Pentair IntelliTouch System Install Help

[Drabert]

Good afternoon TFP!

After a long wait, our pool was finally finished a couple months ago and love it!

*RANT* (skip if you just want the question)

My problem is that our pool builder had a hard time doing the install of our IntelliTouch system. I am not sure if it was due to some of the extras that we added, but it took his team about a week while on the phone with pentair support just to get some of the basic functionality (heater) to work correctly. Once they decided they were finished trying to figure it out, our fountains still did not work via the remote, the pool lights and the bubblers were combined to the same relay for whatever reason and the lights are totally out of sync. Just happy to have a pool and ready to get this guy off my property, we decided to come back to the issues later. Well, this weekend i was planning to add my landscape lighting to one of the AUX relays so i could control it with the remote and looking inside the panel, i have lost all confidence in the install.

*RANT OVER*

So the question, how bad of an idea is it to try to rewire my panel myself? I have the manual and a majority of it makes sense, plus i have you guys when i get stuck. Its getting cold so I think i can get a 2 day window to work on it before the wife starts throwing things at me for breaking the pool. Am I totally crazy?

Experience - Home Automation geek, IT / Network Engineer, and can do some basic electrical (wire a plug, fan, light switch).

Thanks for the advice.

Eric

 

[Drabert]

First things first... I would like to correctly wire up my Salt Chlorine Generator.

This is how it is currently wired:


From what i am reading in the manual, this is how it should be wired:


Does that look correct? The relay on the far left is the Filter Pump Relay for the pump that the SCG is in line with.

Thank you

 

[Jimrahbe]

Eric,

With your background, I would not hesitate to do it myself.

As you noted, the SWG is supposed to be wired through the Pump/Filter relay, just to make sure that the SWG only gets power when the pump is running. It will work without it, but it is not how it is supposed to be wired. I have a couple of rent houses where I installed EasyTouch 4 systems. It was not a problem. I just had a pool installed at my house and that EasyTouch system was installed by the pool builder. When I opened the panel I found that the first relay was empty, just like yours, and the SWG was wired the 2nd relay. At first I could not understand how it was working, but then found that the relays can be connected to the PCB controller in any order you want, so in my case they made the 2nd relay the Pump/Filter relay. So.. it might be worth a look to make sure they have the right relay plugged into the right port on the controller board.

I also like the red wire going to the Aux 3 Relay and then not going anywhere.. What are the other relays controlling?

Jim R.

 

[Drabert]

yea... got to love that!

The other relays are for
1. Booster pump for Bubblers - 3 Pentair Colorcascade Underwater Color Changing LED light
2. Pool Lights - 2 Pentair IntelliBrite Spa Lights and the 3 bubblers
3. Nothing
4. Nothing
5. Nothing (and not installed)
6. Nothing (and not installed)
7. Nothing (and not installed)
8. Nothing (and not installed)

So fixing the SWG is pretty straight forward. I am wondering now if it is already damaged for being on while the pump was off for the past 3 months. Anything i can do to check? I will look at the LEDs tonight after the kids go to bed because i think they were blinking already while the pump is on so its saying something is wrong already.

Thank you Jim!

Eric

 

[Jimrahbe]

Eric,

Inside the SWG is flow switch. If there is too little water flowing through the SWG it will just shut off. Wiring through the Pump/Filter relay is just a back up safety feature. It is unlikely that your present set up caused the SWG to fail.

You do need to check you SWG lights a see what they say,,, I suspect your fault light is due to low salt or low water flow, both pretty common. Maybe not an issue in CA, but we've had some pretty heavy rains here and two of my pools got diluted enough to get the low salt light. Another thing to keep in mind with a VS pump, is that depending on your configuration, you can run the pump slow enough so that the SWG flow switch will not turn on giving another fault light. Low flow can also be caused by a really dirty filter.

Jim R.

 

[Drabert]

After a couple hours of messing with some wiring, i have succeeded in wiring up the Chorine Generator the way it should be (according to Pentair) as well as wiring in some landscape lighting. I also tried to split my water lights onto two seperate relays (Pool lights and Bubbler Lights) but i wired it up incorrectly and its popping the GFI when i try to turn on the bubblers. Going to look into that tomorrow during nap time.

I am still getting some goofy lights on my Chlorinator. The Green Salt Level light is blinking and the low salt level light is blinking too (back and forth). In the chlorinator section of the Screen Logic, it is showing my salt level as 3750 ppm. I also ramped up the pump speed to make sure there was enough flow for it to kick on a get a good measurement. When i measured the pool chlorine level, it was non existant so i am not running a Super Chlorinate on the system to see if that does something for me.

The dirty filter idea makes sense too... i am using a sand filter but it has been a couple months since it has been backwashed. Maybe i can do that tomorrow too to see if that helps.

Thank you for the suggestions.

Eric

 

[Jimrahbe]

I'm not sure that the red/green, back and fourth flashing means a failure. I say this because on all my systems, anytime I shut off the pump and then turn it back on again, I get the same flashing lights. It can often take 5 to 15 minutes for the lights to re-sync and act normally.

Since your system did not pop the GFI when the two lights were tied together, I agree that it is most likely something that you just did. Should be pretty straight forward, but if you can't find it, post another picture of your changes.

How do you like your Screen Logic? My wife bought me one for Christmas, but that means I won't get a chance to use it for a couple more months.

Good Luck with your project,

Jim R.

 

[Drabert]

So far the ScreenLogic is working really well. It is making me think about getting the IntelliChem now just to be able to see the pH and Ch levels in the pool in the same interface. I have a crestron system for the rest of the house, but the iLink does not give me the functions that i can get through ScreenLogic. Now that i have both, i am trying to reverse engineer the commands to bring them all over to Crestron.

So before the lights were wired to a GFI Plug in the panel and I think that could be causing the problem since the Load is coming from two breakers, it did not like the GFI switch. I added a GFI breaker to the panel and now i can turn on both sets of lights but my landscape lights are tripping the new GFI i just installed. I am reaching out to my brother-n-law the electrician to see if he can point me in the direction.

My question is, can 1 GFI plug be wired to multiple standard breakers or does each breaker need a dedicated GFI (either the breaker itself or a GFI receptacle).

Thanks

Eric

 

[Drabert]

Has anyone ever seen this with Pentair IntelliBrite Lights? One of my lights is doing something different from the other 4 when its suppose to be sync'd. Its almost like it is stuck at this color.



Thanks

Eric

 

[Jimrahbe]

Eric,

I'm pretty sure you can't have two breakers feeding one GFI Plug, but I'll let your BIL electrician make that call for you.

I used to work for AMX which was the direct competitor of Crestron. I was totally amazed at some to the whole house systems that we designed. These systems controlled almost everything in the house; lights, TVs, cameras, alarm systems, music, spas, etc. At the time, touch screens were new and expensive, so we sold to people like Tiger Woods, and Oprah,, now, you can almost do it all on your cell phone.

Jim R.