mwhitney said:

Today, FC measured at 5ppm. Combined took 1 drop so .5ppm (using the 10mL water sample).

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mwhitney said:

Thanks. So if I can keep it at 6ppm FC (middle of target range), I'm golden?

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Ok, so you lost 1ppm. Dose to 7, so when you test you are at 6.

Ignore the SLAM button. That is for when you have/get algae. Link-->SLAM Process

I was thinking it might be from burning the sugar cane fields. It is slight gritty, but it floats.

Mdragger88 said:

Always keep fc above minimum for your cya at all times and it will stay like this

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Thanks. So if I can keep it at 6ppm FC (middle of target range), I'm golden?

Mdragger88 said:

If you wont be around to check for a few days raise to slam level or close to it. After testing regularly for a bit you will get a feel for what your average daily standby losses are and your general bather load losses so you can more accurately dose accordingly and preemptively.

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I'm still not clear on what slam level is. In the app, if I set Current Free Chlorine to 6, Current CYA to 30 (guessing this is where I'll get to) and the 'Target Level' for FC to 6, and hit the 'slam' radio button, it changes the value to 12 with a recommendation of adding 117 mL of liquid chlorine. Are you suggesting to follow this protocol if I'm gone for a few days, or day, leaving for a week (we have a Mexico trip coming up for one week).

Yes - looking forward to learning what bather load losses look like and just daily losses so this all becomes more intuitive. Logs and more logs. I have a running notepad going.

Mdragger88 said:

If your pool is buried at all you mustn’t lower the water level below the surrounding ground level as you risk a cave in situation.

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GREAT catch. I mean. Everything above is spot on as always, but this in particular. It's hard to tell from the posted pics in their media if any of the pool is buried.

Dustin,

If you have the IntelliCenter then all you need to do is add a circuit called heater and a speed you want the pump to run when the heater turns on..



The heater circuit is in the drop down list of circuit speeds when looking at this pump speed page..

Settings, System config, Pumps, Speeds, add circuit, select heater and add the speed you want.

Thanks,

Jim R.

I understand! I switched to the SWG and now I rarely if ever use it. Patio furniture is a good idea - and cleaning cutting boards.

Scott, @ogdento

On the surface, it does not make any sense to me.

Why use relays to communicate with the VS pump, instead of using the com port on the IntelliTouch???

Please let me see pics of the relays in the Circuit breaker area of your IntelliTouch cabinet..

The question is... Do you want to screw with it or not???

What I would want to do is to connect the cable from the pump directly to the com port in the IntelliTouch.. The cable from the pump should only have two wires.. Green and Yellow. They would be connected to the corresponding Green and Yellow pins on the com port.

Don't do anything yet!!! And if you do, make sure all the power is off...

Please tell me where the wires that are connected to the 4 blue wire nuts go.. I suspect that they go to the IntelliCom 2 and your remote, but what else is connected???

Can you see the wire from the pump? If so does it have just two wires (Green and yellow)??

Thanks,

Jim R.

*note before you proceed

If your pool is buried at all you mustn’t lower the water level below the surrounding ground level as you risk a cave in situation.

My suggestion on top of what @Newdude has already covered is to get the pool de winterized and running before you start draining. Run all the tests so you have some baseline numbers especially cya. This ensures you know you have functional equipment upon refill and can get going with the slam post haste & you can get an idea of what your cya will be after the exchange.
While dealing with the muck while simultaneously draining the pool you’ll want there to be some fc in there. Not necessarily slam level but at least target level.
The draining is fast depending upon your pump - the refill takes a bit longer. I suggest draining from the bottom whilst refilling from the top.
It took me 2+ days with 2 hoses to fill my 25k gallon pool (only fill during daylight hours to avoid the liner shrinking and the weight pulling on the liner & always set a timer to check it)
Get a leaf net (the deep ones with a lip are best for scooping) you can go at it broom & dustpan style with the brush too if you have 2 poles.

If the water gets low enough and you have some waders getting in there may make scooping the muck out easier. (For safety be sure someone is home or can check on you if you wear waders in the pool)
Its gonna be arm day every day until your scooping is done so come prepared.

There’s no way to avoid the
SLAM Process but a partial drain will help you remove some of the bulk of organic material which should in turn= less liquid chlorine needed overall.

P.S.
if you’re pump is ever inoperable again you can still feed your pool the chlorine it needs daily to keep your pool clear and avoid algae by simply pouring liquid chlorine in slowly (away from the liner) and brushing it around.
The filter only physically removes particulates, while important, it doesn’t provide sanitation which is what keeps algae from proliferating. Keep the fc up, give it a little manual circulation and you’ll be good for a bit until things are going again

Also, the only dumb question is the one you don’t ask- thats what we’re here for! Ask away anytime along your pool journey
Keep us posted on the progress!
Did we mention we love pictures?

Hello everyone, as promised here are some pics. And I have a greater (though not complete) understanding of what is going on.

