EasyTouch won’t control MasterTemp 400

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M

mguntow

0
Sep 23, 2016
16
Morgan Hill, CA
Pool Size
30000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
I know… yet another of these questions. Sorry. I did look at other threads and I think I’ve followed all the troubleshooting steps.

Background
Moved into house with pool 7 years ago. Some of the equipment was pre-existing. Some I upgraded about 4 years ago. It’s been working. (Occasional odd behavior but has resumed working fine. Plus a few repairs with replaced parts over the years.)

Last week the heater stopped working. I was in the spa and the water from the jets wasn’t hot. The heater was cycling on and off. I spent several days troubleshooting and replacing parts - thermal regulator, bypass valve, manifold gaskets, stack flue sensor, and thermistor -
Now the heater works. Yay!

The Problem
The heater works but I can’t control it via ScreenLogic. (I also can’t control it via the EasyTouch panel but I never did and don’t know for sure this ever worked. I know it worked from ScreenLogic.)

When I bypass the fireman’s switch and control the heater from its control panel, it works as expected.

When I reconnect the wires from the ET to the fireman’s switch, it never fires up.

I used a multimeter to test the wire from the ET.
I put the probes on the heater end of the wire (disconnected from the heater).
Using ScreenLogic, I turn Spa On… Heater On - beeeep
Heater Off - silence
Turn Spa Off
Turn Pool On… Heater On - beeep
Heater Off - silence
So I believe that confirms the continuity of the wire. I’m thinking it also confirms ET and SL are working as expected (since SL has to use ET to function).

If I press the Heater button on the ET panel, nothing happens. The light doesn’t change. The multimeter doesn’t change. But I don’t know if it should or not in this scenario (with the bypass in place).

I reconnect the wire from the ET to the heater and power everything back up.
From ScreenLogic, with Pool or Spa On, if I turn Heater on, the heater never fires up. The light on the ET panel will turn on and the ScreenLogic UI shows it as on, but it never fires up. The heater front panel shows nothing (I believe this is expected). I don’t believe there are any diagnostic lights on the circuit board. I don’t know if that’s expected or not.

I’m not sure what to look into next. Any suggestions?
 

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What is the water temperature reading on the EasyTouch panel or on the SL app?

I think you will find you have a bad water temperature sensor reading too high so the EasyTouch thinks the water does not need to be heated.
 
ajw22 said:
What is the water temperature reading on the EasyTouch panel or on the SL app?

I think you will find you have a bad water temperature sensor reading too high so the EasyTouch thinks the water does not need to be heated.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the idea :)

Water temp: 84
Target Temp: 97
(I set both the Spa and Pool target to 104 on the Heater panel before I hooked the wire to the ET back up. I read in one of the troubleshooting posts that was needed.)
 
mguntow said:
I reconnect the wire from the ET to the heater and power everything back up.
From ScreenLogic, with Pool or Spa On, if I turn Heater on, the heater never fires up. The light on the ET panel will turn on and the ScreenLogic UI shows it as on, but it never fires up.
Click to expand...

Something is funky about the wire connection. The LED on the ET panel shows the heater relay should be closed. The heater relay closing the Firemans switch should close the 24V DC circuit that powers the heater.

mguntow said:
The heater front panel shows nothing (I believe this is expected).
Click to expand...

No. The MasterTemp control panel should light up when the heater is turned on.

The panel being dark shows the firemans switch circuit is not being closed so that the heater control gets the 24V power.

mguntow said:
I don’t believe there are any diagnostic lights on the circuit board. I don’t know if that’s expected or not.
Click to expand...

You need to check how you connect the control wire to the heater and that it makes a good electrical connection.

Look for 24V between the heater relay screws or between the fireman switch connection in the heater. You need to look for roper continuity and voltage. Somewhere you have a broken connection.

If you are still stuck post pics of the firemans switch connection in the heater and at the ET relay.
 
ajw22 said:
Something is funky about the wire connection. The LED on the ET panel shows the heater relay should be closed. The heater relay closing the Firemans switch should close the 24V DC circuit that powers the heater.



No. The MasterTemp control panel should light up when the heater is turned on.

The panel being dark shows the firemans switch circuit is not being closed so that the heater control gets the 24V power.



You need to check how you connect the control wire to the heater and that it makes a good electrical connection.

Look for 24V between the heater relay screws or between the fireman switch connection in the heater. You need to look for roper continuity and voltage. Somewhere you have a broken connection.

If you are still stuck post pics of the firemans switch connection in the heater and at the ET relay.
Click to expand...
Thank you ajw22! That’s super helpful!
It’s been hard to know what expected behavior is.

I’ve got a multimeter. I’ll check the voltage between the heater relay screws and fireman switch connection. It’s helpful to know what it should be.

Pics of the connections are in my original message. They are IMG_2079 and IMG_2080.

(I put WAGO connectors on this last time instead of wire nuts since I’ve been doing and undoing this connection so much while troubleshooting. I felt like the wires were going to fray and break if I kept twisting them in the wire nuts. The behavior did not change when I switched the wire nuts for the WAGOs.)

Again… thank you!
 
Still stuck and very confused. It seems… backwards.

With the Heater set to Off (via ScreenLogic), I get 24V at the fireman’s switch or at the pins in the ET.
With the Heater set to On, I get 0 or effectively 0.

That’s the opposite of what’s expected, right???
I’m attaching pics of all of it below to make sure I was measuring correctly and am describing it correctly.

Heater off. Fireman’s switch/
IMG_2091.pngIMG_2090.jpeg

Heater “on”. fireman’s switch.IMG_2093.pngIMG_2092.jpeg

Heater off. EasyTouch

IMG_2097.pngIMG_2096.jpeg

Heater “on”. EasyTouch
IMG_2095.pngIMG_2094.jpeg

Thanks for any suggestions!
 
I’m able to control the heater from ScreenLogic again. Yay!
So what fixed it? I’m not really sure.
But I suspect it might have had to do with pressing the Spa or Pool On button on the pool heater at the right time.

I found a copy of the old MasterTemp 400 installation manual - it’s different than the current one. I wanted to doublecheck the connection to the ET. Brief and looked right. Saw there was a pretty extensive troubleshooting section and looked at that.

I got all setup and figured I’d be hours working through all the steps. It has you first make you have the basics - pump is running, valves are right, etc. For me I do this through ScreenLogic so I also told the heater to start. Then I started following the flow chart.

Is the green Spa or Pool LED on? NO
Depress Pool or Spa On button in the Membrane Pad.
!! The lights on the pad turned on !!
!! And the heater fired up !!

Since then it’s continued to work properly from ScreenLogic and the membrane pad on the heater lights up.

I’m curious to see what tomorrow brings after it’s been off for hours overnight but I’m really hopeful.

One single thing not working. Sigh. Pressing the heater button on the ET does not turn the heater on/off (nor does the light next to the button turn on or off). I don’t use it so it’s not a problem but it does have me wondering why.

Thanks for all the help!
 
Last edited:
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