How to determine if the SWG fuse needs replacing?

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cflannagan

cflannagan

Gold Supporter
Apr 2, 2011
149
Palm Harbor, Florida
Preface: My first major in college was in field of electronics, so I'm reasonable comfortable diagnosing electrical issues. However, I currently do not have an ohmmeter (that I believe would help me DX this issue).

My SWG has not produced chlorine for some weeks now and it turns out the power LED is not on. The display still is functional, it has correct salt level, everything else looks normal while I go through diagnostics, except the voltage is listed at 1.1 (way too low, I'm expecting around 22 or so), and of course 0.0 amperage.

Looking through web, one of possible causes is a blown SWG fuse.

Does anyone know of an easy way for me to determine whether or not the fuse needs replacing? With an ohmmeter I would connect to both ends of fuse and if the resistance is infinity, I'd know that the fuse has been blown, but I don't have an ohmmeter with me. Does anyone know of an alternative way for me to test the fuse out when I remove it from the SWG circuitboard?

Thanks in advance.
 
Use a flashlight to determine if fuse needs to be replaced? How does that even work? (just to clarify, I'm referring to testing the fuse part itself, to see whether or not it has blown)

But to update on this, sadly, it's not the fuse - I had fuse replaced with another (yellow 20 amp ATM type), and the voltage is still not there. There is some according to SWG display, but it's under 1 volt. Not even enough to feed any amps to the cell (as expected, the SWG display showed 0.0 for the amperage reading)

So now that the SWG fuse is not the cause, Any ideas what I can try diagnosing next, short of calling for an electrician to do a more complete DX job on why the voltage isn't showing up here?
 
Probably a bad thermistor. Black disc upper right on board. SL322R025.
Click to expand...

Thanks - I also stumbled about 8 different steps in the manual that I can check (input voltages at different points of the circuit board), but I'd need to buy a multimeter. Might as well go ahead and get one at my local Home Depot.

Will be sure to check the thermistor as well per your suggestion.

Edit: I see what you're talking about, the black round thing (thermistor), just came across this TFP thread Aquarite Not generating - lights not on

Symptoms they described is a bit different than mine (in that thread I saw mentions of "no flow" LED flashing, not the case for mine), but will still check it out
 
Think you might be right. Upon visual inspection, there are what looks like orange plastic sleeve covering up the metal legs of the thermistor (the black disc thing you mentioned). Hard for me to say but I wonder if the orangeness is actually discoloration from burning up - the orange color is not even across the sleeve (the orange is much darker closer to the black disc part), wish I can see what a new board looks like for reference comparing with mine.

I imagine the ohmmeter would show a much higher resistance value than 20 ohms, in order to confirm the thermistor is the issue? I need to head out and get myself a multimeter.
 
The thermistor is pretty much the only thing that fails on the board. Low voltage is the result. I suspect that if you look closely, you will see a hairline crack near the edge.

Do you have a picture?
 

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Mario P said:
Easy, take the fuse out.
Place it in line with battery (thus the need for some wire, metal utensil, etc.). If flashlight still works, fuse is good.
Click to expand...

D'oh, that seems obvious now. I didn't understand the flashlight part and by wire I was wondering if he was suggesting I take the fuse out and replace that with wire, and if things work again that would tell me it's the fuse (but a bit risky since there'll be no fuse in place to protect the PCB if there's still an existing issue that would cause fuse to go out in the first place).

But I didn't understand where the flashlight came in.

Thanks for the clarification.
 
Update on my situation: My new thermistor arrived yesterday. Soldered the old part out, new one in. Works like a charm now!

Photos show the damages the old one had (one can see burn damages).

Thanks once again TFP for saving me $$$ !
 

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