First the pump pics - as shown, you can see the Intellipro VSF pump is set to run with "Ext Crtl" and receives on/off and speed commands from the newly discovered Intellicom Adapter via the RS485 cable shown:




After digging around the control panel, I found an Intellicom Adapter inside the i5 control panel. The Adaptater PRGM1, 2, and 3 twisted pair wires are wired to the "FLTR PUMP, AUX1, AUX2 outputs from the "top" control board, and an RS485 output that goes to the pump in the pic above:




So I still don't know the connection or programming protocol between the "POOL" and "HIGH SPEED" buttons on my Intellitouch and the PROG1 and PROG2 on the pump, but am getting closer! I understand the top board, the 520076 is a "Personality Module" but not sure how it is programmed or changed.

Thank you all for your thoughts and comments,

ol_whistle_britches said:

My auto fill is just a toilet tank fill valve. I don’t know exactly how much evaporation loss I have each day, but I don’t think its enough to overwhelm the zone cycle time.

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You evaporation is all over the place and some weeks needs nothing while others need many hours of runtime a day.

Score one vote for the traditional city water that's always on and you never need to step in and adjust run time.

ol_whistle_britches said:

If it is, I’ll just give it a dedicated zone

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Better, because with a shared zone, you'll need lots more runtime and the poor flower bed will be mush.

But the dedicated zone will need to be watched to not dead head the pump when full. It will need babysitting.

Score two for city fill.
 

It will still only run with the pump, and you'll be adjusting the runtime to not burn out the pump.

ol_whistle_britches said:

There’s a tradeoff there as my irrigation pump wouldn’t be moving much volume on a standalone zone, but I can probably engineer a bypass to deal with that.

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More fiddling and remembering to turn it all off. I had to always set timers to remember. It's own PITA. Lol.

ol_whistle_britches said:

The bonding I’ll have to think on

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Hit up the Wiki in the left side bar or towards the bottom of any forum page. There's a couple of bonding/grounding entries covering it all. They are two totally different animals. A cow and a horse both have 4 legs and a tail. But.

Replaced the 50amp breaker, back in business. Appreciate all the replies and help here. Now I guess I need to figure out why one side of that breaker is burned up?

Looks sandy….
Whats it taste like??

mwhitney said:

P.S. the water actually smells / feels good. The chlorine smell before draining was super strong and our skin was dried out.

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Always keep fc above minimum for your cya at all times and it will stay like this
If you wont be around to check for a few days raise to slam level or close to it. After testing regularly for a bit you will get a feel for what your average daily standby losses are and your general bather load losses so you can more accurately dose accordingly and preemptively.

mwhitney said:

Is it weird to get excited about this?

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Nope, not around here
Welcome to the club!

phonedave said:

It is kind of like hanging wallpaper, but horizontally and not able to reposition it. A 20 food diameter pool is about 62 feet of wall. If you don't get the foam started exactly horizontal, by the time you get to the end, you are off by 4- 5 inches, at least. And you cannot reposition it. It sticks into the spray adhesive. It does not slide around like wallpaper. It is also very lightweight. A slight breeze blows it all over the place. And if you have a sand bottom with no pad, sand gets all up into the adhesive. It makes for a fun day. If I had to do it again I would use 3 people. I would snap a line all around the top edge and then spray about 25 feet of wall, have one person hold the foam up to the line on each end, and the 3 person smoothing it into the adhesive between the two.

It sounds like it should be easy - just glue up some foam, but there is a reason they are charging $200 to do it.

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Great tips! I’m imagining it like how gregarious contact paper behaves in a similar fashion when it is more than just a small piece. I agree to let them install that if you can. Some things are worth paying for.

phonedave said:

Thankfully mine are just a bit older, so it was not quite so prevalent when they were little. Two are out on their own now (heck, one even works for the phone company herself) and the youngest is in college, so that worked out well.

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I feel like I was part of the last generation to have a somewhat “disconnected”childhood and I wanted my kids to experience at least some of that freedom. It ain’t easy to go against the grain through that’s for sure. The world is spinning awfully fast!

1poolman1 said:

The Nidec Neptune NPTQ225 is the correct motor. The OEM Go Kit is SPXHKIT100 (shaft seal, gasket, O rings).
The motor will have to be controlled through a relay. Using the relay now used for the waterfall, a speed can be set on the motor and will operate at that speed when the relay is actuated. The wiring for that is in the manual

​

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Awesome, thanks!

Anyone have a recommended supplier? Online prices are all over the place 600-1k+

I wonder if its a result of the sugar cane fields getting burned west of us? I pressure-washed my patio and, a few days later, the air was visibly smoky and smelled like something was burning (it was the sugar cane fields). The little bit of rain I got afterward made the deck look like it was filthy.

