What did you do to your pool today?

Newdude said:

You can't swim in a Speed Queen.

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Says who?

Newdude said:

You can sterilize clothes in the pool. You can't swim in a Speed Queen. Just sayin.

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The highest capacity top loader ever!

Out with the old pressure-side cleaner, in with the new electric robot.

Today I got the following done since it was 50 degrees out!

* Replaced the grounding wires going to all my pumps.
* Added a heater bypass (woot, finally!)
* Cleaned up some old wiring
* Removed my infinity swim pump and associated plumbing (has been dead since I bought the house/pool and have no plans on ever using it)
* Cleaned up pool equipment pad area
* Ordered new reagents for 2023!

(and... 3 of my 6 older Jandy single speed pumps were replaced with Pentair VSPs this off-season too! Very excited about lower electric bills!!!)

Next up is installing a new Stenner Pump and Tank for auto pH dosing (super excited about this!), and replacing/updating/fixing all the relay/breaker wiring that is a total mess.

With a stretch of dry weather coming, I decided to open the automatic cover to verify that there still is a pool under there. But before that, some housekeeping - we live in the desert, so sand blows onto the cover. I can blow much of the sand off with a sand blower - i mean leaf blower, but some always stays on the cover. Rains tend to cause some of it to adhere to the cover. So, working 2 feet at a time doing a rinse, a light scrub with a microfiber mop, re-rinse, and roll it in 2 feet, then repeat, i get this...

And yes, there is a pool underneath! Would be very inviting except the water temperature is currently 49 degrees.

stevo777 said:

With a stretch of dry weather coming, I decided to open the automatic cover to verify that there still is a pool under there. But before that, some housekeeping - we live in the desert, so sand blows onto the cover. I can blow much of the sand off with a sand blower - i mean leaf blower, but some always stays on the cover. Rains tend to cause some of it to adhere to the cover. So, working 2 feet at a time doing a rinse, a light scrub with a microfiber mop, re-rinse, and roll it in 2 feet, then repeat, i get this...View attachment 475279View attachment 475280

And yes, there is a pool underneath! Would be very inviting except the water temperature is currently 49 degrees.

View attachment 475281

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Ha! Hard to argue the merits of a cover with those three pics as evidence! Nice job.

Today: Just dumped some of my bonus on a new Jandy 2.7hp VS ePump. I was going to go with a Pentair 011056, but I got a very solid deal on this one and it's guaranteed 100% compatible, so whatever. The Stealth 2 HP has made it 16 years so far, so if I get even 10 years out of the ePump, I'll be satisfied. I've been waiting for my old pump to die, but it just stubbornly refuses to. No amount of cold snaps or bad caps will do it in. It just keeps chugging along. Replacing the pump is in preparation for..

Soon: Figuring out which SWCG to go with. The Aquapure is an obvious solution but man I really really hate Jandy and they're not particularly robust units.. but it will just work the way it's supposed to with the ALRS automation (auto-adjusting for the spa and all), so I dunno. I'm torn on that.

dfwnoob said:

Today: Just dumped some of my bonus on a new Jandy 2.7hp VS ePump. I was going to go with a Pentair 011056, but I got a very solid deal on this one and it's guaranteed 100% compatible, so whatever. The Stealth 2 HP has made it 16 years so far, so if I get even 10 years out of the ePump, I'll be satisfied. I've been waiting for my old pump to die, but it just stubbornly refuses to. No amount of cold snaps or bad caps will do it in. It just keeps chugging along. Replacing the pump is in preparation for..

Soon: Figuring out which SWCG to go with. The Aquapure is an obvious solution but man I really really hate Jandy and they're not particularly robust units.. but it will just work the way it's supposed to with the ALRS automation (auto-adjusting for the spa and all), so I dunno. I'm torn on that.

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I really regret selling the pump my IntelliFLo replaced. I think I got $100 for it. I should have kept it, tucked away, in case the IntelliFlo ever stops working. This didn't occur to me at the time, because it was before our current supply chain and labor and service delays, that could extend what should be a few day repair into unpredictable days, weeks or months. Knock on wood so far, my new pump has been great. But if it ever conks out, I'll be at the mercy of parts and labor availabilities. A spare pump could really come in handy, and replacing yours before it dies could really be advantageous if you keep the old one.

That's actually a really good idea, I didn't think of that. I should pack the old one up and stick it up in the garage attic. Any working pump is better than nothing.

