Temp affecting salt reading on Intex SWG

[crumtastic]

I've seen reference to cold water making a SWG read low salt. Does this work in reverse for higher temps? I keep getting a high salt error on my Intex SWG, 2 weeks old, but my salt concentration reads 2500ppm, manual says it should be 3000-3500. I don't seem to get the error if I run the SWG in the morning, I'm going to confirm tomorrow morning, but I do in the evenings when the water temp is 88-90 degrees.

Anyone else experience this?

 

[dmanb2b]

Check the SWG cell for scaling, the plates may need to be cleaned. High temps do not cause a false high reading, from what I have heard or experienced

 

[crumtastic]

The plates are spotless...... I'm going to run it in the morning when the water temp is lower. If it still gives the high salt error I will drain and refill to lower by 500ppm and try again until the unit likes the level.

Thanks for the quick response!! I've been lurking on this forum for a month or so and it made setting up my pool a breeze, and way cheaper. I have sparklypoolitis and can't stop trying to get every speck of dirt out of the pool!!!

 

[Suziqzer]

I've not had any problems with our high temps recently. Pool was 90.5 degrees today and has been above 88 for over a week... not one complaint from my Intex swg during this time and it's keeping up well.

Welcome to TFP!

 

[Jamison04]

No issues here. Water hit 89 today and I run the swg for 7 hrs starting at noon as manual recommends it runs when pool is in the sun. It runs thru the heat of the day when the sun is baking it and has been every day since end of June. Knock on wood nothing goes wrong with it!!!

 

[crumtastic]

Well, I fired up the SWG this morning, water temp 86, and it worked like a champ. I have no idea why...... I wait the same amount of time after starting my filter to start the SWG. The only difference is water temp....I'm stumped.

 

[Suziqzer]

Hope it keeps working for you!

 

[Jamison04]

Good to hear! Hope it cooperates for the rest of the season for ya!

 

[crumtastic]

I hope so as well. However, it brings up the question of why it will work in the morning but not in the evenings? I'm one of those people that have to have a reason for why things do what they do...... "It just does" doesn't work for me. :?

 

[Jamison04]

Maybe the unit is getting too hot and it's causing it to malfunction but not necessarily due to the water temp. Just a theory.

 

[crumtastic]

Maybe the unit is getting too hot and it's causing it to malfunction but not necessarily due to the water temp. Just a theory.

Good point..... it does sit in the sun all day. I'll see if I can get some shade on it and see if that helps.

 

[Jamison04]

Well had an experience today with mine. Lol The low salt alarm was going off! Was adding water as usual, toss hose in skimmer box and let pool fill up. After about 5 mins the swg starts beeping. Walk over, low salt. Ok momentary flip out and panic haha. Then thought ok well water hose is just being poured directly into skimmer and swg isnt seeing the salt level it wants. So shut off water and wait for it to correct itself like it will do when I backwash and it freaks out over low flow. No such luck. So reset- comes on says its working and then guess what! Low salt... Ugh so off to test salt level: 3300. So why is it flipping out? Decided to tear it apart and clean the plates. Upon first glance over they appeard clean. Looking further in-between the three plates all along where it meets the plastic tube there was a lot of build up. So I sprayed it out with the hose making sure to clean out as much of the deposits as I could. Put everything back together and so far it's been running for over an hour. So it might just be that there are some deposits built up in between the plates on your swg.

 

[crumtastic]

Possibly..... I'll give it a look-see tonight. Hopefully my TF100 will be in today so I can get an accurate reading on my calcium levels. My Total Hardness, based on the HTH 6-way test kit from Walmart, was 100ppm last I checked, but I don't know the actual calcium level. It may be causing deposits to form faster than normal. I guess we will see...... :-D

 

[Jamison04]

Just an update. Ran fine all day today with no problems. If your hardness really is 100. Than you won't see build up as fast. My calcium was at 250ppm but it's filled from a well tho and yesterday was the first I've even closely looked at and cleaned the plates since it was put in svc the end of June. Sometimes I wonder just how "quality" most electronic stuff is these days. One day something's fine, the next it's all flipped out then fine the next day....

 

[guamguy]

I've been having the exact OPPOSITE thing happen with my Intex SWG, the low salt alarm didn't go off when it should have. Last week we had about 10" of rain, which diluted the salt in my pool. I tested and had about 1800ppm salt, but the Intex was happily trying to produce chlorine, even though it was hardly producing anything.

 

[Jamison04]

That's crazy! I wonder what the programmed minimum ppm range actually is on the intex swg. Apparently they don't seem to accurate...

 

[crumtastic]

Well I got my TF100 yesterday and these are my readings as of 6:00pm.
FC - 1.5 (SWG hadn't kicked on for the day yet)
CC - 0.5 or less
TC - 2.0
TA - 60
CH - 110
CYA - 70
PH - 7.5
Didn't check the salt level, but was probably less than 2500 since I had to fill the day before.

It has been working fine the past few days, yesterday tied the hottest day ever recorded here at 110 and it worked like a champ, but the salt level was probably lower since the fill. I don't know..... I guess I'll just have to watch it and hope it keeps working. They definitely don't make things like they used to......