davidl81 said:

All three terminals measure right at 3.28V with the probes disconnected, and 1.77V with the probes connected.

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Assuming the same internal resistance of the ohmmeter, we can correct the voltage by multiplying by 5/3.3 or 1.51515.

1.77 VDC x 5/3 = 2.68 VDC.

mm3621 said:

Thank you both! I will look into buying the full strength then, makes total sense.

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Howdy neighbor!
In our area, ace consistently has 31.45% ma and home depot is hit or miss. I've never found it at lowes over the 2.5yrs of pool ownership and maintenance.
I second the suggestion to look at a salt water chlorine generator. The only problem with the swcg is you might find pool maintenance to get a little boring lol.
Last comment - i don't see if it's been mentioned but your spillover spa and water fountain cause aeration which will cause a consistent ph rise if these run all the time. If you have automation you may be able to set it so spillover runs a couple times a day instead of consistently which will lower acid demand.

Let’s say the deep end wall settled 6 inches over 12 years. That is half an inch a year.

How long have you been in the house?

I would want to establish a baseline of elevation and slope of the walls of the pool and measure it every 6 months to see if the walls are continuing to shift.

Digging only will be a short term fix if the walls continue to settle.

Ok I will take pics after thaw so snow isn't in the way. Sketching it out, ya it makes sense in that the shallow end would have to be dug out or deep end widened so maybe a partial rebuild / design adjustment would help was my ultimate thinking if raising and leveling isn't possible or too expensive.

At this point rebuilding from scratch is also cost prohibitive and costs here are a magnitude higher due to everything costing more up north, labor too, then fraction of contractors and companies in this space and only half a season so if there's no fix I'm hesitant to spend the high cost of redoing the liner only for it to potentially overflow and sink a bit more getting another 15 years for a liner would be a huge gamble and the cost is triple or quadruple what it is in the US to just do a liner.

you've done the first step in troubleshooting the rs485 devices... you've disconnected everything but the pump, and the fact that it works (shows display not active) tells us your outdoor board is good.

Caution: you do NOT want to have your board powered up with that disconnected white comm wire you've got... tape up those bare wires! if the red or black wire touches the green or yellow you're going to damage something.

Now, as Allen pointed out you've got a bunch of 4-wire comm cables that are connected to the serial expansion board and the salt cell surge board... are you sure the white wire that was doubled up with the pump's 2-wire cable goes to the screenlogic? It would make more sense that it goes to your serial expansion board or swg surge board... otherwise none of those other comm cables are actually connected to the outdoor board.

new2pools16 said:

But then if the water line isn't high enough up on the skimmer and jets ?

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Yes and that is an issue digging down the deep end will not fix.

It's at risk to evaporate and run the pump dry and / or hear the jets above the water line so optimal water level is the 6 inch from the top shallow and 1 inch from the top deep end.

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Correct.

Changing depths will not change skimmer and return placement.

That is why I want to see pictures of your situation to see how much slack you have to make adjustments.

But then if the water line isn't high enough up on the skimmer and jets ? It's at risk to evaporate and run the pump dry and / or hear the jets above the water line so optimal water level is the 6 inch from the top shallow and 1 inch from the top deep end.

You can lower the pool water level now to get the deep end 6 from the top and shallow 12 from the top.

Digging out the deep end is unnecessary.

Just to continue the thread, I finally had the gear skipping issue after almost 4 years of use. It looked to me like the majority of the issue was the play in the drive wheel. So, taking a cue from caffeinatedsoap I modeled up a replacement shim/bearing thing but thicker to remove the play.


I also played around with the gear he modeled, and making mine around 1mm larger seemed to work out the best. I'm not sure if that's just from printing in ABS vs PETG but that model is here as well:

Big thanks to caffeinatedsoap for the initial debug!

You also have an RS-485 expansion board on the back wall.

You need to sort out all the RS-485 connections.

