Pentair Logic Board Help

[hotinsummer]

Nice to meet everybody here. First pool ever for us; we have 3 months of maintenance as part of the build contract. After that, well, that's the reason I'm here now Maybe we can do it.

Gunite, 16x25, combined pool / 8x8 spa, maybe 12-13 K USG total, salt water with chlorine generator, autofill with water from our whole-house water softener. It's a loitering/party pool, so we claim it's not a pool, but a Roman Bath. It's also a way to lower body core temperature when 3-digit weather strikes. 3' deep shallow end, down to 5 1/2' for the deep end.

Pentair equipment, and I'm climbing my way through Pentair's fine print. It seems there's a logic board, and most peripherals of consequence attach to an RS485 bus. Bus discipline for RS485 is either daisy chain or repeater/duplicator for Y connection splits BUT grrr... there is always that common-mode ground problem. 4-wire Pentair's connection feeds carry A wire, B wire, ground and +15V.

I suppose that if you share the ground, the +15V power can be independent from the panel feed?

But I guess this is not the place to ask this or other Pentair automation related questions =:O -- which is the right place, please?

Anyway, here we go: another total n00b on board.

Cheers, and (soon enough) party on everybody!

 

[Texas Splash]

I took the liberty of renaming your thread and moving it to a better forum since you had everything all typed out above. I didn't want you to have to create a whole new post for this technical issue.

But if you would like, you are welcome to go back to the Introduce Yourself sub-forum and make a thread just to tell us about you and your pool. Totally up to you. Otherwise, we'll try to see if someone can help you with your Pentair questions right here.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Hot,

What are you calling a Logic board???

What specific issue are you having?

What automation system do you have? EasyTouch, IntelliTouch, or something else??

What pump do you have?

Do you have a Saltwater Chlorine Generator (SWCG)?

The more you tell us the better our answers will be.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Dirk]

Nice to meet everybody here. First pool ever for us; we have 3 months of maintenance as part of the build contract. After that, well, that's the reason I'm here now Maybe we can do it.

Gunite, 16x25, combined pool / 8x8 spa, maybe 12-13 K USG total, salt water with chlorine generator, autofill with water from our whole-house water softener. It's a loitering/party pool, so we claim it's not a pool, but a Roman Bath. It's also a way to lower body core temperature when 3-digit weather strikes. 3' deep shallow end, down to 5 1/2' for the deep end.

Pentair equipment, and I'm climbing my way through Pentair's fine print. It seems there's a logic board, and most peripherals of consequence attach to an RS485 bus. Bus discipline for RS485 is either daisy chain or repeater/duplicator for Y connection splits BUT grrr... there is always that common-mode ground problem. 4-wire Pentair's connection feeds carry A wire, B wire, ground and +15V.

I suppose that if you share the ground, the +15V power can be independent from the panel feed?

But I guess this is not the place to ask this or other Pentair automation related questions =:O -- which is the right place, please?

Anyway, here we go: another total n00b on board.

Cheers, and (soon enough) party on everybody!

Welcome to TFP! Glad you found us. You did a great job describing your pool. Now just transfer that, along with the answers to Jim's questions, into your signature when you get a chance. That info then repeats in every one of your posts, which is what people helping you will be looking for. Something like my signature is especially helpful.

https://www.troublefreepool.com/account/signature

 

[hotinsummer]

Thanks for the attention! I've modified my signature as suggested.

 

[hotinsummer]

(a) The RS485 standard is silent about signal ground, hence the danger of common mode voltage. (b) Pentair has a 4-wire RS485 hookup: Ground (black), -DT (a.k.a. A wire, green), +DT (a.k.a. B wire, yellow), +15V (red). (c) I plan to insert a modbus repeater ( Amazon.com ) "DSD TECH SH-RT102" (hereafter 'repeater') at the indoors end of the 1-and-only-feed (4 wires) from the EasyTouch panel, maybe ~140' run of 22AWG non-shielded cable. I don't have the schematic, so I hope/presume the repeater will (1) provide terminating resistors to the modbus, but primarily it will (2) act as a surge suppressor to protect downstream equipment. The input to the repeater has A/B/Ground terminals, and the output has two each sets of A/B/Ground terminals. (d) I wish to avoid connecting the +15 V red feed from the EasyTouch panel to anything indoors, since that wire would bypass the repeater and hence bypass surge suppression. (e) If so, of course I need to provide my own 15V DC regulated power supply for all equipment downstream of the repeater (short runs, 20-30 feet max), namely a protocol converter that will plug into an Ethernet switch at the other end, and the 8-circuit indoor control panel -- and, maybe, one only receiver for a 4-buttons remote, daisy chained to one of the other two items directly connected to the repeater. (f) I will connect the negative of my regulated power supply to the Ground out-pins (both of them) of the repeater, AND to the negative of all downstream (after the repeater) equipment. The +15V of the regulated power supply will be connected only to the downstream equipment.

My question, pretty please: Will this scheme work as expected?

I expect that (i) the regulated power supply will power up the downstream equipment (no doubts there), and that (ii) the ground connection should prevent common mode voltages (reasonable, right?), and that (iii) the downstream equipment will be properly connected to operate the RS485 link to the EasyTouch panel (not clear at all here).

Phew! Did I provide all the information necessary?

 

[Dirk]

Thanks for the attention! I've modified my signature as suggested.

Excellent siggie!! Thank you. You should add the type of testing equipment you have, or you'll be asked often (see the end of mine for an example).

