- Sep 28, 2018
- 238
- Pool Size
- 13000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
This appears to only happen in unusually cold weather for Tampa, but the solar sensor I installed with our new panels is giving out impossibly high readings at night and early morning - whenever the air temperature goes below 50-55 degrees. It's quite accurate during the day (as tested by a laser thermometer). This causes it to turn ON until the sun hits it enough to warm up to 40-50 degrees and then it seems to read correctly. Obviously, this is a problem for cloudy cold days as the solar would COOL the pool.
It was run with 16ga exterior wire vs the 20ga minimum suggested by pentair, because the run is around 80ft which is equivalent to a 32ft 20ga run since the resistance of 20ga is 2.5x greater. The connections were soldered and then heat shrink wrapped individually with two layers like 6 inches past the solder, then high temp hot glued together, then more heat shrink over top to give the appearance of one wire - I'm positive the connection is solid and weatherproof.
The sensor is next to the panels in the exact same direct sunlight (and it's accurate during the day).
The connection to the intellicenter board is a tight secure fit as well. Being a larger gauge, it actually filled each hole quite well so I'm sure the set screw is making direct contact.
It's also odd that it's so consistently off ONLY when air temps go below the low 50s. Looking at the 10k resistance chart, this seems to be around the time when we go above 15k ohms (quickly into the 20k and 30k ranges).
Here's the chart so you can see what I'm talking about - notice how it's accurate until after sundown and then it spikes to 250+ degrees before settling on 150+ degrees until this morning. My pump turned on at 9am, and the solar said there was heat on the roof so it also turned on solar - until about 9:15 or so when the temperature outside apparently hit the point at which the sensor goes back to being accurate, causing solar to turn off. Solar just now turned back on, as there is now (correctly) heat on the roof relative to the pool temp.
Yesterday
This morning
I'm looking for either a solution to make the solar sensor itself more accurate, or to basically tell intellicenter to ignore spikes from 55 degrees to 250 degrees because that's obviously inaccurate. In the meantime, I have the pump set to run from 9am to sundown which basically works around the issue as the temp is usually warmer than 55 during those times. Thoughts?
EDIT: The company is sending a new solar sensor, they're thinking it's faulty based on the graphs.
It was run with 16ga exterior wire vs the 20ga minimum suggested by pentair, because the run is around 80ft which is equivalent to a 32ft 20ga run since the resistance of 20ga is 2.5x greater. The connections were soldered and then heat shrink wrapped individually with two layers like 6 inches past the solder, then high temp hot glued together, then more heat shrink over top to give the appearance of one wire - I'm positive the connection is solid and weatherproof.
The sensor is next to the panels in the exact same direct sunlight (and it's accurate during the day).
The connection to the intellicenter board is a tight secure fit as well. Being a larger gauge, it actually filled each hole quite well so I'm sure the set screw is making direct contact.
It's also odd that it's so consistently off ONLY when air temps go below the low 50s. Looking at the 10k resistance chart, this seems to be around the time when we go above 15k ohms (quickly into the 20k and 30k ranges).
Here's the chart so you can see what I'm talking about - notice how it's accurate until after sundown and then it spikes to 250+ degrees before settling on 150+ degrees until this morning. My pump turned on at 9am, and the solar said there was heat on the roof so it also turned on solar - until about 9:15 or so when the temperature outside apparently hit the point at which the sensor goes back to being accurate, causing solar to turn off. Solar just now turned back on, as there is now (correctly) heat on the roof relative to the pool temp.
Yesterday
This morning
I'm looking for either a solution to make the solar sensor itself more accurate, or to basically tell intellicenter to ignore spikes from 55 degrees to 250 degrees because that's obviously inaccurate. In the meantime, I have the pump set to run from 9am to sundown which basically works around the issue as the temp is usually warmer than 55 during those times. Thoughts?
EDIT: The company is sending a new solar sensor, they're thinking it's faulty based on the graphs.
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