IC40 flow light is red

[rickcoup]

I've read through the post in the past, but doesn't seem to solve my issue. The IC40 flow light is always red and the two salt level lights lit alternatively.

The SWG is 1.5 year old. The pump is about 0.5 year old. The filter is about 1 month old.

I started having the issue about a month ago. So I replaced the filter. It worked for about 2 weeks. Then the problem appears again. I've take off the SWG and checked inside. It's very clean. Putting in acid to clean it up anyway. It still shows the red light. Running the pool without the cartridge filter, it still shows the red light. Cut off the sensor then run the pool, and connect red and black wire from cell, the light is green. Changed a new sensor, it still shows red. Clicked on "more" button, doing the self diagnostic, it landed on cell light with green. Click "more" button one more time, it shows 80%.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Jimrahbe]

Rick.

Without a good flow light, nothing else matters, as the cell will not do anything until it has good flow.

Either you have good flow or you don't. If you can feel a good flow of water coming out of your returns, then that should be plenty to close the flow switch.
Do you feel a good flow of water out of your pool returns???

Let's assume the water flow is good. If you have good flow and the flow light does not turn green it means the flow switch is not working, not well connected, or in backwards.

Since you connected the red and black wires and the green flow light came on, that means the cell is working, so the problem has to be something to do with the flow switch itself.

Show us some pics of how your SWCG is installed, as well as pics of the how the flow switch is installed.

Keep in mind the little push-button connectors that connected the wires from the flow switch to the wires from the cell are not too robust.

How many wires did the old flow switch have and how many wires does the new flow switch have???

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[rickcoup]

Thanks Jim. I just went to take pictures and the flow light shows green now. I tried to switch it on or off 10+ times this afternoon and it didn't work. After sitting there for 1+ hours, it's working now.

FYI. I bought this EXCELFU Flow Switch which has four wires blue, green, red, and white. My cell has three wires black, red, and white. So the red goes to red, white goes to white, and blue and green together connected with black. I made sure the wires are aligned correctly through the back side of the little connector before snap them on.

Finger crossed.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Rick,

The flow switch (Red and Black wires) is pretty instantaneous, it is either open or closed, there should not be any delay, so I doubt anything is 'fixed'..

But.. try it and see what happens.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[rickcoup]

Agreed Jim. The pool was turned off after my 10+ times tries in the afternoon. Then I went back to take pictures after your post in about 2 hours. At that time, I turned it on again. And the flow light is turning green instantly. I left it running for about an hour and seemed fine. I will see how it goes tomorrow.

 

[rickcoup]

The flow light turns red again after running a few hours this morning. The first attached picture with all green lights was from last night. And the flow light was green instantly when I turned it on this morning around 8:30am. I checked it out for the first two hours or so, it was green. When I checked it again at 1pm, the flow light is red. Other than the first picture with all green lights was from last night. The rest of the pictures were taken just now. The returning flow is good.

 

[loudandslow]

I think my symptoms are similar.
The power center board is outputting 42V DC to the cell.
The flow switch is new and works - I measure 0V on cell side of the wiring when pump is on, 5V when pump is off (flow light red)
Over last week I have noticed the flow light turning green but now it seems to be almost always red.
I'm convinced that there is some additional logic in the flow light control than just flow.

Before I spend 1k on a new cell - any other ideas?

 

[Jimrahbe]

Rick,

A little background...

Originally the cell and the Flow Switch Assy had 4 wires. Red and Black for the flow switch, a simple on/off switch. Green and White going to a 10K thermistor that measures water temp for the cell. The thermistor would go bad often, messing up the cell's salinity measurements.

As a fix to the thermistor issue, they started making 3-wire flow switches with just Red, Black and White wires When you installed a 3-wire flow switch into an old 4-wire cell, you do not use the Green wire from the cell, just Red to Red, Black to Black and White to White.

They are now making both the cells and Flow Switch Assy with just three wires.. Red, Black and White.

What you are doing is putting an old 4-wire flow switch on a new 3-wire cell.

At first glance, it would seem that it should not make any difference, but.. If this were my system, I'd want to install a new 3-wire flow switch on a new 3-wire cell.. Maybe the 4-wire should work just fine, but since we can't see how things are wired inside the cell or even inside the flow switch Assy, I'm not sure if that is true or not.

If I was the one having this problem, then I would do two things..

1. With everything connected up as it is, I would cut into the Red and Black wires and short them together. If I could make the flow light turn green by touching the two wires together, and turn red when not connected, that would be a pretty good indication that the flow switch itself is not working. Maybe the flow itself or maybe the flow switch needs too much force to close it or ??? But certainly an issue with the flow switch itself.

2. Assuming the flow light turns on and off by shorting the red and black wires, then my next action would be to buy a new 3-wire flow switch. Certainly cheaper than a new cell.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Rick,

Thanks for the pics.. I did not see any reason for the flow switch not to be working..

Thanks,

Jim R.