Hey Will! I think you're switching to your swg system, so I thought I would re-post what I did on Cliff's build thread when he asked what would happen when the salt system is up and running. Now you have your own copy handy. I just copied it as is. Be sure to ask questions and look on TFP for more information!
Mama Suz
SWG: What will happen when you switch over to the salt system? Birds will sing, flowers will pop up and wave to you, and sweet flute melodies will hum in your head!! Lol!!!
When you switch, most of the chem level ranges will change. So keep your charts handy. For me, I had a new learning curve with the start up of the swg, but it was pretty simple. No nerve-racking worries over hurting the plaster. The first 30 days kind of was my internship of water maintenance. It gave me a good foundation of water chemistry (of course, I'm still learning), and allowed me to focus on that instead of having to learn about the swg system at the same time as the basic chemistry. That worked well for me. Again, the ranges change. You get a break from adding so much bleach so often. But you will still add some bleach from time to time. Remind us and we will help you make those decisions when they come up.
What will you need to do and learn?
** decide on an FC level you want to shoot for. That also depends on your CYA you shoot for.
** How much chlorine is produced by the salt water generator is a combination of the % of the salt cell and the number of hours you run the pumps.
** Someone from TFP will help you determine the # of hours to run your pumps.
** The cell only works when the pump is running. So if you set your cell for 50%, it will only produce salt half the time the main pump is running. If that doesn't get your target FC, then you need to adjust either salt cell % or pump run time OR both.
** The more you run your pump, the more electricity costs you incur. The higher % you set your salt cell, the shorter the life of the cell. These are pretty minute unless your electricity is very expensive. In that case, your focus might be more on keeping the pump run time low and cell % higher to save electricity.
** Right now in July, I run my pump about 9 hours a day with my cell at 75%. The first year, I had to have higher pump hours on and higher cell %. I can't tell you why.
** There are many factors involved in your FC requirement -- the same you experienced before the swg system was on: weather, swimmer load and frequency, water temperature, organic debris in the pool, etc
** I had to learn to be flexible and be willing to make frequent adjustments in the very beginning.
** For me, most of my adjustments this past year occurred when seasons change causing continual rises or drops in water temperature. Here is Houston, the cell % and pump run times are very steady. I supplement for slight drops with some chlorine.
That's all I can think of now. I will or someone else will add more later if I left something out.
I promise you will love having the salt cell once you get into the swing of it.
I ran across this thread that has a calculator to find a starting point for setting your cell % and pump run times. After you find that, then you adjust or fine tune your cell and pump to get the FC you want to target. I think for me, it's more complicated than it's worth. I'm not that much into technology, so it would take me longer to use the calculator than to use the guess and check. But there were some very positive responses from people who found it very helpful.
Here's the link:
SWG Run Time Calculator
Mama Suz
SWG: What will happen when you switch over to the salt system? Birds will sing, flowers will pop up and wave to you, and sweet flute melodies will hum in your head!! Lol!!!
When you switch, most of the chem level ranges will change. So keep your charts handy. For me, I had a new learning curve with the start up of the swg, but it was pretty simple. No nerve-racking worries over hurting the plaster. The first 30 days kind of was my internship of water maintenance. It gave me a good foundation of water chemistry (of course, I'm still learning), and allowed me to focus on that instead of having to learn about the swg system at the same time as the basic chemistry. That worked well for me. Again, the ranges change. You get a break from adding so much bleach so often. But you will still add some bleach from time to time. Remind us and we will help you make those decisions when they come up.
What will you need to do and learn?
** decide on an FC level you want to shoot for. That also depends on your CYA you shoot for.
** How much chlorine is produced by the salt water generator is a combination of the % of the salt cell and the number of hours you run the pumps.
** Someone from TFP will help you determine the # of hours to run your pumps.
** The cell only works when the pump is running. So if you set your cell for 50%, it will only produce salt half the time the main pump is running. If that doesn't get your target FC, then you need to adjust either salt cell % or pump run time OR both.
** The more you run your pump, the more electricity costs you incur. The higher % you set your salt cell, the shorter the life of the cell. These are pretty minute unless your electricity is very expensive. In that case, your focus might be more on keeping the pump run time low and cell % higher to save electricity.
** Right now in July, I run my pump about 9 hours a day with my cell at 75%. The first year, I had to have higher pump hours on and higher cell %. I can't tell you why.
** There are many factors involved in your FC requirement -- the same you experienced before the swg system was on: weather, swimmer load and frequency, water temperature, organic debris in the pool, etc
** I had to learn to be flexible and be willing to make frequent adjustments in the very beginning.
** For me, most of my adjustments this past year occurred when seasons change causing continual rises or drops in water temperature. Here is Houston, the cell % and pump run times are very steady. I supplement for slight drops with some chlorine.
That's all I can think of now. I will or someone else will add more later if I left something out.
I promise you will love having the salt cell once you get into the swing of it.
I ran across this thread that has a calculator to find a starting point for setting your cell % and pump run times. After you find that, then you adjust or fine tune your cell and pump to get the FC you want to target. I think for me, it's more complicated than it's worth. I'm not that much into technology, so it would take me longer to use the calculator than to use the guess and check. But there were some very positive responses from people who found it very helpful.
Here's the link:
SWG Run Time Calculator
. 