Opened the pool yesterday as my water temp hit 60 very early this year. And by opening my pool, I mean I took the cover off and dumped in the in the robot, added some CYA and 3 bags of salt. Optionally, I dumped in 2 gallons of chlorine which I do every year only because all of the dead earth worms in the bottom kinda grosses us all out. When I close my pool due to our climate all I do is put two pucks in a floater, crank the speed way down on my pump, turn off the salt cell and cover the pool. When I take the cover off the pool looks about the same as when I put the cover on.

The "open box" pump arrived today! Everything looks great and in order, totally brand new. Very satisfied with that. To go with it, I just bought an "open box, I just never got around to installing it" AquaPure 1400 setup. Everything seemed to be there in the pictures, but it's definitely a few years old. Whatever, if it's busted or parts missing I'll just dispute it.

I'd like to be done spending big money on this expensive hole in the ground, thanks.

dfwnoob said:

I'd like to be done spending big money on this expensive hole in the ground, thanks.

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There are many here at TFP that feel the same way. Let me check the bottom of this web page... Uh... 337,181 of us!

So if you ask anyone who knows me, they will tell you that I have a problem. Well.. depending on who you ask, they may tell you I have many problems. That's neither here nor there, if I'm being honest. Anyway, one of my big ones is my inability to leave well enough alone. I mentioned earlier today that my new VSP arrived. After work I took it out of the box and gave it a good once over, and while I was doing that I noticed "huh.. that pump housing looks AWFULLY similar to my old Stealth. In fact, I'm like 99% confident it is. I bet I could just undo the unions on the old pump and slide this one right in." Well, I took some quick measurements of my old pump and determined, yes, in fact, the housing is either identical or VERY, very similar. So what else kind of project do you start at 6 in the evening? Install a new pool pump of course!




I shut the power off to the pad, removed the electrical connectors, loosened the unions and took the old pump out of the way. After a bit of finagling with some shims (these will go away when I redo the plumbing on the pad to accommodate the SWCG and install the heater properly with a bypass. the pad has sunk over time a little bit due to shifting soil around the house. ask my foundation about that), connecting up the electrical, and running a new wire for the RS-485, I was ready to power things up. I turn the breakers back on, the Aqualink boots up aaaaand.. nothing. Huh. OK.

The manual says something about going into the settings on the controller and selecting "VSP Setup". Alright, scroll through the good ol' All Button.. well boss, there's nothing about VSPs in here. The AL PCB has almost the latest software (V is most recent, 9/2022 for what it's worth), so I KNOW it knows what a variable speed pump is. Jandy woudn't REALLY give you no way to control a VSP would they? Sure they would. They're Jandy. I hate them.

I head over to the Wiki, and my favorite article, Aqualink RS Further Reading. What does that article say?

You need to have iAqualink or the OneTouch controller to setup a VS pump. The All Button controller cannot do RS-485 control for a VS pump.

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Excellent. Good stuff. Fortunately, I already went through this nonsense a year ago when I first moved in this house. Dig out the old car tuning laptop I have all the Aqualink sim stuff on, plug it into the Aqualink PCB, fire up the Aqualink Touch simulator which simulates the relatively unknown Aqualink RS Touch controller, and boom. I set up the VSP speeds, hit the pump filter button and boom, the pump whirrs to life.

I can't believe how quiet this pump is. Why did I wait so long to replace that old rubbish single speed pump? This thing is awesome.



For now just to test things out and shake it down, I basically have it running 24 hours a day at 1750 RPM, only spinning up for the cleaner, spillover, and spa. Even running all day long it'll cost less than my old 2 HP single speed running 8 hours, which is what I had it set on over the summer. That's insane. I'm actually kinda excited to get the SWCG in and running whenever it arrives. I'm ready for summer now.

Didn't do anything major yesterday, but I did figure out how to make an aux button control a specific VSP speed, so I added a "high speed" button to my All-Button to ramp up the pump for adding chemicals or when I cut the grass around the pool and I want it to quickly skim off the stuff that blows in. I also added a "low speed" button, which is really more medium speed, but that took up my last remaining aux. It may go away if I need to add something else.

Edit: doing that has now killed my "Cleaner" button and associated programming. Hmmm. I'll have to go out and mess with that later. Maybe that ate up one aux too many.

Fixed my heater by just opening it.

Hadn't used it in months, and when I tried to heat the spa last night it didn't work. No error codes, just the "Service Heater" LED.

So today I gathered some tools and went out to try again. Same thing, "Service Heater". Unscrewed the front panel, lifted the top cover to get a look at the LEDs inside -- but it slipped out of my hands and fell back onto the base. Dunno what that shook loose, but the heater immediately fired up, so mission accomplished. In 40 minutes I'm going back out for a soak.

It just needed a little percussive maintenance