 

[hotinsummer]

Report:

Item (c) "I plan to insert a modbus repeater ( Amazon.com ) "DSD TECH SH-RT102" (hereafter 'repeater') at the indoors end of the 1-and-only-feed (4 wires) from the EasyTouch panel"

Outcome of (c): BAD IDEA. Apparently Pentair's opinion of RS485 bus discipline and the repeater's opinion of RS485 bus discipline are not the same opinion. The repeater appears to miss some of Pentair's proprietary pixie dust. Or it is possible that something was mislabeled. Or I may have crosswired something. I checked until my eyes bled, but you know how things go sometimes.

Fix: on the indoors panel I connected ground (black), +DT (yellow, a.k.a. B), and -DT (green, a.k.a. A) directly to the feed from the EasyTouch load center. I did NOT connect the red (except for testing now and then) to the red.

Casual observation: AWG22 copper presents 0.053 Ohm/m. 140 ft run is ~42m, for a total 0f 84m run of red/black, approx 4 Ohm. Red to ground at the EasyTouch load center is about +17.5V. Red to ground at the indoors feed, open circuit (no load), is the same. I did not measure current draw, but when the circuit is closed by attempting to power the indoors panel, the panel does not lit up. Conclusion: at least in this case, the run is too long - perhaps for the current draw of the indoors panel (whatever that is), perhaps because Pentair says no.

Item (e) "If so, of course I need to provide my own 15V DC regulated power supply for all equipment downstream of the repeater (short runs, 20-30 feet max), namely a protocol converter that will plug into an Ethernet switch at the other end, and the 8-circuit indoor control panel."

Outcome: there is no repeater any more, but my own 15V DC regulated power supply (1.4A) worked just fine with negative connected to black, positive to red at the indoors control panel.

Pending issues:
(1) I still need to connect the protocol adapter (the indoors panel had a way simpler set of checkpoints)
(2) I do not have a solution for surge suppression for ground, yellow, green.
(3) I'm going to attempt daisy chaining from the indoors panel, but I have no idea how terminations are handled inside the Pentair's electronics.

Anyone with advice on (2) and (3)?

Cheers!

 

[Dirk]

Has Pentair's wireless solution been mentioned to you already? I hardwire everything, because I hate wireless in any form. But if you're having issues with the length of a run, then maybe the wireless gizmo is the answer. It also provides the surge protection (or rather lightning strike protection) you might be looking for. @Jimrahbe likes the wireless for that reason.

Jim, can you show him the part that extends the bus to the protocol adapter? I'm not sure which one of Pentair's wireless gizmos is the right one.

@hotinsummer, I get a little lost in your posts. In scanning them I'm seeing references to both IntelliTouch and EasyTouch. Can you confirm which you're working with?

And to be clear: when you talk about "protocol adapter," are you referring to the ScreenLogic protocol adapter?

 

[hotinsummer]

My bad, guilty as charged.

Edited, hopefully everything now read EasyTouch.

The length of the run is not really a problem, as long as each end is independently powered. RS485 (as opposed to the red power wire) allows for very long feeds.

I'm still at odds with Pentair's product names. Yes, the protocol adapter is the ScreenLogic protocol adapter. It took me a while to realize that ScreenLogic refers (I believe now) exclusively to the protocol adapter, a part of (possibly? It came with the pool, not my own order) Pentair Screen Logic Bundle Kit EC-522104. The protocol adapter seems to work like an embedded server to whatever is on the client side, app or program. As soon as I connect it, I'll run nmap Nmap: the Network Mapper - Free Security Scanner).

The high power wireless link also came with it, but it appears as a convenience for connecting to the protocol adapter. Wireless in my case is problematic, as the load center is at the base of a 7.5' reinforced concrete wall + 5' metal fence on top of it, and the other end is 60' behind it. Feasible (e.g. radio high up on a short fiberglass flagpole), but I'd rather (my pet preference) go wired and surge (or better) suppressed.

With regard to the high power wireless link: that is just a manner to extend the RS485 Pentair bus over an air gap, right? It's not specific to any piece of equipment -- in other words, one could connect to it anything that could be connected to the same port on the load center. True or false?

 

[Dirk]

With regard to the high power wireless link: that is just a manner to extend the RS485 Pentair bus over an air gap, right?

That is my understanding.

It's not specific to any piece of equipment -- in other words, one could connect to it anything that could be connected to the same port on the load center. True or false?

Can't say for sure. I would assume that, but you shouldn't.

I never used the wireless gear that came with my ScreenLogic purchase. I hardwired everything.

ScreenLogic generally refers to the whole package: the protocol adapter and the software, either a clunky application running on Windows, an even clunkier kludge of the same Windows application running in a virtual environment on Mac (using Wine), or apps that run on smart devices like phones and pads. The smart phone apps look nicer, but suffer from the same, lame user interface underpinnings.

The Mac version won't run on 64-bit-only Intel Macs. I don't know the status of the Windows version on 64-bit.

I found a work-around for some Mac users. M1/M2 Macs (if that means anything to you) can run some iPhone/iPad apps. ScreenLogic (for desktops or phones) consists of two components, one for running your pool, another for configuring ScreenLogic. An M1 Mac will run the former, but not the latter.

A non-M1 Mac that can still run VMWare Fusion, that is setup to run an old 32-bit Mac OS, will run the Wine version of ScreenLogic (both components). I never tried to run the Windows version of ScreenLogic virtually on a Mac.

So while I know a little about the software, I know virtually nothing about the RS485 stuff. Sorry.