Last evening at about 7:45PM my husband put a voltmeter on all the jumpers and on the pins they connect. We know for sure that the solar override and cooling have worked in the past, as we have witnessed it. There are two other jumpers that we have not used- freeze protection (not really an issue in July) and Celsius display. All four of the jumper pin sets registered 5.05 volts.
He also checked the resistance of all of the little plastic jumper pieces, and they were all the same, so that seems to negate the "burned out" jumper theory. So he put a jumper back on the cooling pin- the water was reading 90 degrees, the solar array 86, and we set the desired temp to 80 (not that it will get that cool this time of year). Nothing. He used a screwdriver to bridge the pins (as a conductor)- nothing. Waited a while. Nothing. So we put a jumper (by now we had forgotten which one was which) back on the cooling pins, still nothing.
So we turned off the actuator and manually turned the valve to let water through the panels to cool and got in the pool. The water coming out of the return was palpably cooler.
About an hour later, 10 pm, we got out of the pool, and I checked the panel. What do you know?! The cooling light has come on. We reactivated the automation on the valve, and sure enough, the cooling function was working again. The collector temp was down to 80, pool still 90, desired temp still 80.
Being real brave, I turned the desired pool temp up to 90, and the light went off, and the valve actuated off. I turned the desired water temp back to 80, and the light came on and the valve actuated to let water through to cool again. Yay!
But how long will it last?
I am going to call Goldline, but their tech support is pretty clueless, and my guess is they are going to tell us to rip it all down and send it in so they can look at it (heavy, big, expensive postage), so we were hoping to figure this out ourselves. In looking at the manual, the Control Logic section says:
Heat diff: 4 degrees F on, 1.5 degrees F off (we have actually see it turn on to heat with only 2 degrees diff, so I am thinking this is kind of approx)
Cooling diff: -8 degrees on, -3 degrees off. I am wondering if the required 8 degree differential for it to come on is what is getting us? But, we have seen it with more than 8 degrees diff and do nothing. Last night it took a 10 degree differential for it to finally kick on, and the nights previous it was not even doing that.
We are kind of aggravated here. It is HOT, HOT, HOT so we need every fraction of a degree of cooling we can get during the night. The manual is very vague, and there is not even a trouble shooting option for "Cooling won't work"- only for solar won't work. The Cooling jumper setting says it will send water through the panels to cool when the pool temp is warmer than the desire temp setting AND the solar sensor is cooler than the pool water.
Any other thoughts?