I took apart the cell and here is what I found.
When I pressed the terminals pins out of the cap, there was moisture in that area along with a little corrosion. So the orings had been leaking. It is sealed with 2 orings on each of the electrodes (6 total). The center post had totally corroded in half, which is why this cell failed. The corrosion point seems to be a multi piece electrode and it corrodes where those pieces are joined, at the place where it enters the cap area. You can see in the pic below the left and right electrodes also are showing signs of corrosion at this same connection point. The electrodes themselves for the most part were clean. The center plate showed the most corrosion but still looked serviceable. The left and right plates had some, but less corrosion and both looked fine. The other 10 plates all had a black sort of coating on them but no scaling. None of them had any appreciable corrosion.
Disassembly:
The cell is not hard to disassemble.
The two screws on the top come out and then you can remove the top piece. You don't really need to remove these screws to take apart the unit though. You would need to remove the screws and cap to put it back together, however, as you need to place the orings back on the terminals.
You start at the bottom with a plastic piece that can be carefully removed using a screwdriver to pry it apart.
Once this piece is off, you can press out the terminals. Mine had some corrosion on the terminals and required a little light tapping and pushing to push them through out of the cap area. Then you carefully pry apart the 2 halves that hold the plates together.
Once that is apart, you can remove the 10 plates that are not connected to electrodes (there are 13 plates total). They just slide out. The center and left/right electrodes should also easily come apart at this point.
There isn't much to the salt cell. I am having difficulty understanding the $750 price tag. I am not sure what rare metals used but I can't believe they are that much. If they made a replacement center electrode/plate (or I could repair the one I have) I think this unit would last another 3 seasons.
