This year's Pentair light issues

[guinness]

However, I would think that the WiFi antenna would be more susceptible to a lightning strike and it is connected to the ether port of the mother card as well.

Surge protection won't help with a direct lightning strike. The linked surge protectors work for nearby ground strikes by shunting any high voltage spikes to earth. I'm not advocating direct wiring, but if wifi isn't an option then at least this device at each end might help.

 

[MyAZPool]

Surge protection will not help as it will only protect "stuff" that comes in on the AC power line.

Burying the cable will not really help either ..I used to work for an audiovisual company that sold to really rich people like Tiger Woods etc.. We got back a lot of units that had obvious lightning damage.. it would blow the top off, or blacken, IC chips.. In almost every case the units were installed in a secondary location, like pool house, boat house, or guest house and connected to the main house by low voltage cables.. The cables were installed both underground, as well as in the air, and it did not seem to matter one way or the other..

I used to brag that I did not use no stinking wireless link.. It worked great.... right up to the point where my neighbor took a direct lighting strike and I got what was left over.. It was pretty obvious that in came in on my hard-wire between the EasyTouch and my house network.. It took out the main board in the EasyTouch, and then the Protocol adapter, the u Verse Modem, and the router and everything that router had plugged into it. I now run the wireless link.. I knew the risk from working at the Audiovisual company, but did it anyway.. Sigh!!

If the same thing happens again, (knock on wood) I would expect the outdoor antenna and maybe the main board would be taken out again.. But, at least all the stuff in the house would not be involved..

It is your system and you can obviously do what floats your boat, but my boat hit the rocks and sank, so I won't be using the hard-wire solution again.

Edit.. I just saw the surge protection that you link to... That was the "fix" for the problem that the audiovisual company was going to use, but I never did get any info on how successful it was.

Thanks,

Jim R.

Jimrahbe

Some very good points that certainly deserve some serious considerations. Yea, losing the pool automation, pump electronics, actuators etc would be bad enough but to lose all the IT in the house would really ruin my day. I will try to do some more research on the surge protection that guinness has linked to. If it has been proven to work, might not be a bad idea!
Thanks...
r.

 

[jtech1]

I had considered surge suppression on 485 link, but I had a bad experience a few years ago with non-direct hit, induced voltage on my sprinkler lines, which took out my sprinkler controllers and the Ethernet switch upstream from it as well as a few Ethernet devices like my large LCD TV, automation controller, thermostats connected to automation controller, etc. I am not concerned about a direct hit at the pad. No matter what I do, if that happens, it will be major damage. I am more concerned with nearby strike, induced voltage in my underground lines. I have surge protection on the power lines at the source panel and pad panel... and that is all I run from the house to the pad.

I have an outdoor WiFi radio under my eve for good coverage of back yard, and I am sure I will get a good signal at the pad. I am going to try to find an Ethernet to WiFi adapter that has an external antenna, so I don't lose signal by having it inside the IC box.

On the IC topic again... @MyAZPool... one of the major shortcomings of the IT panel is the lack of alerting. The only alert I ever found was the IntelliChlor com failure alert... which, unfortunately gets sent every time the pool relay turns off... so I disabled it long ago. IT system is TERRIBLE with alerting. I hope the new IC has improved that? Today is a perfect example. After I fixed the IntelliChlor a few days ago, it has been working well. No issues. So I stopped checking it 3x a day... Went out today, and saw the pump was off. Pool relay ON... Intellichlor ON, but pump not running. VF pump screen has the regular disabled message... putting IT in service mode does not give me manual control of pump. Pulling comm cable from pump does not either. Pump logic must be locked up hard. Only after shutting off pump power for 1 min and turning back on did it clear up and start working again. Perfect example of the need for alerting. I had no chlorine being generated or water being filtered for 1.5 days. The automation should have known it was not running and alerted me. Can the new IC alert on pump comm failure... or sense the pump is not running and alert?

Another great alert I would LOVE, is to set an RPM threshold for my VF pump and get alert when it goes over. Since I program it to run at certain GPM... as the filter life degrades, the RPMs go up to maintain the GPM I set... having an alert when it goes over a preset value would tell me when I have to backwash... seems like a valuable, simple thing "automation" should be able to do. Can new IC do that?

I am hoping Pentair used their brains on the new system.

 

[guinness]

I have an outdoor WiFi radio under my eve for good coverage of back yard, and I am sure I will get a good signal at the pad. I am going to try to find an Ethernet to WiFi adapter that has an external antenna, so I don't lose signal by having it inside the IC box.

Maybe something like the VONETS VM300 WiFi Module would work with mountable antennas.



FWIW, I was able to discover two open TCP ports on the panel, 6680 & 6681. These are unencrypted WebSocket and Telnet ports that exchange JSON messages.

Also when using the Pentair website a websocket is opened (message extract below). Also they chose to dump all these messages to the console for some reason.

SocketService.js >> Sending: {"command":"GetQuery","queryName":"GetCircuitNames","arguments":"","messageID":"360b9b31-438b-42ae-b721-3d849a880bc1"}

 

[jtech1]

That looks like a great option! Specs say it has a 100m range. I will definitely try that out once I decide to get the IC board. Thanks!

 

[jtech1]

Interesting... so the IC panel is serving an HTTP JSON web service... and the Pentair site (and the iOS app I assume) are consuming the web service and handling the presentation. Sounds like the IC does not have any direct HTML GUI it serves directly. And I am guessing they are not documenting the web service API anywhere...

