Basically, here's the long answer...
Your IC40 should be wired to the relay that stays in sync with the Pool Circuit that also controls your pump. So when the IntelliCenter calls for the pump to be on, the Pool Circuit relay closes and sends power to the SWG. This is the safeguard that keeps the SWG from running when the pump is not.
You can create a custom circuit that calls for the pump to run, at whatever speed you want it to run at, but that circuit will not engage the SWG, since it is not the built-in Pool Circuit.
Then you would schedule the Pool Circuit for X hours a day, which will be how many hours a day your SWG will run, and the "Custom" circuit for Y hours a day which will be how many additional hour a day your pump will run without the SWG. That's one way to do it. If you need the specifics of how to do that with your IntelliCenter, we'll find someone that can walk you through the steps.
The simpler way is to just run your Pool Circuit for less hours a day, the number of hours you want the SWG to run. That's what I do.
There are a couple of schools of thought here at TFP. Some of us like to run our pump 24/7, and so run our SWG 24/7, at whatever output % keeps the FC correct. Let's call that camp the Weirdos. The other camp, the one I'm in, let's call them, oh, I dunno, the Geniuses, run our pumps for just the number of hours a day that the SWG needs, output at or close to 100%, to get the FC we want.
Your SWG will require a minimum flow rate (pump RPM) to produce chlorine. So you pay for the electricity to run the pump at that speed. Do you want to pay that rate 24 hours a day, or 6 or 7 hours a day? I prefer to run my pump as little as possible.
Minimum pump runtime (the most cost effective number of hours per day) is usually determined by one of several factors, how many hours of runtime it takes per day to:
- generate enough FC with an SWG, or
- get the pool sanitized enough by distributing liquid chlorine, or
- get the pool warm enough with a gas heater or heat pump, or
- get the pool warm enough with a solar heater, or
- get the spa warm enough, or
- get the pool clear enough through filtering, or
- skim the leaves off the surface, or
- vacuum the crud off the bottom with a non-robot vac, or
- watch various water features (waterfalls, bubblers, etc).
Each of those things will require Z number of hours a day, the one that requires the most hours will determine your pump's minimum runtime, because all the other things will get done within the Z number of hours.
So for example, I can distribute chlorine in about 30 minutes, I don't have any water features or a spa, my SWG needs to run about 6 hours a day, my vac needs to run 1.5 hours a day, and my solar heater needs to run about 8 hours a day. So my minimum runtime is governed by my solar heater: 8 hours a day. During that eight hours, by pool gets warm enough, my SWG has enough hours to generate the FC I need, and my suction-side vac, my skimmer and my filter keep the water clean enough. I don't need to run 24/7, because the pump gets everything done in 8 hours. I set my SWG to the output required to get my FC where it needs to be with eight hours of runtime. My RPMs are determined by my solar heater, which needs the most flow rate to get the pool warm, and that flow rate satisfies the SWG, the skimmer and the vac.
This changes, of course, with the seasons. In the winter, I can run as low as a couple hours a day, because I'm not heating my pool and I don't need much FC, which I achieve by adding liquid chlorine manually. Filtering and skimming get done in that couple of hours, as does distributing that chlorine. My winter flow rate can be a bit lower, because my pump only needs to satisfy the skimming, not the solar heater. So annually I run my pump as little as possible, and so pay for electricity as little as possible.
To belabor, in the summer, I like to run that 8 hours during mid-daylight hours, for two reasons. That's when my solar heater works best, and that's when my FC is burning off the most. So my SWG is "replenishing" my FC during the hours it's most being consumed (by the sun). This keeps my FC stable throughout the day and night, because FC loss in non-daylight hours is close to zero. If you run your SWG 24 hours a day, then during the day, your FC level is going to get a little bit behind, and during the night, your FC level is going to get a bit higher than it needs to, building up enough to get your pool through the next day.
Theoretically, I could run my FC a bit lower than those running 24/7, because I'm only generating chlorine when it's being consumed, I don't need to let it build up overnight to get me through the next day.
This is all "best practice" stuff in terms of cost efficiency. In reality, you're not going to waste much of your SWG usage hours running 24/7, because your output % will still be much lower than if you run your SWG only 8 hours a day. And you're not going to blow up your electric bill by running a variable speed pump 24 hours a day vs 8 hours a day. But I'm just explaining how to minimize pump runtime and maximize energy efficiency if you wanted to.
The third way to control your SWG runtime is to vary your pump's RPMs. As I mentioned, your SWG will require a minimum flow rate to generate, so you could run your pump at that flow rate for X hours a day, then run your pump at a lower RPM, one that doesn't satisfy your SWG's flow rate, for Y hours a day. During those Y hours, your SWG will sense there is insufficient flow, and so while it will still be powered up, it won't generate, and so won't burn up its usage hours. This will work, but it's not really the best way to do it, as you'd be using your SWG in a way that it's not really intended to be used.
Whew, OK, let me know if there was any of that I didn't explain well enough. Or if you need specifics about how to program your IntelliCenter. Every pool is different, and every pool owner has different goals. Like I said, some of us like our pump running 24 hours a day, others have crazy electricity costs and need to run pumps as little as possible. Some pools need more RPMs for skimming than others do, some SWGs will generate at 1200 RPM, others need 1800 RPM, etc, etc. So there is no "one way" to set runtimes and RPMs, you have to figure out what works best for you and your own pool, and how that changes throughout the seasons.
