Jandy Leaf B Gone

[mffarrell]

Hi,

I have a Jandy Leaf B Gone that has quit working. There is a slight water flow from the main drain. and the canister has vacuum, but no suction of leaves. I tried to use a clog buster and a snake from the canister, but I think I still may be clogged.

What should I try next? Maybe rig a fitting and apply compressed air?

Thanks!

 

[Dixit]

I have one of these. So I can try to help out from what I know and how it works and me troubleshooting similiar issues.

So first off when you pull open the lid and remove the big leaf trap, and the pump is running, do you see/hear that jet spraying out water? Its a 1" line which has a nozzle on the front where it shoots water out of almost a 1/4" hole. So it shoots out a jet spray which gets shot out of the 1.5" hole that is on the pool wall side. You should see a good amount of water shooting out of that. If you dont, thats the first problem. Because without that the system wont work. So you will need to troubleshoot that, make sure the valve (if you have one) is open for that.

Then if that works, basically the system should work. But the entire thing has to be full of water. If the system is on and you have the lid off it wont work. It needs the lid shut and no air. So you have to basically shut the pump off, get the water level (which it should automatically) higher then the lid (the clear lid). Then put that lid back on, make sure the orings are not jacked up and it seals. Then shut the lid. Then turn the system/pump on. The nozzle shoots a stream out which causes a venturi effect so causes the water to move from that vacuum effect. So then the water is sucked up from the leaf drain on the floor and flows out into the leaf b gone. You wont see a flow as the lid with no air in the system is closed and you wont necessarily see flow of water, you should see leaves and what not flow into it if you have any.

If you get air in the system under the lid, one way to clear it while its on, is just reach down in the pool, cover the exit hole (where that jet sprays out of), it will cause the water to fill up into the leaf b gone canister and basically push the air out, the water will rise above the lid too (dont worry about that). Thats one way to prime the system if you didnt want to turn the pump off and back on.

Hope that helps.

Dixit

 

[mffarrell]

Hi,

Thanks for your advice.

So first off when you pull open the lid and remove the big leaf trap, and the pump is running, do you see/hear that jet spraying out water? Its a 1" line which has a nozzle on the front where it shoots water out of almost a 1/4" hole. So it shoots out a jet spray which gets shot out of the 1.5" hole that is on the pool wall side. You should see a good amount of water shooting out of that. If you dont, thats the first problem. Because without that the system wont work. So you will need to troubleshoot that, make sure the valve (if you have one) is open for that.

Yes, the nozzle is spraying plenty of water.

Then if that works, basically the system should work. But the entire thing has to be full of water. If the system is on and you have the lid off it wont work. It needs the lid shut and no air. So you have to basically shut the pump off, get the water level (which it should automatically) higher then the lid (the clear lid). Then put that lid back on, make sure the orings are not jacked up and it seals. Then shut the lid. Then turn the system/pump on. The nozzle shoots a stream out which causes a venturi effect so causes the water to move from that vacuum effect. So then the water is sucked up from the leaf drain on the floor and flows out into the leaf b gone. You wont see a flow as the lid with no air in the system is closed and you wont necessarily see flow of water, you should see leaves and what not flow into it if you have any.

Yes, all good avove. I have a nice vacuum in the canister.

If you get air in the system under the lid, one way to clear it while its on, is just reach down in the pool, cover the exit hole (where that jet sprays out of), it will cause the water to fill up into the leaf b gone canister and basically push the air out, the water will rise above the lid too (dont worry about that). Thats one way to prime the system if you didnt want to turn the pump off and back on.

I think my issues is the supply line to the main drain where the leaves are sucked into is blocked. If I direct leaves to the drain, they are not sucked into the drain box. I tried using a clod buster and a snake, but none of these worked.

 

[Dixit]

Well one thing you mentioned. If you have a good vacuum going then you would have a good amount of water being sucked into the canister. One way to test is to remove the lid after its primed. When you remove it it will empty the canister. But you should still see about 50% of water coming in from the leaf drain. If you are not then that leaf drain line is clogged somehow.

You would have to pull the leaf drain cover off from inside the pool. Then push the snake in from the top side canister till it comes out into the pool. Hopefully that unclogs it. You may need a 20ft snake depending on how long that line is. Mine has a 2" line from the leaf drain to the canister.

Dixit

 

[mffarrell]

I am only seeing a trickle of water coming from the 2 1/2 pipe to the canister. The snake can't get by the all the elbows along the pipe to the main drain. My next idea is to screw a 2 1/2" PVC plug with a shrader valve into the out flow opening and apply compressed air to see if that might work.

What do you think?

Thanks!

 

[Dixit]

That's a good idea. Blast the air from the canister side and let the Crud hopefully exit out the drain. Though it will make a mess in the pool floor at least it will clear it. You can then vacuum up the mess if it's a big one.

Normally its very hard to clog those pipes. As its a 2-2.5" pipe. Hard for leaves to clog that. But it can happen if it say wasn't running for while or properly.

If the leaves get stuck at the drain you may have to remove that cover. But hopefully you don't have to.

Dixit

 

[Dixit]

Btw. Start low on the psi from your tank. Don't apply straight 100psi. Try first like 10-15psi. See if that gets it clear. Then ramp it up if you need to.

Also you may want to remove the pin out of the Shrader valve to get quicker flow out of your tank. The valve itself only goes in about 1/16" and restricts how much air can go in. But try it with the valve. If that dont work, then remove the pin and try again.

Dixit

 

[mffarrell]

Hi,

The blast of air did the trick! I rigged-up a pressure gauge with a shrader valve and applied about 40 PSI, and woosh! A lot of stuff was expelled from the main drain. I seem to have good water flow now. about 1/2 of the 2 1/2" pipe has water flowing into the canister.

