EasyTouch Solar question

dmpizzle · May 20, 2014

Am I supposed to leave the system in Solar Preferred mode always? If I do, will solar ALWAYS run, or will it only turn on when it recognizes the solar sensor is a high enough temperature that it will actually result in heating the pool?

I just got solar installed, and I'm still trying to understand it. Currently, it's a cloudy day and the solar immediately kicked on this morning even though it's cold outside. The air temp was reading 56 degrees, and the solar temp was reading 80 degrees, which I highly doubt considering it's cold and cloudy. Is it kicking on because that solar sensor needs to be calibrated?

JasonLion · May 20, 2014

Solar will only run if the solar sensor is at least several degrees above the water temperature.

80 degrees might be right. Something black in direct sunlight get quite warm. It might be wrong, but it is plausible that it is correct.

dmpizzle · May 20, 2014

Interesting. Again, it was cloudy and cold, so I'm skeptical, but maybe you're right. I am going to put a temperature sensor of my own up on the roof to try and calibrate it better.

Also, I have 8 Sunstar panels that have a recommendation of 5gpm per minute. I bought a FlowVis flow meter and set my Intellispeed pump to run at 2700rpm. At this speed, the FlowVis tells me I'm running at 40gpm. Is that right? I was hoping to run my pump at a much lower speed to save money, but that may not be in the cards.

JasonLion · May 20, 2014

Solar panels generally require a higher pump speed than when you aren't using them. You don't save as much on electricity, but you do get all that heat so it isn't a total loss

40 GPM, all going through the panels, is great.

dmpizzle · May 20, 2014

Ya, knowing that now, I wonder if I really do get much of a savings. It's not cheap to run that pump at 2700rpm from 9a-6p every day!

JasonLion · May 20, 2014

Running the pump is significant, but a heat pump would be astronomical (5 to 10 times as much).

dmpizzle · May 24, 2014

There's one correction to my initial e-mail. I'm using the "solar only" mode, not the "solar preferred" mode. One thing I'm still not clear on: should I always leave it in "solar only" mode, or should i leave it in "off" mode? If I leave it in "off" mode, will it automatically switch to "solar only" when it deems it's warm enough? Vice versa, if I leave it in "solar only" mode, will my pump always run at the high speed, or will it switch it to the lower speed if easy touch deems that it does not need to run solar right now?

JasonLion · May 24, 2014

You should leave it is either solar only or solar preferred mode. In off or heater mode the solar will never be used. Solar preferred is used when you also have a gas or electric heater and what to maintain temperature even if solar is not enough. Solar only will never use the second heater.

Assuming you have the EasyTouch programmed correctly, it will turn up the pump speed to high automatically when it is time to run the solar system. On the other hand, it is fairly easy to have the programmed wrong.