IntelliCenter I8PS not responding

[stevekleinlogel]

Hello everyone, thank you for taking the time to read.

I have a customer with an IntelliCenter with the I8PS daughter card. On his deck are 2 IS4 SPA side remotes.

Remote 1 controls SPA lights, waterfall, deck jets and lazy river
This remote is wired to the main board

Remote 2 controls Pool lights, Slide, Jacuzzi and lazy river fast action
This remote is wired to the I8PS daughter card

I showed up one day and the entire remote 2 stopped working. I swapped the 2 remote to test if the buttons were working and the remote 2 tested ok. Got on the phone with Pentair, they had me run the same tests, and concluded the daughter card is bad.
I took the daughter card to a computer repair shop who found a fault on capacitor C26, he replaced C26 and do not have a fault on anything else after. I reinstalled the board but still having the same issue.

Is there anything else I could do before replacing this $1300 card that’s only 14 months old?

 

[ajw22]

Welcome to TFP.

Are the other circuits on the personality board working?

AUX5, 6, 7?

Return & Intake actuators?

 

[stevekleinlogel]

Welcome to TFP.

Are the other circuits on the personality board working?

AUX5, 6, 7?

Return & Intake actuators?

I will double check but I’m pretty sure everything works from the panel itself and from the app, only issue is from the remote.

 

[ajw22]

I will double check but I’m pretty sure everything works from the panel itself and from the app, only issue is from the remote.

I am asking if the other circuits on that card all work?

 

[ogdento]

ever get this working?

if the answer to Allen's question is "yeah the circuits on the card all work" BUT they're only controllable from the panel and NOT the remote (and assuming the remote is connected to the i8PS), then there's likely another problem with the board.

is the i8PS recognized at the panel? (you can go into one of the system menus and see the detected hardware)

I believe the pins for the additional remote on the i8PS board are fed into an on-board controller (labeled U2 on the board)... if that is damaged then it's possible that the button presses are never communicated to the main panel. If you replace the card and are willing to let me fiddle with the dead one, I'd be curious to see if there's any rs485 traffic when you press the buttons or if the controller is dead.

 

[ajw22]

if the answer to Allen's question is "yeah the circuits on the card all work" BUT they're only controllable from the panel and NOT the remote (and assuming the remote is connected to the i8PS), then there's likely another problem with the board.

I also think there is value in that board if all the other circuits work.

Few people use two wired remotes and use the bad circuit.

 

[ogdento]

I absolutely agree Allen... and your test to see if the aux relays and valves are working would tell us if the card is still useful. If they don't work, that gives us a clue that the i8PS's on-board controller manages those functions.

What I'd like to confirm is whether the on-board controller (Microchip PIC32MX130F064) is the single point of communication with the main board - and therefore also runs the aux relays and valves - or if it's just needed for the remote input. I'm assuming the PIC controls everything on the board, but I haven't traced out the signals to the chip that controls the relay drivers (74HC595) to see if they ultimately come from the PIC or the main board... it's a 3+ layer board so it's got buried traces, and it's too small for my old eyes to see without help

Also, I initially thought there was an rs485 comm port chip on the personality board, but there is not. If there was, I could have used the njsPC tools to monitor the traffic... the boards must talk using spi or i2c (or maybe even parallel), but that'll require a different tool to monitor.