Understanding intellichem and its options

Jump to latest Follow Reply
scott - we have always used the k2006 kit with great luck. So far, we haven't had much discrepancy between the intellichem and the k2006.

matt - the reason why we changed from low to high was because the ph was not "keeping up." by the time it started dispensing on our 30k gallon pools, it couldn't dispense enough in 1 day to keep the ph where we wanted it. So we changed the sensitivity to high, and all is well.

You are correct in that having it on high could cause it to "overshoot" the target, but with the size of our pools, that hasn't been an issue.

note..I also beta tested this unit for about a year before it was released, so I got to know it very well! Intellichem combined with intellichlor, eztouch 8 (or intellitouch) and the iphone protocol adaptor is a killer combination. It is what we use on every pool.
 
Thanks for the additional info - we might try and see if the low setting works for us - our pool volume is ~24K gallons and will be kept covered with modest usage. During the peak of summer when the ic60 is active, I guess I can see that the ic60 might dispense chlorine faster than the intellichem might react...but i'm not sure how much of a problem that might be....the ph will be kept at 7.5 most of the time and if it increases to 7.7 to 7.8 for a few hours that shouldn't be a problem. If the ph goes higher, yeah...we'd have to evaluate whether to switch to the high settings and verify that our ORP set point wasn't any higher than it should be. Still, it's good that we have an option.

I already have the tftestkit here...just did my first test on our tap water to see what the incoming ch level might be. Currently not that bad, <= 150ppm CH - but the result might not be completely accurate as its the first chem test I've done in 20+ years and I'm guessing there are metal contaminants in the tap. Definitely feeling somewhat inadequate in being able to discriminate fine color changes. Our pool builder is also planning to put sequestrants in the water as part of installing the pebble finish.
 
Took awhile, but we finally turned on the intellichem today with acid and the SWG.

The good:
- nice integration with intellitouch - it displays an active updated lsi calculation on main screen along with ph and orp values
- ph reading seems very accurate
- automatically dispenses acid at a rate that correlates to how much current ph exceeds targeted ph value (still seeing how well it is at this, but should be a relief for me as owner of a new pool....no more having to throw in acid manually every other day)
- Apparently the new screenlogic interfaces are supposed to have the ability to see logs of ph and orp values, and send email alerts when extreme threasholds for ph or orp or exceeded (e.g. very high ph or chlorine high)

The bad:
- no simple way that I could find to put it in monitor only mode (show me readings, but don't dispense any chemicals)
- ORP readings so far seem totally bogus (seeing ~540 -- no idea why, could be probes or a million things..our cya is only 30)
- No easy way to tell intellichem to release control of the intellichlor...when it thinks chlorine needs to be dispensed, boy does it do it....pushing the intellichlor to 100%
- Doesn't allow for ph set points above 7.6, so having 7.7 ph in winter isn't easy

I'm going to look through some possibilities here..I'm not a fan of the menu interface on the exterior of the unit.
 
matt,

couple of quick things...I think the upper ph limit is adjustable through the menu (I can't remember..been a few months since I set any up.)

but I am pretty sure we had that same orp reading problem and it turned out that we had the polarity of the wires reversed. There is a plus and a minus, so double check that.
 
Hrm, I just tried to check the wire polarity....we have it exactly as described in the manual and written on the circuit board. I reversed the wires to test and saw the orp readings go down....however, I didn't give it much time...did you really see readings in the 500's with wires reversed?
 
well, while checking for all possible polarity type mismatches....I noticed we had the ph probe on the right of the flow canister and not on the left as the diagrams in the manual show. I moved them....restarted....ORP went up by ~40 points..better, but still probably 100 points+ below where it should be.
 
Yes, I have a good test kit and have been keeping tabs on the intellichem to ensure it is keeping ph and FC readings in the right ballpark.

PH: keep in mind, that I have a 3 week old ig gunite/pebble sheen pool. I am checking ph roughly 3-4 times per day at the moment. The intellichem seems to be keeping the ph in a narrow band, between 7.5 - 7.7, most of the time within 0.05 of 7.64 according to it which correlates to a solid 7.5 when I manually test with the tf-100, the intellichem and tf-100 so far never seem to disagree by more than 0.1 ph to date. The issues on the ph front remaining are rather minor, and more with regard to optimizing the how frequently to dose, what size dose to use, and what the daily acid limit should be. Note that current the doses are quite small..and the closer the current ph reading is to 7.6 the smaller they get, so the system really seems to spend most of the day responding to small p/h changes.