Now my pool looks really dirty with things floating around.

Thanks for your advice!

 

[Dixit]

AWESOME!

1/2 out of the pipe is about right since the lid is off. Once its sealed/covered, it will flow a bit more which you cant actually see the flow without sediment coming in to see how fast its moving.

Guess is either time to drop in a polaris (if you have one) or vacuum. Me, I just have in floor cleaners so I just run that and within a few hours its clean.

Dixit

 

[bridalex]

Hoping you can help me too. In my case, there is no jet spray. I've been thinking it might be clogged, but am not sure how to remove it to clean it. Also, you mentioned something about troubleshooting it by checking if the valve is en...how would I do that?

Thank you.

 

[Dixit]

Down at the bottom of the leaf canister when you pull the net out there a jet at the bottom. There is a pipe with a possible threaded fitting for the jet. Make sure that's not clogged.

Also make sure the valve for that jet is open. Like mine had a Jandy valve that I can direct water to that or not. If you turn the valve off you will have no water going to the jet.

Dixit

 

[bridalex]

I have found the jet. Am I supposed to unscrew it? Is there a particular tool or do I use vise grip?

 

[Dixit]

Before doing that have you checked to make sure these is no valve where your return piping is and no one turned that valve off by mistake?

You will have to check the jet fitting. Sometimes they PVC glue it in. You can see if you can turn it counter clockwise to remove it. But be careful ad if its glued you will break it.

Before going crazy on that make stick a coat hanger into the jet to make sure there is no large pebble or debris blocking the jet. You can do that by getting in the pool and pushing the coat hanger through the exit hole and into the jet. Might be easy to have someone at the top helping you guide it into the jet opening.

Dixit

 

[bridalex]

Finally got back from a trip and got a chance to work on this. I was able to Insert a skewer about 4" into the jet, at which time it butted up against something hard. In looking at diagrams of the Venturi union, it looks like some ort of plastic disk is what is in the way of being able to push the skewer any farther.

The only valve on the return piping is a Jandy driven by an actuator. It is is proper position.

I did notice that the pressure/gauge switch isn't working. It registers 0 pressure. The caretaker heads are all working fine, but I'm wondering if the failure of the pressure gauge/switch would cause the leaf trapper to not work?

 

[Dixit]

Can you take a picture of where this pressure/gauge switch is you are referring to? I don't have it on mine, Mine is setup where basically the returns split into the water fall, or floor clears, and/or the leaf b gone system. My pressure gauges is only on the tank and on the 5way valve for the infloor cleaner.

Dixit

 

[bridalex]

One picture is taken from above, you can see the gauge/switch on the right. The other picture is taken from the side.

It sounds like you have the 5 port valve. Mine is the 8 port valve, called the Ultraflex II.

Do you have a line to your 5 port valve as well as a second line to your leaf trapper? I only have one cleaner line. And a regular pool return line and a spa return line, but no line to the leaf trapper.

Thanks again for any help you can give me.

[attachment=1:x6r7prli]pool plumbing 2.jpg[/attachment:x6r7prli]
[attachment=0:x6r7prli]pool plumbing 3.jpg[/attachment:x6r7prli]

 

[Dixit]

Hard to get a clear understanding since these pictures are very small. But I will try my best. The Jandy 3way valve there seems fine. That gauge that I can barely see seems like its off the main pool return line, cant tell if under the gauge does that pipe go anywhere or is the gauge just on this little 2-3" pipe on a T fitting just for the gauge to get a reading? If that is showing zero then either that gauge is not working or you truly have no water going to the pool return side.

My setup is a 5port caretaker valve. Its setup where basically a 2" line goes to that caretaker which is my main return, I don't have any other returns in my pool technically (except a water feature which I keep off). I do have a 2nd smaller line going directly to the leaf B gone system as well which I can turn on/off with a Jandy valve.

I don't see obviously a line for your Leaf B Gone, which you said you don't see either, so not sure if that is underground T'ed into the pool return side or maybe the cleaner side (although that sounds unlikely since the cleaner needs certain amount of PSI to operate).

When you run your cleaner does it work right now? Because the way the valve is set, you got water technically going to the cleaner and the "Pool Return" which I don't know what your pool return is, is there return ports on the side of your pool? Or is this a water feature? Technically cleaners like in floors you cant have water splitting between a return and the cleaner since it usually requires about 15psi just for the popup heads to operate. For me I cant have my waterfall and in floor cleaner open, otherwise the pop up heads barely come up, and the psi gauge on the 5way valve is barely 8psi (when it needs 15psi to operate properly).

Im still baffled on how your gauge in that picture shows zero if that hangs off the main return. You sure you got actual water pressure coming out of the returns (for wherever that pipe leads to) when the pump is on?

Larger pictures and maybe more of the equipment may help. You can email them to me if that helps, shoot me a PM if you want to do that.

Dixit

 

[niccumweb]

I am having difficulty maintaining a seal on the leaf b gone canister. The o-ring does not have any nicks on it and the lid seems to fit nicely, but when running it, it always ends up sucking in air, which has to render it useless as only a ~quarter-pipe volume of water flows through it. Could I be forcing too much water through the system and causing "too much" venturing pressure effect? Thoughts?

 

[bridalex]

After all this time, I finally figured out what the problem was with my leaf b gone. An exploded diagram of the Venturi nozzle shows a flat black disk as a part. I unscrewed the nozzle, removed the flat black disk, replaced the nozzle, and it works perfectly now.

I have no idea if the manufacturer intended for this disk to be removed prior to installation. The literature, manuals, google, all silent on the subject.

 

[pooldv]

Wow, amazing! Thanks for following up with the fix.