Mdragger88 said:

@phonedave I just spit out out my coffee reading your story
I had the same “9pm feature” except my dad didn’t need to manually disconnect anything as fear of losing my coveted phone was sufficient!
We use screentime and content restrictions w/ our kids and they don’t attempt to disable it. They understand & mostly appreciate why they are there & why we waited for certain things. They saw their friends become slaves to devices/social media drama and don’t want to be like that.
They can ask for more time for a certain app or a new app or whatever and it is generally a very speedy process to make changes. I have done so with my kid in an entirely different time zone from me. My daughter is 18 now but still in high school so most restrictions are removed except a decent but later bedtime and ask to buy/purchase approval because its tied to my payment form and she said to leave it so she doesn’t accidentally purchase something while playing a game. I made the mistake of putting her birthday as younger for anonymity & thinking it wouldn’t matter & now I can’t change it!
They both have somewhat low high speed data plans and their devices are kicked offline at a certain hour by our modem. The modem thing actually happened because of visiting children who didn’t respond to my “let’s get some rest now” gentle suggestions (even though everyone else was asleep) I guess they were allowed to stay up all night at home & do whatever. This has actually happened multiple times with several different kids. I believe its an epidemic.
At my house we have fun but we also sleep! I am locking it down lol

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Thankfully mine are just a bit older, so it was not quite so prevalent when they were little. Two are out on their own now (heck, one even works for the phone company herself) and the youngest is in college, so that worked out well.

Newdude said:

1) Are you ok losing the 'auto' aspect of the autofill ? It won't work without the irrigation pump running.

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I think it will be “auto” enough for daily maintenance. My auto fill is just a toilet tank fill valve. I don’t know exactly how much evaporation loss I have each day, but I don’t think its enough to overwhelm the zone cycle time. If it is, I’ll just give it a dedicated zone. I don’t really care if my water level fluctuates .25” because the autofill only comes on for a limited amount of time every day or two.

Newdude said:

2) is the pool area zone going to be dedicated to the pool ?

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Ideally, yes. I’ll probably start by just teeing off the existing flower bed zone to get started, but eventually it could very well end up on its own zone.

Newdude said:

3) if not, where/how are you splitting it and how will you control it ?

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Initially, as described above. Tee the flower bed zone and let the fill run when the flower beds get watered. (I live in a tropical environment. My system runs year round). Down the road, I may decide to put it on its own zone and control it through the irrigation system. There’s a tradeoff there as my irrigation pump wouldn’t be moving much volume on a standalone zone, but I can probably engineer a bypass to deal with that.

Newdude said:

4) statement : the irrigation pump becomes a pool pump at this point and needs to be bonded with everything else and GFCI'd.

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That is an excellent point and something I had not gotten around to thinking about. The pump circuit is easy enough to GFCI. The bonding I’ll have to think on. Would it be possible to ground the pump locally with a suitable grounding rod and use earth as the common bond between the pool and the pump? Realistically, if the zone valve is closed, that rubber valve diaphragm is isolating the two sides of the circuit, is it not? Not that it’s not a valid point, just wondering how far down the rabbit hole I need to go here, practically speaking.

Otherwise, I wonder how big of a wire I would need to run between the two. You’re not really moving much in the way of current, as I understand it, so I would think a fairly small wire would suffice to accomplish the goal of bonding the two. If I drive a grounding rod down into the water table, I’d be able to use the water table as an electrical path too, wouldn’t I? This is not my expertise.

Mdragger88 said:

It may be helpful for that or it may be a wash. Just one of those things. If its an expense/project you don’t mind taking on it won’t hurt but it just may not help like you’re hoping. On the videos they make it look super easy of course. Maybe its their spray adhesive? Pool warehouse has some good install videos - here’s a wall foam one.
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It is kind of like hanging wallpaper, but horizontally and not able to reposition it. A 20 food diameter pool is about 62 feet of wall. If you don't get the foam started exactly horizontal, by the time you get to the end, you are off by 4- 5 inches, at least. And you cannot reposition it. It sticks into the spray adhesive. It does not slide around like wallpaper. It is also very lightweight. A slight breeze blows it all over the place. And if you have a sand bottom with no pad, sand gets all up into the adhesive. It makes for a fun day. If I had to do it again I would use 3 people. I would snap a line all around the top edge and then spray about 25 feet of wall, have one person hold the foam up to the line on each end, and the 3 person smoothing it into the adhesive between the two.

It sounds like it should be easy - just glue up some foam, but there is a reason they are charging $200 to do it.

@sande005 Cartridge set up! Copy that, the way my yard is graded I don't think that is a huge issue but something to add an outlet for in addition to the 3 way valves at the pump filter for sure. A buddy of mine has an in ground and he uses one of those 100' "lay flat" hoses when he drains down for winter. As you can see our grass doest grow for in our yard so I don't need to make it any worse flooding the yard with pool water .

Newdude said:

While that's actually a good thing while draining, it's a PITA to dump the shop vac every 2 mins.

So +1 with the net for the big stuff. Once you can see the bottom a little better, you can gently brush the sludge to a particular area then give it a little while to settle. A few attempts at it will leave you with a much smaller area to vac out.

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That’s a reasonable plan. I was assuming you were draining it down to the bare minimum allowed and don’t want any extra water being removed. But a little sludge at the end probably isn’t gonna make much of a difference in water level.

Matt,

Will it hurt anything if the OP wants to 'try' to reduce his TA?

Thanks,

Jim R.