26' Intex - Planning, Install, Upgrades, and Landscaping Thread

[shawnpepera]

ok... so I have to admit that I read this ENTIRE thread. Just wanted to say GOOD JOB and I have to ask....

How is the grass now? Kinda a grass nut here.... and yours was so beautiful. I tore up mine this past spring to put in our AGP and 100' trenches for electric and gas... and now trenching again next week to run 220v to the new hot tub spot!

Heres a pic of our MESS this past spring (after the trench was closed)!

 

[jseyfert3]

ok... so I have to admit that I read this ENTIRE thread. Just wanted to say GOOD JOB and I have to ask....

How is the grass now? Kinda a grass nut here.... and yours was so beautiful. I tore up mine this past spring to put in our AGP and 100' trenches for electric and gas... and now trenching again next week to run 220v to the new hot tub spot!

Heres a pic of our MESS this past spring (after the trench was closed)!

Thanks! Sorry I didn’t reply. The grass isn’t the best. I did get new grass grown in over the trench before winter at least. I may have taken a picture before the grass went dormant for the winter but it’s not on my new phone so I don’t have that handy.

I think I mentioned I ordered a Confer 7200 ladder, but didn’t get it until well after the pool was closed. I decided to put it together yesterday to make sure nothing was wrong before we got to spring. Everything looked good. Assembly was fairly easy and quick. Started with a pile of parts.

Most of the ladder is put together with a rubber mallet (not included), such as these steps. There’s also a couple bolts later on as well as some screws.

There was some flashing on some areas, most wasn’t an issue but this spot on the top deck was too much. I used a razor blade to trim it down after I took this picture. There’s also a point you will likely need a drill to drill out a couple bolt holes. Seemed unfortunate some of this cleanup was not done at the factory.

Completed ladder, along with the LAK (ladder adapter kit), which is the wide base and triangle supports shown here. The completed ladder is meant to bolt to the top of a hard-wall pool for support, the LAK is needed when using on a rigid frame, soft wall pool like an Intex.

Overall the ladder seems pretty sturdy, way more than the Intex ladder that comes with the pool. Definitely a nice upgrade.

 

[kimkats]

hehe on your helper! Did he try to take off with any of the parts?

Love me some rubber mallet! Good for so many things!

I hear ya on the lack of cleaning up the parts. We had to push out and clean up many holes in our former steps.

 

[jseyfert3]

hehe on your helper! Did he try to take off with any of the parts?

He did not, somewhat surprisingly.

 

[jseyfert3]

Post 346...wow!

I've been eyeballing the Intex pool light 28697E for some time. It was out of stock everywhere this summer. Late last fall a seller on Amazon had it for like $90, but Intex sold it for $75, so I waited and kept checking occasionally. Well, Intex has it back in stock finally...and has upped the price to $100. Looked on Amazon, a third party had it for $95, and Amazon had a $5 discount, so I got two lights at $90/each. I'll update when I get them, and put them in the pool once it thaws and get some night shots. This light has two parts, a transmitter on the outside of the pool with a 26' long power cord, and a light on the inside of the pool. The halves are held together via magnets and the transmitter transmits power to the light on the inside of the pool. No cutting the pool wall. The outside transmitter light also has a light that will light up outside the pool. I'm planning on putting one near the ladder and another near the pump.

Also, I know I promised VIDEOS of the pool process, but I had multiple ones that needed some editing, and didn't get around to editing them last year. Well I switched from Android to iPhone, and iPhones have a built-in video editing app that's surprisingly powerful and easy to use. I'm currently downloading the time-lapse videos from my phone, and plan on editing and uploading to YouTube and linking here later today! This is the time-lapse of the leveling and pool assembly.

Other upcoming items this year:

• Fixing my back lawn!
• Landscaping around the pool!
• Landscaping around the fence!
• Installing the Confer ladder!
• Installing a paver path from the pool to the house!
• Finishing the fence, both the couple slats remaining and staining!
• Lights on the fence!?
• Aquabot Pool Rover Jr!
• And more!

Spring is on the way, I hope! Said on what is likely to be the coldest day of winter this year...but these days are the best for planning!

 

[kimkats]

SCORE on the lights! That is going to be interesting to see how well they work and how long they last! I like your idea for placement.

 

[Dirk]

Wow, so they're using wireless charging tech to power the lights? That's pretty cool.

