Pentair iChlor30 turned on and immediately off, surge board only outputs 28VDC

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T

travera

Member
Mar 13, 2025
8
texas
Hi experts,

My iChlor30 suddenly stopped working. When the pump starts, the SWG first turned on (as usual), but within a second or so, all the displays turned dark.

At first I thought it's the cell, so I clean the calcite throughly with acid but the problem persists.

After reading some great posts in this forum, I opened the box of the power center (520556), and I can confirm the green LED is on. The 28VAC input to the surge board also appears to correct.

However, when I check the 39V DC output, it only reads about 28 VDC, and it doesn't change whether I plug in the SWG or not, or whether the SWG started initially or after it turned off.

The surge board has three STPS20H100CFP for rectification I guess, but I couldn't figure out how they are connected or if they are faulty or not.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
 

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Welcome to TFP.

How old is your cell?

How many gallons in your pool?

28V can be fine.
 
T,

My experience is that 28 VDC works for some cells, and is too low for others.. I assume it is right on the edge of the low side..

We are not great fans of the iChlor SWCGs.. :(

I suspect that the cell is bad... but, there is no easy way to tell.. Since the Surge card is pretty cheap, compared to the cell, it would make sense to replace it first.

Tell us how big your pool is in gallons.. The iChlor 30 maybe too small for Texas.. We always recommend that a cell be at least 2 x the volume of the pool.

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
Jimrahbe said:
T,

My experience is that 28 VDC works for some cells, and is too low for others.. I assume it is right on the edge of the low side..

We are not great fans of the iChlor SWCGs.. :(

I suspect that the cell is bad... but, there is no easy way to tell.. Since the Surge card is pretty cheap, compared to the cell, it would make sense to replace it first.

Tell us how big your pool is in gallons.. The iChlor 30 maybe too small for Texas.. We always recommend that a cell be at least 2 x the volume of the pool.

Thanks,

Jim R.
Click to expand...
Thank you Jim!

Where to buy the surge board, I searched up and it seems it's $200+, which is not cheap if you look at what components the circuit board actually has...

I found there are also aftermarket SWCGs, like Apex P40, do you recommend those?

I don't know the size of the pool, it had the IC40 initially but it cracked during a winter freeze and I replaced it with iChlor 30. It was working fine for the past three years though.
 
Regarding the voltage, it seems since the multimeter shows RMS votage of 28VAC, the peak is around 40VAC. A bridge recitfier output about the same 40 VDC (without load and ignoring the diode drops).

But mine only gives 28 VDC (between the black and red wires), does it mean that the rectifier failed partially?

I remember the bridge rectifier has 4 diodes, but this board has three STPS20H100CFP, each of which has two anodes and one cathode, so there are 6 diodes in total. I don't know how this is wired...
 
3 years is about what we see iChlor 30 lasting in the south.

I would replace the cell.
 
T,

I personally would never use an off-brand cell..

An iChlor 30 does not fit into the same slot as an IC40, so did you replumb or what???

Sorry, but without knowing 'about' how big your pool is, means you have no clue what size cell you actually need.. :(

You can try to repair the surge card you have, but it seems like a lot of effort for the gain.

Nothing in the pool world is 'cheap'... :mrgreen:

Thanks,

Jim R.
 

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JamesW said:
That does not look like a Pentair board.

There are no Pentair markings.

Can you show the back of the board?

View attachment 632249

View attachment 632250
Click to expand...

This is my board.

I read somewhere that there are two version of the board, the earlier one came with the glass fuse which was defective (mine has the seperate fuse holder spliced to it, likely by the previous owner). The new version comes with the blade fuse (looks like the one you show).

I just assumed mine is the earlier version, but since you brought it up, it may well be that mine had already been changed to off-market by the preivous owner.
 

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Jimrahbe said:
T,

I personally would never use an off-brand cell..

An iChlor 30 does not fit into the same slot as an IC40, so did you replumb or what???

Sorry, but without knowing 'about' how big your pool is, means you have no clue what size cell you actually need.. :(

You can try to repair the surge card you have, but it seems like a lot of effort for the gain.

Nothing in the pool world is 'cheap'... :mrgreen:

Thanks,

Jim R.
Click to expand...
the IChlor 30 is shorter but I remember it came with an extension pipe to retrofit to the existing piping for IC40.
 
Get a 24 volt 150 watt lightbulb and use it as a test load to see if the voltage stays good and the current should be 6.25 amps.

If the voltage does not drop out and the light bulbs fully light up and use 6.25 amps, then you know that the power supply is good.

Note: 150 actual watts and not "Equivalent" watts.

Not LED.

You can also use (2) 12 volt 75 watt bulbs in series to make a 24 volt 150 watt test load.
 
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travera said:
I found there are also aftermarket SWCGs, like Apex P40,
Click to expand...
Home depot of all places was selling them on the shelves during the Covid shortages but have since stopped. Last year discount salt pools started carrying them and 1 member got one and hasn't reported back, which is a good thing. It's gonna take a while to remeber who. I'll report back at 3AM when I spring out of bed because I remembered. :ROFLMAO:

You can probably find the thread in the meantime by searching apex 40 or 60.
 
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