 

[chemillion]

jtech1
1) I do not utilize any of the the IntelliCenter remotes. I use the iPhone app instead. There are several different remotes that can be utilized with the IntelliCenter (iS4 Spa-Side 4-button controller, QuickTouch II Spa-Side 4-button controller, iS10 10-button controller and SpaCommand 10-button controller). My understanding is that all of the remotes can be wired or can take advantage of an RS-485 Com bus Wireless Controller. There is also an IntelliCenter Control System Wireless Controller (522036) and an IntelliCenter Control System Indoor Control Panel (522035) available. My understanding is that the wireless capability uses RF technology to communicate with the IntelliCenter Panel. The IntelliCenter Control Panel can connected to your network via a WiFi connection or can be hardwired (Cat5/6) via the onboard ethernet port (this is the connection method that I use).

2) The Web Client MUST connect through the Pentair Servers. However, the iOS app can connect to the control panel via a "local" connection (I can only assume that the Android App is the same). This is one of my big complaints to Pentair. Why can I connect locally through the iOS app but not the Web Client? They know about it and maybe this will change in the future.

3) Yes, additional relays can be added later. HOWEVER, you will need to replace the daughter card ONLY, if additional relays past the five (for the i5P/PS or the i8P/PS are added.

Hope this helps to answer your questions.
Please feel free to ping me if you have any further questions on the IntelliCenter.
All-the-best!
r.

Is the ScreenLogic still required to be purchased separately if I want to control the IntelliCenter remotely via iphone/computer/etc? Thank you!

 

[chemillion]

Building a new pool with LED lights. What pool, baja reef, and spa light do you recommend? I have the following picked out:
1. Pool (2) Pentair 5G LED 12V (40'x14')
2. 1 Globrite LED 12V (for Reef 11'x 6')
3. 1 Globrite LED 12V (for Reef Bubbler)
4. 1 Globrite LED 12V (for 8'x8' Spa)

Is the 5G LED superior to the Globrites in terms of brightness, longevity, and serviceability?

Is brightness affected by 12V vs 120V?

Thank you in advance.

 

[MyAZPool]

Is the ScreenLogic still required to be purchased separately if I want to control the IntelliCenter remotely via iphone/computer/etc? Thank you!

chemillion
The short answer to your question is NO. IntelliCenter has all of the functionality and communications features of ScreenLogic2 "built in". So need for a protocol adapter or configurator type utilities and programs. IntelliCenter is Web Based. Many of the IntelliCenter "bundles" include the wireless kit for connectivity to your wireless router.
If anymore questions, feel free to ask away.
r.

 

[jtech1]

@MyAZPool... not sure if you saw this question above... do you know if these features exist?
"On the IC topic again... @MyAZPool... one of the major shortcomings of the IT panel is the lack of alerting. The only alert I ever found was the IntelliChlor com failure alert... which, unfortunately gets sent every time the pool relay turns off... so I disabled it long ago. IT system is TERRIBLE with alerting. I hope the new IC has improved that? Today is a perfect example. After I fixed the IntelliChlor a few days ago, it has been working well. No issues. So I stopped checking it 3x a day... Went out today, and saw the pump was off. Pool relay ON... Intellichlor ON, but pump not running. VF pump screen has the regular disabled message... putting IT in service mode does not give me manual control of pump. Pulling comm cable from pump does not either. Pump logic must be locked up hard. Only after shutting off pump power for 1 min and turning back on did it clear up and start working again. Perfect example of the need for alerting. I had no chlorine being generated or water being filtered for 1.5 days. The automation should have known it was not running and alerted me. Can the new IC alert on pump comm failure... or sense the pump is not running and alert?"

 

[MyAZPool]

@MyAZPool... not sure if you saw this question above... do you know if these features exist?
"On the IC topic again... @MyAZPool... one of the major shortcomings of the IT panel is the lack of alerting. The only alert I ever found was the IntelliChlor com failure alert... which, unfortunately gets sent every time the pool relay turns off... so I disabled it long ago. IT system is TERRIBLE with alerting. I hope the new IC has improved that? Today is a perfect example. After I fixed the IntelliChlor a few days ago, it has been working well. No issues. So I stopped checking it 3x a day... Went out today, and saw the pump was off. Pool relay ON... Intellichlor ON, but pump not running. VF pump screen has the regular disabled message... putting IT in service mode does not give me manual control of pump. Pulling comm cable from pump does not either. Pump logic must be locked up hard. Only after shutting off pump power for 1 min and turning back on did it clear up and start working again. Perfect example of the need for alerting. I had no chlorine being generated or water being filtered for 1.5 days. The automation should have known it was not running and alerted me. Can the new IC alert on pump comm failure... or sense the pump is not running and alert?"

jtech1
I have not found a lack of alerting on the IntelliCenter. The alerting when it comes to my IntelliFlo seems to be very good.

However, I have found that the alerting with the IntelliCenter is inaccurate when it comes to my IntelliChlor - IC-60. This issue is ONLY applicable to email alerts. See my post #37 (Pentair IntelliCenter Alerts), Pentair IntelliCenter Review, for detailed information regarding this issue.

Below, I have provided screenshots of current alerts offered by IntelliCenter. These alerts will be shown on the color touch screen , mobile apps and the web-client, and the IntelliCenter will provide email alerts as well. You can select which particular alerts that you want to receive.
r.