Viron Series Salt Chlorinator

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E

ericks

Member
Sep 3, 2023
10
Adelaide
Hi everyone. I have just registered. My background is Industrial Electrical and Electronic repairs/design.
Just wanted to ask a question regarding the mentioned unit. A family friend asked me to have a look at the unit. Basically she has the timer set to start at 09:00 for three hours. The problem is she sets it to auto...it starts at the preset time "09:00"...goes to 12:00 as expected but when it stops after 12 it goes into manual mode so it would not start the following morning. Her pool Tech wants her to replace the unit $1600. I had a look at checked the manual but i can't seem to find why it would revert back to manual after doing one timed cycle. There are no error messages. I would really appreciate any assistance from someone with exp with these units.

Many thanks
Erick
 
Geday Erick and welcome to TFP,

The way you’ve described it it sounds like a fault. I’m not an expert but I do run an Astral Viron. How old is it? Replacing it is not the only solution, you can get them serviced and repaired. I would contact a tech from Astral.

I mostly control mine via the app which has on occasion looked like it had accepted a change on my phone but the change hadn‘t been registered by the chlorinator. In normal “auto” mode the app controller should look like the pic below. Clicking on the timers button brings up the 4 possible timer operations. Mine is currently showing it on standby, auto mode with no timers active because its not during a regular timer cycle.

IMG_5959.jpg
 
Welcome!

I'm also running a Viron, and didn't have that problem so far. I had others, like the unit for the life of it not accepting some start/end combinations made via the app, but happy to accept them when programmed as start/run-time directly at the control box. Anyway.

I assume you are talking about 9:00 am until noon? Or 9:00 pm until midnight?

Maybe invalid timer settings in the following timer windows (even if deactivated) that confuse the unit?

Is that effect independent from how long the runtime was? Does the error only occur from a certain runtime onwards? Maybe something goes wrong at cell polarity reversal?

What's the salinity?
 
Thanks guys. I managed to text their customer service online chat. They told me to make sure only one timer was set and that there was no overlapping of times. I checked and only timer 1 was set, the other 3 were disabled. So i removed the ribbon cable that caused the unit to lose it's time. Re set the time and set times for t1 to see how it reacted, it stayed on auto every time that the set time elapsed. Told the client to let me know what it does tomorrow.
 
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Update, it started the timed cycle and completed it...while now still in auto ready to start tomorrow morning. Will see how it goes over time. I must say scrolling through the menu etc i must say the firmware is a bit clunky... :)
 
It is a bit clunky. Bit easier with the App - apart from some bugs, as mentioned above. And you can't do everything via the App.
 
Ah yeah, good work horse. I had one that was still branded Hurlcon, before the take-over from Fluidra/Astralpool.
 

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ericks said:
Update, so it has not skipped a cycle since the "reset". Hopefully the issue is resolved :)
Click to expand...

Good work, I’m glad its back to normal.

ericks said:
Thanks guys. I managed to text their customer service online chat. They told me to make sure only one timer was set and that there was no overlapping of times. I checked and only timer 1 was set, the other 3 were disabled. So i removed the ribbon cable that caused the unit to lose it's time. Re set the time and set times for t1 to see how it reacted, it stayed on auto every time that the set time elapsed. Told the client to let me know what it does tomorrow.
Click to expand...

So the ribbon cable was causing it to loose time and that was switching it over to manual? When you say ribbon cable was that an RJ12, older phone cable that connects the chlorinator to the pump?

I was thinking of adding one for a bit of extra functionality but if it’s going to cause issues I’ll give it a miss.
 
No, i only unplugged the ribbon cable to reset to clock/micro. My thought was that a worn relay or relays might have caused more electrical noise and that when the unit stopped the excessive arc increased noise hence reset the micro. Then depending on how they wrote the program it might have defaulted back to manual off. I have a bit of experience with programming micro's and hence the issues the "noise" can have on designs. If the problem returns i will most likely remove the unit and replace a few bits that i know age over time :) So basically time was never lost...the unit only went back from auto to manual after a cycle was completed...instead of remaining in auto. The ribbon cable is from the main board to the display/control unit...
 
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Gotcha. Another thing that my cause issues is an internal battery failure. Although I’m not sure if the Viron has one. And at some point these things do eventually reach the end of their useful life. History has told me that you normally get 2 - 3 cells out of a control box.
 
My old Hurlcon (got eventually bought by Fluidra and the Hurlcons evolved into the current Astralpool SWGs) was terrible at time keeping. Had to correct the time maybe once or twice in-between daylight savings adjustments. Mostly I just ignored it until it was off by 10min or so. Maybe it was just the battery, never bothered to replace it, and then bought a new system anyway.
 
I think this unit uses a super capacitor. I can understand a bad backup would cause total loss during a power failure but losing time by a few minutes does not make any sense. I have not looked at the main board....Will have to take a closer look when i get time to pop by her house. Temperature can affect the accuracy if the system is not temp compensated...
 
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