of the time (vs. less than 10% before). It's still quite frustrating but I'm at least able to turn the spa on and off most of the time without having to walk over sharp rocks to the main control panel. I'm hoping with further testing at different locations, I may be able to improve the connection.

jkalan, thanks for the thoughts and info. Unfortunately for the easytouch system, there doesn't appear to be a way to change the frequency channel manually. You can do an automated scan for a new wireless "address" (and I've done it many times), but it always reports success yet never improves the connection performance. What I wish I had was a spectrum analyzer and a directional antenna to help me really identify the source of the interference.
 
EskimoPie,

Please keep us informed if you find a fix for this problem. We have had the pool since 2007 and didn't have any problems until recently (sometime in the last six months). We have had a Smart Meter for appx 2 years with no problems.

Our next step is to ask the neighbors if they have baby monitors. If we figure out a fix we will let everyone know.
 
If you do find the culprit, and its not inside your own home, the offending neighbor must stop using whatever is causing the problem (its the law). Too bad you're not in my neighborhood, I'd try to borrow one of the frequency monitoring vans we use to detect if anyone is radiating at one of the launch pads.
 
Interesting thread... I have the same issues and have since day one.

I've tried multiple controllers as well as multiple receivers and the remote continues to work from certain areas but not others.

I generally like to have the remote on the side of the pool to access when I want to make changes and nothing sucks more or looks more ridiculous to guests than when I have to get out of the pool walking around with the remote control as if it's a metal detector trying to find a signal.

I have to push whatever button I'm trying to use 10-15 times while moving around before I get a successful connection.

This thread has been helpful though, as I turned off all baby monitors in the house and was able to control the pool from the kitchen after only a few connection timeouts.

I will continue to mess with this and if I come up with anything, I will report back!
 
Communication Timeout : Had the same problems with my remote, here are some of the "dumb but worked" ideas. Put something metal in front of the the tranceiver for about 10 minutes. Old screen, metal collander, etc. metal with holes. Remove Batteries from any remotes that have been in same vacinity of Pool Remote. Also, unplug microwave for 10 minutes and unplug any cordless phones. Go out to Unit and turn off all breakers while removing batteries from remote. Leave both out for about a minute. Turn breaker back on and insert batteries in unit. In main box Go to menu - settings- wireless address on unit, once it says "sending" then go to remote and go to menu, settings, wireless address and see if it picks up signal. Worked perfect for mine and I have had this problem several times and not been able to fix. If doesn't fix you may have to look for more rf frequencies that could cause problem; As long as main unit is working, transceiver has lights flashing and remote is showing good battery strength this should work on communication errors. Good luck! :-D
 
I had the same problem: A couple of years the remote worked just fine, then all of the sudden "Communication Timeout" in the screen and had to push 10-20 times to get a button to work. The solution: Go to the receiver (the one that looks like a mouse) and pull the cover out. Unscrew the antenna and wrap the antena once in a small square sheet of kitchen foil. Screw it again and Bingo, works just fine.
 
I have the same issue with an install from just a few weeks ago. However, the installer mounted the transceiver about a foot from the load center. The manual says 10 feet. I'll probably try to move it further away to see if that helps first. Hopefully the installer didn't cut the excess cable.
 
Problems with communication are not always on the RF side of the TX unit. Check the comm wire that runs from the outdoor panel to the transmitter. looking for partially chewed comm wire or nicked wire(s) at the buss (either end). Have had this happen. Electrician in stripping wire for buss nicked data wire. Worked for a while then nick caused wire to separate and loose comm intermittently while still having power.
 

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