SWG stopped working

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JamesW said:
Try turning the percentage to 100%.

If you turn to 100% and there are no errors indicated, I would think that it's working.

You can check volts and amps going into the power box or coming out.

I don't know how comfortable you are doing that. Do what you can do safely.
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I've done the 100% test several times. No errors are indicated. So I turn it back to 65%, which is what I've been running at for several years. Any more than that, I usually over chlorinate, unless it's the middle of summer.

I have a fluke and fairly comfortable with taking the readings. I think I will have to take the cover off the control box to take measurements. Since it will be raining for the next several days here, I'll wait till the weekend to do that.

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So last night's OCLT passed again. FC=8.0 at both 8:00pm and 6:00am.

I think the next step is to take voltage and amp measurements once the weather dries out. Until then......bleach is cheap.
 
I think I would keep doing testing as well, as you may have some erratic days when you were adding things, when the FC dropped super low etc...

Another DUMB NEWBIE perspective - you mentioned cool rainy weather that you have been having. I have been told that the SWG don't work very well with cooler water temps. I have certainly noticed that now that my pool water is in swimming temp range, I have not had to add any additional Chlorine in quite some time, and I just turned down my SWG from 60% to 40% and we are holding good at my target FC.


Continued good luck!
 
After several days of testing, it appears that the SWG is back to working again. Perhaps ramsfan has a couple of valid points.....pool water went from low 60's to mid seventies given the recent heat wave in New England.

It's really hard to explain that day last week when I had a 5ppm drop (from 6ppm to 1ppm) in 30 hours with the SWG "on". Oh well, I will keep testing FC daily as maybe I have in intermittent issue.
 
Hmmmm.....back to the drawing board. Test results not looking good again.

6/12/17 at 7:00am : FC=11.5
6/13/17 at 7:00am : FC=8.5

on 6/12 SWG ran for 11 hours at 65%. Granted the temp (air, not water) reached 99 degrees. Water temp is now 75 degrees.
Salt level with Taylor kit is 3000ppm.
All lights still show everything is working.
Still passing OCLT with flying colors. Water is crystal clear.

I have not got around to testing amps and volts yet with my Fluke.
 
pooldv said:
Are you turning off the SWG when you do the Overnight Chlorine Loss Test? What is your CYA level?

Wow, 99? Hotter there than here by a lot!

Does the SWG owner's manual show how many lbs of chlorine it can produce?
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Yes....SWG is turned off during OCLT

latest CYA is 55 (although I'm baffled by this as it was 55ppm 3 weeks ago when I added 4 lbs of CYA, so I've been assuming it was 70 based on pool math)

SWG produces 1.38 lbs/24 hours at 100%

So.............I've done some math and perhaps it is indeed working fine. Would appreciate if others would check my findings.

6/12 at 7:00 am FC = 11.5
looking at some charts on the forum, I can see that FC consumption at 55 CYA can be as much as 50% (is this a correct ballpark assumption?)
so FC consumption = 50%(11.5) = -5.75ppm
FC Gain (from SWG) = .6oz chlorine gas/hr @ 65% for 11 hours = 6.6 oz gas = 2.05ppm FC

therefor at end of day expect FC to be: 11.5ppm - 5.75ppm + 2.05ppm = 7.8ppm

6/13/17 at 7:00am i actually read 8.5ppm FC. So it's in the ballpark of my expected results, which had a bunch of assumptions
 
Do you have a auto water fill? Could you be loosing water? I'm asking because of the non-change in CYA despite adding extra CYA recently. Make sure you test CYA in full sunshine, back to the sun, vial at waist level. If you verified that your CYA is indeed 55, you might want to bump up your CYA a little more.

Another idea, maybe your SWG is on the verge of failing/end of life expectancy?
 
To see if the generator is working I would take a test from the pool and an outlet with the generator at 100%. Invert the test tube and submerge it to the level of the outlet, then turn the open end of the tube to face the outlet. The tube should fill with water that has been proceesed by the generator. At the outlet, the FC level should be significantly higher than the pool. I would would do the test when the pool FC level is low so the differance in FC will be easy to see.
 

