Solar panel floating swcg?

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SeanB

SeanB

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Mar 27, 2007
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One of my friends at work said he saw a swg at the pool store the other day that is basically a solar powered floater.

Has anyone seen or used one of these? It could be pretty cool for a smaller pool, especially if someone didn't want to plumb in a swg. I just wonder how effective they are.
 
From thier website:

Research has proven that SolarChlor can chlorinate 1 gallon in 1 sec to 1 ppm. Results were obtained without concentrated salt in the bottom cap assembly.
Click to expand...

Excuse me if my math is totally screwed up....

So bringing a 10000 gallon pool up 1ppm would take a little less than 3 hours. So if we estimate an average of 5.5-6 hours of sun a day, it would be equivalent to adding about 2ppm worth of bleach a day in a 10000 gallon pool.

Doesnt sound totally unreasonable, especially for a < 10000 gallon pool.

My only initial concern was that they say to shock once a week, which seemed odd unless you were expecting less than required chlorine production.
 
From their site, I apparently need an algaecide with my SWG. That's news to me. :)

I don't see any reason something like this wouldn't work, but I question its actual capacity. Somehow, I don't see it able to move enough electricity with that solar panel, since my generator runs around 150 watts to supply up to a 40,000 gallon pool. If this product claims it can do up to 15,000 gallons and mine can do 40,000, it seems reasonable to expect this solar system would require 15/40 of 150 watts or more than 50 watts. I don't know of any solar cells that size capable of producing 50 watts of electricity, especially since it needs to be around 50 watts of power going to the plates, not just the power supply.
 
If this floating device uses salt depleting process to produce hypochlorite, than it is way too small.
20k gallon pool would need aprox 300gr of 100% pure disinfector per day (in summer).
Say, semi bipolar cell assembly (very efficient cell design by the way) made by our company uses about 130Watts per hour to produce 30 gram of disenfector. If you have 5 hours of bright sun per day it will take about 260wats/hour to produce required 300 grams per day.
So, you would need about 300watt solar panel to chlorinate your pool in 5 hours. Here is the link how 175watt solar panel look like : http://www.solaronline.com.au/cgi/index ... 1107358703
keep in mind you would need about two of those and no clouds.

Hoverer if this device uses coper / silver dissolvable electrodes, than it may need less energy, but swimming pool still going to need some chlorine added however the total free chlorine residual can be kept lower due to presence of copper and silver ions.
 
Valera Orlingis said:
If this floating device uses salt depleting process to produce hypochlorite, than it is way too small.
20k gallon pool would need aprox 300gr of 100% pure disinfector per day (in summer).
Say, semi bipolar cell assembly (very efficient cell design by the way) made by our company uses about 130Watts per hour to produce 30 gram of disenfector. If you have 5 hours of bright sun per day it will take about 260wats/hour to produce required 300 grams per day.
So, you would need about 300watt solar panel to chlorinate your pool in 5 hours. Here is the link how 175watt solar panel look like : http://www.solaronline.com.au/cgi/index ... 1107358703
keep in mind you would need about two of those and no clouds.

Hoverer if this device uses coper / silver dissolvable electrodes, than it may need less energy, but swimming pool still going to need some chlorine added however the total free chlorine residual can be kept lower due to presence of copper and silver ions.
Click to expand...

are you advocating copper and silver ions?
 
tagprod, I know this technology work and also know to what extend, but I like to discuss rather advocate :-D Presence of the ions of cu and ag in the pool water have some positive effect on disinfection, but cannot be stand alone disinfection solution as chlorination. Same as ultrasonic water treatment, UV water treatment, Ozone and few others...
We specialize in salt water chlorination, but done R&D in others as well
 

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Copper/silver system do "work" but they have associated problems that make them undesierable. In order to have useful/effective amounts of copper/silver in the pool you need to be at levels that can cause staining. To prevent the staining you need to keep very tight control over the PH, which is impratical for most people.

There is no way the solar cell on the floating SWG is going to produce enough electricity to produce as much chlorine as I would recommend using, though it is remotely possible that it could produce enough chlorine to get to the levels that copper/silver systems recommend.
 
3000-6000 ppm salt? My SWG only requires 2000-3000 AND cost less than theirs so how is it half price than others? I have seen several inline SWG for less or the same price as theirs.
 
I would guess that when you compare the same quality chlorination system and CU/AG system, SWG will cost more due to higher cost of anode material used. CU/AG electrodes are cheaper and powesupply module for them can be less sophisticated due to simplicity of driving sacrificial anode.
But, SWG cell will last normally 5+ years and CU/AG about 6 months. So even if CU/AG is cheaper to purchase in first place at may cost you more on the long run depending on cost of replacement electrodes and a nesesaty to still add chlorine.
 
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