FC: This is in a much worse state....in essence, I've overridden the control to limit how much the SWG is run. I have an IC60 -- still tweaking to figure out how long it should be run each day to maintain an FC of 3 on a 24K Gallon pool with a CYA of 30. Note that for some reason, the intellichem so far has always commanded the SWG to run at 100% and terminates the run when either the dose time limit is reached, a daily max time limit is reached, or the current ORP value exceeds a defined set point which can be no less than 650. My orp probe has reported results between 550 and 740 over the last 24hrs so I'm just not using the readings at all right now and just setting daily limits. Hopefully, we'll eventually figure that out. (note that the 550 reading was in afternoon with full sunlight and a ph of 7.5, and the 740 reading was early morning with the pool covered and a ph of 7.8 (just before the first acid dose of the day)).

Update: Investigating if the flow cell was placed on a wall with too much sunlight, there was a rather significant ~100 pt change shortly after sunset this evening (and this was with the pool already covered) and with otherwise stable pool temperature. Also, switching the ph sensitivity to high...the low setting seems to be somewhat cowardly in the amount of acid dispensed...current max dose is 5oz, which is only dispensed if current ph is .2 above setpoint (fractional otherwise), ph doses are at least 40 minutes/apart, max 50oz per day. SWG is set to max 90 minutes/day, each SWG dose is 9 minutes at 100%, SWG doses are at least 25 minutes apart. We'll see how this works out tomorrow, but at the end of today we had a ph of 7.63 and a FC of 3.5 - running pump for ~13hrs/day.
 
After further reading, I'm pretty sure that the remaining issue is hydrogen gas...The orp readings started the day in the 700's and fell gradually to 650 when the SWG got triggered (reasonably too since FC was under 3)....however despite SWG running for a good period all afternoon, the ORP readings either continued to fall or stayed steady all throughout the afternoon....only when the SWG daily time limit was reached did the ORP values slowly increase...really only recovering after the SWG has several hours of rest. it doesn't help that the pool is covered and possibly trapping some of the gas. Our returns are angled level and not up, and the bubbles go for several feet out of the returns while the SWG is on. I will discuss with pool builder, and we'll also see if there is an option to reduce the power of the SWG while the ORP is controlling it.

So, in summary - intellichem is a nice unit (really interesting for covered pools with variable levels of sunlight/chlorine requirements) and the ph control is working fantastic, but we've seen the following interesting traits so far:
a) limited ability to modify set points (ph setpoint does not go above 7.6 -- you can modify alarm values and whether chlorine is dispensed at different levels, but the ph control is limited to 7.2 - 7.6 and the ORP will not allow a setpoint under 650)
b) very configurable daily limits and fine tuned control over dosing of either acid or SWG runtime allows most issues to be worked around
c) flow canister must be shielded from sunlight
d) sensitivity to which canister slots the probes go into (ph on left, orp on right)
e) by default, the intellichem powers the swg at 100% which produces significant bubbles and likely trapped hydrogen gas...especially underneath a cover.
f) of course, it's also still possible that the orp probe itself has some modest issues (I did clean it, but without any noticeable impact).

I'll let everyone know what the builder says.
 
I'm wondering if a covered pool is not as much like an indoor pool as has been suggested here and in other posts? The hydrogen gassing is an example of such a difference - an indoor pool has plenty of air volume for the hydrogen to gas into. Is the cover dense enough to slow the out gassing significantly?
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
I'm going to test only letting the intellichem run the ic60 swg at 100% for 45 minutes every 4 hours with a 3hr daily limit. If that doesn't work, I'll reduce the run time and increase the separation between each run. FC was 3.5 this morning.

Anyone know roughly how long the hydrogen gas bubbles stay in the water?

