Nice to have an easy heater problem for a change!

setsailsoon

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TFP Guide
Oct 25, 2015
5,217
Palm City/FL
Pool Size
25000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
CircuPool RJ-60 Plus
Folks,

Thought I'd document an "easy" heater problem. Couple evenings ago we were starting our normal evening swim. Solar had us up to 89 so I usually kick the gas heat on for an hour before. This keeps Sr. Management is happy. Got in and it was still 89. Went round to the heater and it had a message "Fault - Hi temp limit" it also displayed a water temperature of 115 deg F. No Fenwal messages like "Check IGN steps" or anything. Next day the message changed to "H20 sensor short". I flipped the breaker and it went back to the "Fault - Hi temp limit". No idea why this happened. I guessed it must be the temp sensor not the limit switches. Just to be sure before I took the old sensor out I just removed the black sensor wires and wired in on the control board a spare 10K thermister and voila! It worked. Interesting that I use the fireman's switch to allow my automation to control the heater but it still does use the temp sensor to check for any temps above the 105 limit to prevent heater start. The heater is about 6 years old and has been through a lot of torture from lightning strike and self-inflicted water damage by me that caused extremely difficult, frustrating troubleshooting for weeks on end. It's kind of nice to have a normal problem.

I hope this helps somebody!

Chris
 
You must have quite a spare parts bin by now. I think some 10K resistors should be in a pool owners DIY toolkit to quickly troubleshoot temperature sensor problems.
 
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