New cell or whole new SWG?

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I did look at that link. I was glad the Pentair unit came in close to its claim. That at least validates one of my contenders. Circupool isn't on the list, unless they are made by another manufacturer on the list. I am curious about Chlorking and SGS though. Has anyone had any experience with either of those brands? It's too late to look up chlorking now, but I just finished doing some checking on SGS. Looks like their typical price on the 60k gallon model is similar to everyone else; around $1100-1200. Discount pool supply has it for $650 and $699 on Amazon. That's a big discount if only I was ready to buy one right now, and knew if it was any good.


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I would buy both parts together. Technology changes, and things are usually made better, and if you have luck like I do, your new salt cell will work a month, then the control unit will die and you'll be buying one anyway.

IMO, it best to buy the whole kit. It's up to you and your inclinations as to what kind of deal you look for since there are SWG companies who have been in it a long time, and then there are the new comers.
 
My luck is exactly like that. That's precisely why I started this thread. I typically like to buy something that's been around for a while, but none of the SWG brands just stand out as making the best unit. They all have caveats. I'm wondering if you couldn't just get a 24vdc power supply and power the cell if the controller went bad. I'm sure I'll get flamed for even suggesting such a thing, but I think it would be awesome. It would be the most crude, simple controller, but it would be bullet proof. That's basically all mine now is anyway. Super simple. No bells and whistles.

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Mine is about as dumb as a pool light with a dimmer. All it has is one knob and about six lights that tell the output. It does switch polarity, so that is some control I guess.



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That's basically all it is. A power supply that goes from 120/240vac to 12 or 24-28vdc. That's why I was wondering why you couldn't just use and appropriately sized power supply. It would run at 100% for whatever time you select with your timer. Apparently mine has an issue that I haven't identified yet. The power on/off light doesn't come on. It used to. Maybe it knows the cell is worn out, and is preventing itself from coming on. Maybe it's just burned out. Who knows. I need to tear into it just to satisfy my curiosity. I haven't checked the voltage at the cell since I noticed the light wasn't coming on.

On a side note, do you guys who winterize leave everything outside, or disconnect it all and store it inside? I'm talking pump, swg, everything.


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Here's a couple pictures inside the SWG.



Front cover has indicator lights and a digital potentiometer I guess is what it's called. In the back is the huge transformer coil. It has a mechanical timer in it that was set half and half in 4 quarters. I turned them all on. Not sure what the two yellow wires are that come out of the transformer into the pot material. No voltage between those yellow wires. There's a gray wire that goes down into the pot material. I'm guessing that's the power, and the pot material covers the switching controls that change polarity. Maybe the mechanical timer controlled polarity. When I switched them all on, the 2 light lit up for a minute. I may try to straight wire this thing next spring before I drop the money on a new one.


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On a side note, I've got a 10 amp battery charger I'm tempted to hook up to it just to see what the coil does. I'm hopefully going to pick up an amp meter tonight to see what's going on on the amperage side of things. It has voltage at the cell, and it makes a very little chlorine, just not enough.


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I tried to hook up a 12v sla battery to the leads, then hook up the battery charger. Apparently the battery charger is too smart. I realized after the fact that I didn't hook the charger to the battery, then to the swg. I may or may not get around to that. The batteries were dumping electricity to the cell, but the charger never fired up.


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On my cell, when it turns on the voltage and amperage climb slowly. There might be a reason for that. And you should take into account a maximum amperage switch to prevent a problem caused by - for example, putting in salt and forgetting to shut off your SWG, and possibly burning it out. I suspect a lot of the electronics is in there for protection.

So... I'd do a timer to substitute for the dial, and an upper limit cut out for voltage/amperage, and a temperature cut out for for high and low. High and low salt - just keep your specs in line. Clogged cell should show up on Amperage I suspect.
 
I'll keep that in mind. It's probably gonna be a one time proof of concept thing the day before I order a whole new SWG. On a side note, and something I thought was interesting, the biggest cells make around 2 lbs of chlorine a day. The chlorine side of my plant makes 25k lbs of liquid chlorine an hour, plus the extra vapor they don't condense. I was just standing above 2.5 million lbs of it. As pool owners, we often take for granted exactly how ferocious the little green demon is that keeps our pools safe to swim in.


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if it was me, I would buy the system that has the cheapest to replace cells. You can just get the innards of some cells making it much cheaper to replace, I think hayward maybe is the one with real cheap to replace cells. for my Aquapure 1400, it would be like 375 for a generic cell and some other brands are in the 2's. Also for many of the units, you can buy the boards or whatever is needed. My board would be 100 dollars to replace.

EDIT: The tricky part is finding the troubleshooting manual so you can test everything. I found it for my aquapure, but I doubt you will find it for your current brand.
 
The Hayward looks pretty good, but they don't make one big enough for what I want. The compupool one I looked at is the one I'm leaning more toward. I think the Pentair is nice, but it is the most expensive cell because you are basically replacing everything when you replace it. The "controller" looks like basically just a power supply. Price would also indicate that's all it is.

No kidding bout the troubleshooting manual. Mine has a troubleshooting section. Basically: is it on, did you add salt, it's broken. I need to try to talk to someone at the factory about it. I'm sure king technology knows nothing about it, and the resilience website looks like a college programming project. Just forgotten and alone. Maybe I'll try both. I don't have a lot of patience for waiting on the phone or stupid people giving you the run around.


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n240sxguy said:
The Hayward looks pretty good, but they don't make one big enough for what I want. The compupool one I looked at is the one I'm leaning more toward. I think the Pentair is nice, but it is the most expensive cell because you are basically replacing everything when you replace it. The "controller" looks like basically just a power supply. Price would also indicate that's all it is.

No kidding bout the troubleshooting manual. Mine has a troubleshooting section. Basically: is it on, did you add salt, it's broken. I need to try to talk to someone at the factory about it. I'm sure king technology knows nothing about it, and the resilience website looks like a college programming project. Just forgotten and alone. Maybe I'll try both. I don't have a lot of patience for waiting on the phone or stupid people giving you the run around.


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Thats likely what you get when you call, I get the same thing when I call Jandy, the troubleshooting manual for the aquapure show where to test the voltages, how to test the transformer, etc.

Compupool/circupool seem to be good values, they use the same cells too.
 
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