Still waiting call back from the pool builder. At the very least, I need the returns adjusted to angle upwards.

carlscan26: It's a safety cover...looks relatively thin but is strong enough to hold several people on it at least briefly...the tech said to think of the pool as a giant water bed but don't walk on it more than needed. The cover material sits about 6-8 inches over the water and is pretty snug against all the sides.
 
Well, somewhat good news....the ORP sensor seems to recover from the hydrogen gas depressive effect within about 2.5hrs from the end of the prior SWG run. It actually shows some life about 90 minutes after, but 2.5hrs is where it seems to restore the normal amount of fluctuation.

So, I'm going to program the intellichem to require a minimum 2.5hr separation between the end of a run and an ORP reading that can trigger the SWG. I'll also compensate somewhat for the loss of FC responsiveness by requiring the SWG to run for 45 minutes whenever it is triggered and limit it to no more than 3hrs/day.

I suppose the cold water temperature right now is also a factor with the ORP values being close to the 650 minimum set point.
 
MattM said:
I'm going to test only letting the intellichem run the ic60 swg at 100% for 45 minutes every 4 hours with a 3hr daily limit. If that doesn't work, I'll reduce the run time and increase the separation between each run. FC was 3.5 this morning.

Anyone know roughly how long the hydrogen gas bubbles stay in the water?

Still waiting call back from the pool builder. At the very least, I need the returns adjusted to angle upwards.

carlscan26: It's a safety cover...looks relatively thin but is strong enough to hold several people on it at least briefly...the tech said to think of the pool as a giant water bed but don't walk on it more than needed. The cover material sits about 6-8 inches over the water and is pretty snug against all the sides.
Click to expand...

What's your CYA at? That will determine your FC levels. Since it's forcing it to run at 100% there is a minimum number of minutes that the SWG has to run for to maintain that FC so there is a floor to your minimum run time...

You should be able to adjust the return angles your self - at least if they're standard returns - just loosen the collar, repoint the return ball and hold it while you retighten the collar. You don't have to put it very tight to hold the ball.

What you just said about the cover being snug and that close to the water supports my thought on interference with the outgassing. I've only seen such a cover once an dit was a tight weave fabric and I'm sure the coatings also affect permeability.

Great thread - hopefully this isn't pure frustration for you and it's some fun to debug the system and get it working how you want?
 
Well, my wife asked for us to build a pool for the last 7+ years.....I finally gave in this year because our kids are old enough and really need more active outdoor family type activities. But, I had a few conditions before agreeing to sign a construction contract for a whopping $80K. Among them: that we're never moving from the house, that the pool be built right to last as close to 30yrs as possible, we maintain it ourselves, and that we cancel the expensive gym membership to pay for the ongoing pool costs. I suppose I should have added another condition -- that the pool doesn't take over my life. I understood that there would be a lot of time required during design and construction which lasted about six months. However, the last 21+ days since the pool started up has been one issue after another...I'm like it's slave for the time being. My ever wishful hope is that after we get the initial problems worked out that it will be mostly "problem free".

We'll see -- our pool builder has been great -- but there is probably a limit to how much they can and will support us long term. Also, I'm told we're only the second customer in San Diego county with an intellichem according to pentair. No one knows anything about it...and everyone wants to be the one to learn from the install.

And, no, there are no nozzles or anything on our returns....apparently the plaster company just cut the pipes right before the plaster surface and left a hole for the water to blow through.

I'm not sure what the minimum runtime for our pool should be...but I guess the idea is that the ORP should be able to handle that at least, even if I have to tweak it not to make the SWG run too long. Keep in mind that we're running an IC60 on a 24K gallon pool.
Anyhow, our CYA is at 30 and I'm planning to keep a target FC of 3 plus or minus 1. Since the pool is covered and has an SWG/ORP, a FC of 2 even wouldn't be that bad.
 
Your time requirements should mellow out - you'll get to be TFP someday :)

That nozzle thing is weird - they should have out in some threaded connectors. The deep water return ones who cares, but the upper ones should be adjustable. There are returns that are slip type but I'd complain to the builder if this was the case. At the minimum he owes you some kind of nozzle even if it's a slip type.

How about trying a test with the pool cover open and seeing if/how long the depressive effect lasts in that scenario? This would help test the theory that it is hydrogen out gassing that is the issue. Even though you're not going to run it this way normally it would still be interesting to know...