You have an Intellichlor surge board on the back wall. It has three RS-485 connectors that can be used.

Where do the wires connected to the surge board run to?

I think just steel walls in those old traditional steel pool wall kits with vinyl liner.

I guess i'd update and add that if just because of gravity it will always have a uneven water line one side to the other (which makes sense) then it's a matter of digging out the whole pool so the entire water line drops inches so it doesn't sit too high in the deep end? Then it's off but at least not overflowing but one being 6 inches and one 12 inches from the top wouldn't be as bad as 1 and 6 inches from the top...

And ya the issue is to get skimmer high and jets it's too high and close to the top of the deep end.

new2pools16 said:

. Same idea with a bath tub tilt it down 6 inch slope but make the deep end deeper and water line drops but it's still at a slope.

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deep end deeper but shallow end is less deep.

Lowering the deep end will not keep the same amount of water.

You can lower the water level of the pool now. Whatever you lower the deep end will also lower the shallow end.

Where is your skimmer(s) located? You cannot lower the water level below the skimmer.

Adjusting the pool walls is major surgery and depends how the walls were anchored. I assume you do not know your pool wall material.

Here is a better picture. I just disconnected the pump and connected Screenlogic to see if that will maintain a better connection. It worked right away just fine.

Did a full suite of tests. Added stabilizer to start bringing it up to SWG stabilizer levels, added some chlorine to get me back up towards #teamrunhot, added a bag of salt. Waiting to open the water features for a couple weeks because I am sure we will get a few nights with freezing temps and would be nice to not need freeze protection. Plus it is still cool enough that I'm not sitting out back much so no need for the water features.

--Jeff

Can you adjust pool walls once installed ? And if so how ?

I guess I don't understand your statement or maybe you don't understand what I'm suggesting. It won't be level, it can't be unless you raise the walls / pool and level the structure.

What will happen is that visually and if you measure the water line it would be let's say 6 inches from the top in both shallow and deep end after excavating and lowering the deep end but you keep the same amount of water. So when you check a level it's still off and sloping down, but visually it looks cohesive and the deep end isn't at the risk of overflowing.

It's like when a house sinks people usually leave it and stop it from sinking more and then just address the repercussions inside with different strategies and it's more cost effective.

So it's not a fix to level the pool it's a fix to address the visual issue and the risk of overflowing. So you wouldn't notice unless you get a level or stand far back looking at the landscape.

So yes you're correct in that digging down can't fix the slope or fact it's un level. Last I looked into a house raising it was a huge factor more expensive then just underpinning it and leveling the floor on each level so it remained Sunk yes but it was addressed by fixing floor slopes and building up sub floors so the concept is similar here it's more cost effective to dig out more, lower the water level in the deep end, not risk overflowing, and looking at it the pool gives the illusion of the water line being the same because there's more vertical space to fill in the deep end now so it lowers. Same idea with a bath tub tilt it down 6 inch slope but make the deep end deeper and water line drops but it's still at a slope.

See if these values line up with volts, temp and resistance for your system.

For example, 1.77 volts DC connected should be correct for a resistance of 11,589 ohms and a temp of 71 degrees.

Try the resistors to verify.

The expansion board only extends the wires to the one RS-485 driver chip on the board.

Show us pictures of the entire board, not just half.

I don’t see the connection of losing the pump when you turn on the spa. Maybe @ogdento will.

Griswald said:

The powder salt dissolved way faster

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I neglected to mention the type of salt when I was describing my MO. Mostly because I've never used anything but the powder, so it didn't occur to me. By all means, buy the powder.

I buy salt from Leslie's. I don't even know how it's price compares to the Lowe's next door. It's probably a little more, but I buy salt and chlorine from a pool store because I want to support it, at least in some small way. And the price difference is really no big deal.

When Lowes has nothing but old chlorine, I like knowing that Leslie's is going to have plenty of fresh. And all types of stores getting gobbled up by big chains and Amazon is not going to work out for us someday.