I wonder it you place the lights exactly opposite each other, if the power waves that meet in the middle can achieve some sort of temporal time displacement field. If after you install the lights we don't hear from you, we'll know what happened. If it does happen, I think it's safe to assume you traveled to the future, because if you had traveled to the past, you would have already written about it. But then you wouldn't have installed the lights. So then you wouldn't have written about it. Ouch, I just gave myself a temporal headache.

 

[newdude]

if the power waves that meet in the middle can achieve some sort of temporal time displacement field

Egon covered this one :
Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Anywho. Don’t cross the streams.

 

[jseyfert3]

Wow, so they're using wireless charging tech to power the lights? That's pretty cool.

Yup, that's my understanding. Doesn't work with a steel walled pool, cause that would interfere with the magnetic fields (a wireless phone charger is essentially an air-gapped transformer). But for a vinyl wall pool like an Intex it's brilliant.

The two halves are held together with magnets, and if the outer one is pulled off the inner half floats up to the surface. Both the inside and outside are color adjustable, and can be turned on or off or set to different colors independently.

 

[Dirk]

The two halves are held together with magnets, and if the outer one is pulled off the inner half floats up to the surface. Both the inside and outside are color adjustable, and can be turned on or off or set to different colors independently.

Floats, nice touch. So the outside is lit, too? Nice.

(a wireless phone charger is essentially an air-gapped transformer).

I never thought of it that way. What took them so long to figure out wireless charging? Transformers have been around for almost 200 years...

 

[jseyfert3]

Floats, nice touch. So the outside is lit, too? Nice.


I never thought of it that way. What took them so long to figure out wireless charging? Transformers have been around for almost 200 years...

Yes outside and inside are both lit.

I can come up with two reasons off the top of my head. If they are right is another factor. First off widespread use of rechargeable devices is relatively new. Second is that wireless chargers don’t operate at line frequency, and electronics for efficient, small switching are also relatively new.

 

[Dirk]

I thought of a couple myself. While you have to hit a general area for it to work, there is still a bit of leeway in how you set the device on the charger. That must have been challenging. And then keeping what essentially must be a big magnet with a nasty electromagnetical field from messing with teeny tiny electronics squished into a very thin phone must have been tough, too.

 

[jseyfert3]

The lights came today. Seem decent. There’s two buttons on the outside piece, one for the outside light, one for the inside light.

The inside light is much brighter, which makes sense and should avoid glare to a light facing a house. The inside has two modes, white or slow smooth color changes. The outside light can be set to white or a handful of different fixed colors or can also slowly cycle colors smoothly.

I want to throw these in and see how well they work but my pool is a block of ice covered in snow right now.

 

[Dirk]

Very cool. How long is the cable between the transformer and the light's tail connector? Is it fixed into the transformer, or is that a connector, too? Does it look like it's extendable?

You could always try it out in your shower! If you can't get it to stick through the glass door, you might have to try the shower curtain in the other bathroom.

 

[jseyfert3]

I haven’t uncoiled the wire yet to compare lengths before and after the transformer. The wire is fixed to both sides of the transformer. There’s a connector close to the light, but that’s the only one.

The box says the total cord length from plug to light is 26’.

Actually both our bathrooms with showers have glass doors, so we don’t have a shower curtain. Good idea though...

 

[Dirk]

Shoot, I was looking forward to some sort of shower/light-show story this morning!

 

[jseyfert3]

Also, I know I promised VIDEOS of the pool process, but I had multiple ones that needed some editing, and didn't get around to editing them last year. Well I switched from Android to iPhone, and iPhones have a built-in video editing app that's surprisingly powerful and easy to use. I'm currently downloading the time-lapse videos from my phone, and plan on editing and uploading to YouTube and linking here later today! This is the time-lapse of the leveling and pool assembly.

Has it been over a month again? I remembered this and pulled up iMovie, where I had the majority of the video edited. I've currently got the timelapses combined into a 10 minute long video with some background music. I was thinking of adding a voiceover to explain certain parts as well, not 100% certain on that. But I'm going to fiddle with this more today, hopefully will post soon...

 

[kimkats]

 

[Dirk]

Hey, save me some popcorn, Kim!

I had a big presentation planned for today, too. My latest frankenpool project. But I couldn't even finish the build yesterday, let alone the slideshow. Plus, I'm missing a part, which I just amazon-primed, so now it'll be next weekend to finish... Where's the movie trailer guy when we need him...

"Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..."

 

[jseyfert3]

I have indeed added a voiceover! I think that will be it for now, going to do a final review and if all looks good I'll upload that to YouTube and post it here in the next hour or two.

Oh, and I ordered a Pool Rover Jr today as well. That should make maintaining the pool a lot easier!