Help deciphering equipment setup

[CombatYoga]

My father just purchased a new house, and it has a pool (built in 2003).

I have turned him on to the BBB method and he already has his TF Test Kit.

I was looking at his equipment pad and could use some help understanding the valve/cleaner setup.
He has the Hayward Aqualogic automation system.
The oddest thing about the setup (to me anyways) is that the pool only has a single pump (there is a pool and spa with spillover). It also has a Polaris 280 cleaner, but no booster pump.

Here is a picture of the equipment pad:

The suction and return valves are clear. The pipe on the far right is for the blower (not pictured).

The questions:
1) I'm fairly certain the 3rd auto valve right above the pump is for the Polaris 280. My guess is that it closes off the water to the cartridge filter and routes it back through a small canister filter (you can see the pressure gauge on top of it) and to the Polaris 280. When I tried to turn on the cleaner, I got a message on the Hayward remote that said something like "cannot execute command due to interlock". Does that mean that there is some setting that prevents the cleaner from coming on when the pool is in normal filter mode? Why wouldn't the automation system just stop the pump, rotate the cleaner valve and kick on again? I read the manual for the Hayward system, and I do not understand what "interlock" means when they use that term.

2) If you notice the position of the return valve on the left, that is the position for pool mode. There is no spillover mode - there is only pool and spa (the way it has been set up). When in pool mode, someone has set stops in the valve so that it does not go all the way to 100% returns - it stops where you see it in this picture so you get some spillover and some going to the returns. It is a sheer descent as opposed to a cascade, so the aeration doesn't look like it would drive pH up drastically to me.
Is there a reason the previous owner didn't choose the setup mode that allows you to have pool, spa and spillover mode?
I don't see why only having a single pump would prevent us from changing to this setup. I would change the stops so that the valve rotated the whole way.

Thank you for any help/advice!

 

[PoolGuyNJ]

The valve actuator on the pump discharge is for the sweep. It does NOT normally close off the main filter, but rather diverts some of the water. The 280 is the wrong sweep. A Polaris 360, a Legend II, or the new model of the 4 wheeled The Pool Cleaner that works on the pressure side, would be the correct sweeps. This actuator should only turn 90 degrees.

If the system is in spa mode, the interlock prevents return water from being sent to the sweep. This keeps the spa from being drained.

The Pool/Spa return actuator is set to send freshly chlorinated water to the spa in pool mode and causes the spa to skim into the pool, Spill over mode would/should simply shut the pool returns off, creating the aeration effect. This would be set up in the controller's programming. The current stop on there is set correctly.

The blue appliances are magnets. Totally useless.

Scott

 

[guamguy]

The blue appliances are magnets.

Why would you put magnets on pool water piping?

Edit:I just read the other post on this subject, snake oil indeed!

 

[stev32k]

The term "interlock" means that some action or condition must occur or be satisfied before a second action can take place. For example it might mean that a certain valve must be in the open position before a pump will start. Sometimes there might be more than one condition that must be satisfied before an action can take place. Another example might be that a valve must be open and a tank has adequate level before a pump will start. The interlock can be either hardwired or programmed in software.

 

[CombatYoga]

Thanks for all of the replies.

PoolGuyNJ - some questions and clarification.

Why is the 280 the wrong sweep? Isn't it a pressure side cleaner? I have a 280 Black Max and the only difference is that it has a dedicated pump.

The Hayward has a setup available that includes spillover mode (100% suck from pool, 100% return to spa), however the way this is currently set up there are only two modes: spa and pool. When in pool mode, the stop setting on the actuator means 100% suck from pool, approx. 60%/40% return to pool/spa).

Do you see any advantage to leaving it this way as opposed to re-configuring the automation to include a spillover mode? And if I did that, it would seem like I'd need to
set the actuator stop back to default so that the valve could turn all the way.

Hope I'm being clear - really just curious as to why it was set up this way as opposed to the 3 way mode of pool-spa-spillover.

Thanks a lot!

 

[PoolGuyNJ]

The 280 and 380 and 3900 all require a booster pump. You don't have one. You are robbing from the pump discharge to drive the sweep. A Polaris 360, a Legend II, or the new model of the 4 wheeled The Pool Cleaner are designed for your current set up. It's a shame the Ray Vac was discontinued because it was the best of the bunch in a non-booster equipped setup like yours.