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kcindc said:
Do you have a auto water fill? Could you be loosing water? I'm asking because of the non-change in CYA despite adding extra CYA recently. Make sure you test CYA in full sunshine, back to the sun, vial at waist level. If you verified that your CYA is indeed 55, you might want to bump up your CYA a little more.

Another idea, maybe your SWG is on the verge of failing/end of life expectancy?
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No autofill, but it's rained a lot and I've drained about 3-4 inches of water. Doesn't sound like enough to lose that much CYA. Either way, yes I am planning to bring it up to 70, once I figure out if the SWG is really working or not. Otherwise it will be too high if I convert to bleach.

The Cell is new in 2014 but the controller is original (2007)

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aswetich said:
To see if the generator is working I would take a test from the pool and an outlet with the generator at 100%. Invert the test tube and submerge it to the level of the outlet, then turn the open end of the tube to face the outlet. The tube should fill with water that has been proceesed by the generator. At the outlet, the FC level should be significantly higher than the pool. I would would do the test when the pool FC level is low so the differance in FC will be easy to see.
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Yes, good idea....I've actually done this before by plugging in a threaded pipe into my return that rises above the water line. that way I ensure I'm sampling only the water from the return. Did this back in 2014 when my original cell died.
 
run, I am curious as well how your testing of the return water versus pool water goes with the SWG at 100%. That it to me is pretty cool information to have, and I hope you don't have to replace your SWG.

On the topic of your CYA level, I honestly hate adding CYA in granule format, but can't justify the cost of liquid. I learned something interesting by trying to dissolve some granules in a five gallon bucket of water. Several days after putting the granules in, they were not fully broken down in the water. I also read on the forum here that the granules start a certain size, and then break into smaller granules, that break into smaller granules, etc... until dissolved, and that your expected CYA level won't reflect in your testing for several days even after that process (makes sense since dissolving takes so long). This speaks back to making sure your filter runs for like 48 hours while adding CYA, and to not backwash. I get this mental picture that all those granules are congregated in the bottom of my filter with water rushing across them.

Also, there is not doubt that water temperature has a big impact on Chlorine production of an SWG. Now that our pool temp is in low 80's, I have not needed to add Chlorine, and was even able to knock setting down from 60% to 40%. Of course, I have 15 gallons of chlorine I got on sale that is deteriorating as we speak.

I hope this helps you and good luck!
 
To conclude......the SWG system is working just fine now. It's been maintaining a perfect 6.0ppm of FC for the entire week now running at 65% for 11 hours each day. Just like usual.

I still cannot explain that 1 day drop from 6.0 to 1.0. The only theory I can come up with is that when I added my calcium that day when the FC dropped, something happened when I turned off the SWG for a couple of hours. So either of the following could explain it:

1) When I turned the SWG back on, there was some sort of mysterious electrical glitch that prevented it from working
2) Maybe I had it turned off for longer than I thought
3) Maybe I cleaned the cell and that fixed things
4) Perhaps I moved some wires around when I took the cell off to clean it, so maybe that fixed a short or open in the wiring
5) Perhaps the addition of CH impacted (about 20 lbs) the ability of the SWG to generate FC temporarily
6) or maybe even a combination of all or some of the above

Who knows....all I know is that it's working great now so the cell/wiring and controller are all good.
 
run - this is great news!!!! I would like to wager that it was caused by a combination of #2 and #5, mostly #5, with a little #3 sprinkled on top! Plus, if the water temp was low, FC production could have been way down on top of it.

I went through a similar thing where FC got super low, and I felt like I was chasing a ghost. I think our minds play a trick on us, and we have a mental framework, that our pool water chemical levels are more predictable (and unaffected by other factors) than they really are.

Did you ever do that test of FC at the return? I am not going to do it, since my FC is very stable with my SWG at 40% and running 12 hours per day, but I am curious if someone's pool FC is around 6.0, and they can test pure return water, what FC level that is roughly.... is it 7,8,9,10, 12, 15, 20?
 
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