Aqua Rite Instant Salt Test 0 - Store Tested Level 3200.

[nazran]

So bought this house in December that has 33,000 gallon pool with Aqua Rite system matched with Turbo T-CELL-15. The Aqua Rite control box on the wall from 2013 according to receipt. If I go by receipts kept I can only assume the T-Cell is from September of 2007. I live in Fort Worth. The previous owner was running the pool pump 365 a year for 12 hours a day and 2 hours of that was running sweeper on booster pump. The SWG was set to 70% output. In my mind 12 hours a day seemed excessive and might have explained his electric bills. I talked to some pool owner friends and they said in the winter they would never run for more than 4 hours a day. Not know how much liquid my pump could turn over in an hour I cut the run time in half. 6 hours a day and 1 hour on the sweeper.

The display on the Aqua Rite has shown 2700 since I moved in which I knew to be below ideal from Hayward manual. When the pump was running 12 hours a day the FC was consistently 12. After turning it down to 6 hours it was around 7 at 70% output. Previous owner advised I clean the filter every 3 months and inspect and clean the SWG at the same time. So end of March I decided to clean filter and inspect SWG. The SWG appeared to have 1 or 2 'fins' with some build up. I cleaned with acid and water and replaced.

At this time the FC started to drop slowly till about 3 and it was steady for a few days. The next time I tested 3 days later it was 0. I turned up the output to 100% and Super Chloro and both failed to raise the level. I did the diagnostic today and the Instant Salt check showed 0. The main screen still displayed 2700. I re-cleaned the SWG today and placed back on and still 0 salt. I took water to pool store and it tested at 3200 actually.

I am assuming the cell itself is having a problem. I am a DIY guy with not a lot of extra cash to throw around so does it sound like I need to buy a new T CELL 15 or is it possible something with the control box is messed up? I would really love some opinions before I spend a bunch of money on possibly the wrong component.

In the meantime I am back to using bleach to chlorinate to a 4. TA and PH are a tad high currently.

Any advice?

 

[JasonLion]

This kind of issue is often a water chemistry problem. The other main possibility is that the cell is reaching the end o it's life time. A controller problem can't be ruled out from what you said, but isn't the first, or second, thing I would suspect.

To look into chemistry issues, please post a complete set of water test results.

To look into possible SWG cell/controller problems please post the sequence of diagnostic numbers (press the diag button over and over, writing down the numbers, until the sequence repeats).

 

[nazran]

Hi.
chemistry:
Fc 0
Tc 0
Salt 3200
Calcium hard 260
Cya 90
Ta 130
Ph 7.8
Copper 0
Iron 0
Phosphate 100

I went ahead and used calc to add bleach in so chemistry probably different now

Aquarite
76 degrees
12.3
0.00 generating light off
78p
0 salt test
al-0
R 1.58
E-15

 

[JamesW]

The voltage being below 30 volts is almost always a bad thermistor (current limiter). It's a black quarter sized disc on the circuit board. You can order a new one from digikey.com. They're easy to replace if you can solder. It should be a SL32 2R025 or AS32 2R025

You can tell the year of the cell by the third and fourth digits of the serial number on the cell. For example, a 3E09 would have been manufactured in 2009.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPL_YnvWumk

 

[nazran]

I think u are right! Now that I think about it. The power and generating lights are on a few seconds after poeer on. I assumed it was shutting off because it was reading 0 salt.

It just dawned on me that this might be covered under my american home shield warranty. I woild assume if I called a pool company they would replace the entire board rather than solder it? $75 service call seems worth it to me to get a new board. Does that make sense?

 

[JasonLion]

That is certainly worth a try.

By the by, remember to add some chlorine manually until you can get the SWG working again.

 

[JamesW]

If the cell is from 2007, then it is likely to be near or at the end of its useful life. Once the power supply is repaired, check the instant salt reading against a good chloride based salt test. If the instant salt is within 400, then the cell is good. If it's more than 400 low, it's going bad. If it's over 1000 off, the cell should be replaced.

 

[nazran]

Well crud... the Realtor apparently opt'd not to cover the pool for the warranty. So I will first start with soldering the new current resister in place. It seems pretty straightforward.

 

[nazran]

So yeah.. cracked. Ordered a few replacement parts. Will update results when soldered to board.

- - - Updated - - -

Addendum. The box is under the roof line of the house. Are the elements to blame for 2 year cracking of this piece? Anything I can do to minimize this happening in the future?

 

[LSJ]

Thanks! I didn’t know.