So with everyone wanting to know what happens are you getting a lot of support from them?
 
Feedback from poolbuilder and pentair is to wait a few weeks for the pool to leave startup mode before we worry about calibration of ORP sensor.

I'm still trying to get some control over returns.

Another worry, TA is finally decreasing from 110 to now 90 due to constant small acid doses from intellichem, but with a fixed PH of 7.6 and winter water temperature -- this is putting strain on CSI....getting tempted to put borates into the pool (target 30 ppm) which will provide a temporary boost to TA/PH.

Pool FC has been staying relatively OK...todays reading was roughly or slightly under 3 when I did pool maintenance and briefly opened up cover, and just afterwards ORP activated the SWG for a 1hr run and then started the 3hr countdown to the next allowed SWG run (if ORP value at that point is < 650).
 
fyi, pentair is apparently beta testing a new firmware for the intellichem that gives more flexibility for those using the ORP in combination with SWG. Not sure what other changes are in it or if this means anything other than that you can use a set point less than 650.

ORP sensor seems to be stabilizing somewhat...readings in the high 600's most of the day and low 700's in the evenings. 665-670 seems to correlate to an FC of 2.5 with 30 cya at 65 degree temp and a ph of 7.6.

Adding a small amount borax this morning freaked out the ph sensor....but I had it manually dispense 3 ounces of acid every 5 minutes until ph fell under 7.8, and then let it take its normal 30 minute interval to bring down to 7.6.
 
MattM said:
. However, the last 21+ days since the pool started up has been one issue after another...I'm like it's slave for the time being. My ever wishful hope is that after we get the initial problems worked out that it will be mostly "problem free".

.
Click to expand...

Hi Matt. I've read your threads with interest but havent really had anything to say...until now :mrgreen: I'm a pretty opinonated guy as some on TFP can attest. Maybe too much so :blah: But, i think I know your issue, actually a copule of issues.

1) your over thinking all of this

2) you have way, way, way too much automation

You have a basic 24,000 gallon gunite pool. Your treating it like the space shuttle! All you needed was a basic easytouch box with an IC-60. You would be much happier with using basic TFP principles to care for your pool. A plaster pool on startup will use acid, it's a fact. I think your overly concerned with holding the pH at a rock steady number. Dont over think it. When it rises to 7.8 or so, add some acid to lower it to 7.2-7.3. When it hits 7.8 again, pour a little in. Keep you TA low, around 70. It will combat the pH rise. ORP rarely works well. Use that TF-100 or 2006 Taylor kit, add CYA to about 50, and vary the run time for your IC-60.

I know you spent a lot of money on all the automation. Maybe over time it might work out. I dont think your ready to ditch it yet. But, my bet at some point you will. I can guarantee you this. If you ditch all the fancy bells and whistles, and use basic TFP principles, you'll spend less time messing with the pool chems and actualy enjoy the pool.

Ok, thats enough. I said whats been on my mind, probably too much :blah:

Hope you can get it working if thats what you want.
 
A wise man knows to pay attention when someone else says he's acting stupid :)

Anyway, things are calming down quite a bit now...and honestly, the intellichem is starting to be more of a benefit than a pain....I'm not obsessed about ph, but having a new pool that seems to drink acid (you can literally see the ph rise .01 on meter every 10-15 minutes) makes using the intellichem to put a few ounces in every hour is nice. Plus it is definitely easier to just glance at the digital ph readout occasionally than remembering to put in a quarter gal every other day right in front of the returns and than scrubbing the walls. I assume it is also minimizing how much the SWG runs....looks like no more than 1hr every few days while cover is mostly on. I'll just need to tweak it long term to ensure it stays consistent and then every once in awhile clean or replace probes.

I'll admit to having an engineer mindset and going overboard learning about new stuff whenever I'm thrown into the deep end (which is basically what it was when I agreed to make arrangements to build the pool and maintain it for as long as we own our house).

I'm trying not to deviate too much from the tfp guidelines here but then, we'll see.....perhaps pentair can find a way to make the intellichem more than just a niche device. They certainly seem to be marketing it highly and are adding lots of nice interface stuff for screenlogic (including graphs of ph/orp over time) and alerts.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply