Coincidence, or did my new or old IC40 somehow fry the circuit board connector?

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ffournier

ffournier

0
Apr 26, 2015
43
Houston Texas
Quick background. About a month ago my Easy Touch salt reading went to 0 PPM. When I checked the cell the red salt light was on and the cell would not cycle. Cleaning it did nothing. In short it was dead. I installed a new IC40 about two weeks ago. The salt readings came back and everything was working as it should. Well last night I noticed the salt readings were once again showing 0 PPM, however the cell is working properly, green salt light, and the cell cycles as it should. However I cannot control the cell with the Easy Touch. I can't change the percentage settings or put the cell in super chlorinate mode. Completely de-powering(tipped the C/B's) to reset it didn't work. So I opened the Easy Touch panel and found what looks like a burned pin on the 4 wire connector to the IC40. I'm guessing it's the ground wire because black? Never heard of burning a ground wire before. Anyway, this is what I found. I'm guessing it happened AFTER installing the new IC40?? Because as I said the readings came back, for a while, after installing the new IC40. Yes, the Easy Touch was powered down when I connected it. Guess I'll have to change both the connector and the board. Any thoughts as to why this happened would be greatly appreciated.

 
Thanks Jason. That's just as good an explanation as any. It's been lousy with thunderstorms around here, Houston, for the whole month. We MAY have had 3 of 4 days without them, if that. Thinking I'll just pour the bags of salt right down the drain and just skip the putting them in the pool step...lol
 
Per the EasyTouch manual, the black wire is GND and the red wire is +15VDC. The other two wires are for an RS485/422 connection which is on the order of 5VDC or less. Typically, neither side of an RS-485 connection is grounded. I doubt that the cable is bad since the cell is still powering up. But it does sound like the communication circuit is toast.

A lightning strike is as good a guess as any, but it would surprise me since there is no exposed metal on the IC40 cell, and the Easytouch cabinet should be well grounded.

It's curious that the order of the wires in the connector is different from the terminal board. Probably doesn't make a difference, but it wouldn't hurt to doublecheck. Is your controller still talking to the Intelliflo correctly? If it is, then the board might still be OK since RS-485 is usually a "multi-drop" system (kind of like ethernet). That means that the comm lines between the Intelliflo and the IC40 talk to a common port on the controller board.

The best case might be that the IC40 comm port is dead, which should be covered under warranty.
 
Thanks for your input Peter. Yes, the Intelliflo communications are fine. It's only the comm with th IC40 that's gone TU. However it's still being powered, so that part of the connection is uneffected. I'm horrible at wiring diagrams, but isn't the board in the diagram the larger motherboard? The IC40 connects to a smaller secondary board. If you look at my picture, that's the board in the background that it connects to. You can see were the connector plugs in on the left side of the small board. The top edge of the motherboard can be seen at the bottom of the picture.
 
ffournier said:
Thanks for your input Peter. Yes, the Intelliflo communications are fine. It's only the comm with th IC40 that's gone TU. However it's still being powered, so that part of the connection is uneffected. I'm horrible at wiring diagrams, but isn't the board in the diagram the larger motherboard? The IC40 connects to a smaller secondary board. If you look at my picture, that's the board in the background that it connects to. You can see were the connector plugs in on the left side of the small board. The top edge of the motherboard can be seen at the bottom of the picture.
Click to expand...

Sorry, haven't checked in here for a few days.

Yes, you're correct that there does seem to be a secondary board. I presume the 4-pin connector in your photo connects to that secondary board and to a black circular plastic connector at the bottom of the cabinet. I can't really tell from the manual what that board is doing other than providing a connection point for the main motherboard. I'm guessing that it is the power supply for the IC40, as I can see some voltage regulators along the back.

Sad to say, but it does look like that comm circuit is hosed, either on the board or in the IC40. The problem is that I don't see how to narrow it down unless you have another IC40 you could plug in temporarily for testing.

Another thing you could try would be to inspect the circular plastic connector. Those connectors are usually pretty good, but it is possible that one of the pins might have gotten damaged. You can also do a continuity check of that black cable, but that's kind of reaching for straws.

BTW, I should note that you should take my advice with a grain of salt. I'm NOT a pool expert. I just happen to work with electrical controls in my day job.
 
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