How to get Jandy Watercolor LED lights to work with Pentair Intellicenter?

Intex1857

Well-known member
Mar 4, 2023
50
Palm springs
Pool Size
25000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
Before our build, I purchased 8 Jandy Watercolors LED lights, since my supplier had told me that delivery times were crazy (3 years ago). We are now completing the pool, and set up the Intellicenter lighting, and I was aware that it might be troublesome, but now as much as installer tried, he can only get 5 to run in WHITE mode all the time, with no other option. The other 3 lights are in constant color change mode, and I have been told that they will be able to control with the Intellicenter.

What he found out is that we were sold 3 different types of JANDY WATERCOLORS NICHLESS LIGHTS:

1. JLU4C24W150 This seems to be the original Jandy spec light that does not work with the intellicenter??? (YELLOW LABEL)
2. JLU4C24W150H This seems to be the HAYWORTH SPEC spec light that does not work with the intellicenter??? (ORANGE LABEL)
3. JLU4C24W150P This seems to be the PENTAIR spec light that DOES work with the intellicenter??? (RED LABEL)

The mix is my fault as I did not know any better, thought all were the same, and now its too late to exchange

Question: In the past year or so, has anyone come up with a way to control Jandy Spec lights with the Intellicenter? I was advised by others that the Pentair brand were having alot of problems?
Is my installer correct about the LETTER Designation after the model number being the spec it will work with?

BTW : 2 Days ago they plastered with Pebbletech Fina, it is very smooth, we'll see how it looks. Filling was a complete pain as I had to stay up 24 hours Sat/Sunday to make sure it didn't overflow if I fell asleep, today my installer tells me they have a portable fill valve that avoids that !!
 
Pentair automation will not control Jandy lights.

Jandy makes lights compatible with Jandy, Hayward, and Pentair automation. The suffix of H is for Hayward and P is for Pentair.

Best thing is sell the Jandy and H suffix lights and get all Jandy P Series lights.
 
I have Jandy watercolors with Intellicenter. While it's true you cannot use intellicenter to directly select a particular color, you can manually select a color by cycling the power to the lights (turning them on/off/on in the software). So first you need to get them all at the same starting point. They all need to be on the same relay. From the manual Jandy WaterColors Manual:

Section 5. Jandy® Nicheless Underwater LED
Light Operating Instructions

5.1 Light Synchronization
1. Turn the light ON. If the light has been off for 7 seconds or longer, the
light will turn on with the last color selected.
2. To synchronize multiple lights to the same color mode, you will need to
reset to the beginning of the color mode sequence. With the lights ON,
turn them OFF for five (5) seconds, then turn ON again. All of the lights
will reset to the Alpine White color mode. If all of the lights are not in
the Alpine White color mode, they have not been synchronized, repeat
step 2.

5.2 Operating the Light
3. To change the color mode, turn the light OFF for one 1-3 seconds.
Continue turning OFF and ON until the desired light color mode is
reached. See Table 3 for the color mode sequence.
Example: If you followed step 3 and are now on Sky Blue and want the lights to be
Violet, then the lights must be turned off and on 7 times to bring you to Violet.
Sequence Order Color Modes
1 Alpine White
2 Sky Blue
3 Cobalt Blue
4 Caribbean Blue
5 Spring Green
6 Emerald Green
7 Emerald Rose
8 Magenta
9 Violet
10 Slow Color Splash
11 Fast Color Splash
12 America the Beautiful
13 Fat Tuesday
14 Disco Tech

4. The lights have memory. If the lights are off for 7 seconds or more, the
next time the lights are turned on, they will return to the last color mode
they were on prior to being turned off (Step 1 listed above). This function
allows you to keep your lights returning to your favorite color mode
every time the lights are turned back on.

NOTE To synchronize colors on multiple Jandy® Nicheless Underwater
LED Light systems wired to separate switches, perform the above
actions on all of their switches simultaneously. All Jandy Nicheless
Underwater LED Lights will synchronize automatically if activated by
the same switch. No other accessories are required.
 
OK well after I posted I see that in the Jandy manual the different letter series have different programs, so I'd say if it's too late to install all the same series, best you can do is cycle power to each individual series to get them on the same color. This would require switching each on/off on its own circuit. Then the challenge would be if the program inadvertently changes and they all get off sync again. Quite a headache unless each has a switch. So yeah, I'd get all the same series to avoid this.
 
Thank you for the detailed info, I have come to the conclusion that I need to change out 6 lights, probably close to $4-$5k, so I will probably wait. Thought the lids would like it, but better uses for them than $5K in lights/labor.