Tune up easy touch wiring

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finethreads

finethreads

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Bronze Supporter
Feb 14, 2014
83
Santa Rosa Beach, FL
I have had my pool up and running for a year now. Unfortunately pool builder pretty much disappeared from view after I made my last payment. I have been doing my best to resolve a lot of post build issues by myself. My latest quest is to tighten up my easy touch panel wiring. The electrician originally wired my VS Intelliflo to the pump relay switch. I changed that to a direct connection to the breaker. That resolved a lot of random performance issues. Then I changed the IC40 from a direct connection to the breaker to the pump relay switch. Now it turns on and off with the pump.

My concern now is that I have the VS Intelliflo pump, IC40, and Panel all wired to the same breaker and the cleaner booster pump on aux 2 getting power from jumper wires coming from the pump switch. This is what I propose.

1) Addl 20 Amp duplex breaker to be connected to the system board alone
2) Addl 20 Amp breaker for both the IC40 and Booster Pump

That allows the VS Pump to have it's own breaker. I have attached a couple of pictures. Is this a good plan? Other things to consider?

PS How do you turn the attached photos?

image.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpg
 
My EasyTouch has separate Circuit Breakers for the Controls and IC40 just as you want to do, except they are 15 amp CB's.

A couple of other things that I see are:

1. Looks like your lights are running off of a regular CB, I would have thought it would be a GFI CB.

2. I suggest that you add a surge suppressor in the bottom slots, which will help prevent any lightning damage.

3. Does the Gray Subpanel feed your EasyTouch? I'm puzzled why that would be there since the EasyTouch is a subpanel.

Jim R.
 
The power for the ET panel can be either 110v or 220v depending on how you choose to wire it. I would have it on its own dedicated breaker regardless.

It is common to have the pump, SWG, and heater powered off a 220v 20A GFCI breaker. By powering these items through separate breakers, you increase the chances of these devices receiving power when the pump is not running. There are safeguards in place to prevent damage, why allow the possibility to begin with? Each of those accessories have a relatively small power draw anyway (including the pump since it is rarely run at its maximum speeds).

If the breaker that serves your pool lights isn't wired directly to a GFCI outlet in the panel, you will need to correct this as it sounds as if your lights have no GFCI protection.
 
finethreads said:
Would it be best to put the surge suppressor in one of the open slots in the small panel feeding the easy touch?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure it would make any difference, but personally, I like to put the protection as close to what I'm trying to protect as possible.

As far as the GFCI in the main subpanel. That may eliminate the requirement for individual GFI's in the EasyTouch, but I'm not up on the Electrical code and have no idea if that works or not.

Jim R.
 
finethreads said:
Thanks! The current setup did pass final electrical inspection; however, I would like to insure that I am using the best practices.
Click to expand...

Do you have a convenience outlet on the side of the ET panel for plugging in 120VAC appliances (line a margarita machine)? I have a 120V GFCI convenience receptacle mounted on the side of the ET panel in a waterproof enclosure. The pool lights are wired to get power from that receptacle so it provides the GFCI capability without having to use a more expensive GFCI breaker.

Just a variation in case you want to have some extra outlets at the pool panel.
 

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I don't know if this was mentioned or discussed but you don't want a GFCI on the pump circuit. Large inductive loads like pumps, especially the complicated frequency modulation electronics on a VSP, can easily trip GFCI breakers. I believe there are specially designed GFCI breakers for pumps for that very reason.

And I would also urge you to put a surge protector device (SPD) on the panel. SquareD makes a 2-pole SPD with an 80kA surge protection for less than $100. It will use up two breaker slots in the ET panel but it is well worth it if your area experiences any kind of lightening storms. VSPs are easily damaged beyond repair by surges.
 
finethreads said:
Just ordered the square d surge protector off amazon.
Click to expand...

Little advice. It doesn't fit flush to the bottom of the ET where the 1/2" knockouts are (the door interferes with it). You can either put it towards the back where the 3/4" KOs are OR you can use a little stretch of PVC conduit to drop it down an inch or so. I chose the latter.
 
Great tip on the spd. Thanks. So after reading posts here are my thoughts on the breakers.

Replace 50 amp gfi 2 pole breaker in sub panel with a regular 50 amp 2 pole.

In the easy touch panel:

Put VS pump on it's own 20 amp 2 pole Siemens gfi breaker
Intellichlor, booster pump and panel on their own 20 amp dual pole Siemens gfi breaker
Lights on their own 15 amp single pole Siemens gfi breaker
Heater and spa pump on 20 amp 2 pole Siemens gfi breaker.

How does this wiring configuration look?
 
Well I went ahead and made all the aforementioned changes. Everything is working great.

Since the pool was built I occasionally experienced nuisance gfci breaker trips. I am thinking that the Siemens breakers will be a better match for the vs pump. If I do get another trip, I will at least be able to isolate the source much easier since I no longer have one gfi feeding standard breakers in the easy touch panel.
 
I found a couple of problems with my pool company electrician's work. There were a couple of panel connection problems where he didn't pay attention to the component installation instructions, but the most disconcerting was how he wired the sub panel 50amp gfi breaker.

The feeder lines were 6 strand aluminum 4 gauge wire. He couldn't fit the wire in the breaker so he clipped 2 strands off each wire in order to fit the 2 hots and neutral into the breaker connector. Everything else looks fine. I am so thankful I had a good electrician wire my house!
 
It's kind of a moot point at this juncture but I would not have used any GFCI breakers on the pumps. It's not necessary unless local codes demand it. A GFCI on the pool lights is appropriate, but for a pump it's not worth it. You've got the good Siemens breakers so that should alleviate some of the noise issues that plague GFCIs on pumps. But really, for your VSP, the only thing that is needed is the SPD.

As for wiring, my panel was done completely in solid copper conductor, nothing stranded. Sounds like the electrician doing the panel install really didn't know what he was doing. Sorry to hear that.
 
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