Pentair pool equipment - strange happenings!

[jmp470]

Greetings all,
I’m having a very weird bug or happenings with my pool equipment.

Issue: My pump clock keeps counting the minutes like seconds.

The problem started today. I was trying to heat my pool now that it’s warm enough here in TX and for some reason I could not connect my phone to my pool equipment. Once I got it connected, I turned on the heater and I thought all was fine.

Then I noticed that the pump keeps turning off, so I started looking at my pump for issues. Once I opened up the control panel, that’s when I noticed that the time on display was moving rapidly. I believe it was cycling so fast that it was making my normal pool schedules activate, thus tuning on and off my pump.

Has anyone ever Experienced something like this? If so, what did you do to fix it?

Thank you.

 

[ajw22]

With an Easy Touch the IntelloFlo display should say "Display Not Active" if the ET is controlling the pump.

Anything change on the pump display when you put the ET in SERVICE mode?

I would check the RS-485 comm cable at the pump socket and the ET connection.

@Jimrahbe

 

[Jimrahbe]

jmp,

Let's see if Tom has seen this before... Calling @ogdento

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Jimrahbe]

jmp,

After Allen's post I re-read your initial post..

Is the problem that the EasyTouch's clock is running fast, or is it the internal clock on your IntelliFlo pump's display that has the problem? Or is it both???

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[ogdento]

this is an intriguing one!... i'm also interested in whether it's the pump or the easytouch display that's showing the fast clock.

if it's the easytouch, there's an external "real time clock" (RTC) chip under the display that is driven by it's own crystal oscillator... the first ideas that come to mind are that these things are sensitive to RF interference (any transmitters near it?), noise on the power supply (failed filter capacitors etc.?), and any corrosion on the clock components.

as for the pump, I believe the display/keypad module has the "clock", which is really just the microcontroller that runs the keypad. I don't see an external real time clock chip or crystal on my older-ish keypad board, so I think the microcontroller generates the clock using one of it's internal timers (i also think these all use the same Atmel Atmega168P/x68 microcontrollers).

 

[jmp470]

I did a full system restart and it fixed the problem. Not really sure what caused it.