So, I pretty much have a general understanding of all the equipment for my new pool except for the intellitouch panel. There is a jagged mess of cables inside with ports galore. Indeed, the builder and subs have had issues keeping it all straight and I've started to ask them to label all the wires so it can be maintained in some fashion going forward.

Just as an example, when we connected the intellichem unit recently and restarted power to everything before the tech left, I noticed that the intellichem display and the inhouse display both stopped working. This somehow was traced down to the fact that the heat pump power had gone on, and somehow the heat pump management was incompatible with the intellichem. So, the tech deciding that heat pump management wasn't a priority removed its connection and hopefully we'll fix that this week.

I've tried reading the intellitouch manuals but it is really dry.

From what I've gathered, there are ports for temp sensors, valves, common equipment, and "com ports". For most of my needs, it seems like everything wants a com port...the heat pump, intellichem, control panel, etc...

I have an i5+3s...I'm not sure how many com ports I have. We're about to also put in a screenlogic which also, no surprise, requires a com port.

Has anyone written an easy to understand guide to the wiring inside the intellitouch panel...from what I gather I have lots of spare aux ports, probably 4 valves/actuators in use for solar, cleaner (may not need going forward), deep heating returns, skimmer versus drain suction and I'm not sure if we'll want one for heat pump or keep heat pump always in the water flow (safest?).

Also, there seems to be a station id of some kind that each equipment has to identify itself with values from 1-16, is there a common assignment convention?

This should be set up by the PB. If he can't effectively show, he should bring in a field rep from Pentair to assist both you and the PB.

Scott

Everything that communicates Via RS-485 hooks up to one, or both (if available) com ports.
So all intelliflo, ultratemp, intellichlor, intellichem, screen logic interface, and is10 remote hook up to these ports.

It's really that simple.


If there is a conflict between the intellichem, and heat pump, there may be an issue with the firmware which can be flashed to update it to the current version.

If the hooking up the heat pump caused the other displays to shut off, there may be an issue with the control board on the heat pump, or a crossed wire on that connection.

Racket -- thanks for that info. From the docs I've seen, there are two primary serial ports (J7/J8?) and from reading the diagrams - j8 is only available for the i7/i9? So, does that mean I just have one port and everything is trying to connect to that?
I think the builder had something that looked like 3 additional ports, but these are probably just valve controls.
When one is multiplexing multiple equipment onto the single port, is there a particular wire config..and consequently a limit on the amount of simultaneous devices?

The com port's screw terminals can accept leads from more than one device at a time. If you had a pair of Intelliflow pumps and an Intellichlor, all three can be put in the same connection. One of the pumps would need it's address changed but the physical connections can all go in the same port.

Scott

OK, so to make sure I'm clear, up to 16 devices can be put on one port and an i5+3s should have a single port....handling of multiple devices is handled by putting many wires on the same leads, and problems are usually due to putting wires in the wrong place or not setting addresses properly (is there a correspondance between address and wire placement)?

That's the idea but there is not enough space for that many com lines in a single port. That's why there are expansions available.

Scott