Stumped - Jandy Aquapure 1400, no chlorine, help!

[greg7673]

I was reading other problems and mine are a bit different. My second year at house with pool, I think everything was installed in 2010. No issues last summer. The only thing that is different is that I replaced the mulch with rock (the reason I mention is because the ground wires were in the mulch).

No chlorine is being produced this season. No errors, all lights appear as though it's operating normally. I took the cell out to clean and it looked fine. Acid treatment resulted in no bubbles. Rinsed and put it back. Every time I test the jets I see no difference in Cl vs the pool. Except, I got a reading of 7ppm at jet, 2.5ppm in pool on Friday. That was a one time thing and it's back to doing nothing but it shows me the cell can work. I found the troubleshooting manual on this site (thank you) and I measured all of the voltages. Looked fine, a little high at times but nothing looks too weird. Cell voltage is out of range high. Here are my test results with specs in ().

Back board Front Board At cell
1-8 79.6V (75) A-C 20.6V (21) center-left 30.0V (22-28)
2-7 69.5V (65) K-H 0.119V (0.120) center-right 30.0V (22-28)
3-6 20.7V (21)
4-5 0.126V (0.120)
Cell 30.5V (22-28)

Salt 3.2g/L by sensor, 3.4g/L by Taylor test. Temp 80F.

Any ideas why this isn't working? I know it's near the end of it's life but it's clean and I have no errors and good test results. Is the high cell voltage any indication? It seems the 4-5 and K-H voltages indicate that the cell is OK (6amps). I really don't want to buy a $500 replacement cell if there's some simple explanation (plus it clearly produced Cl last Friday for a brief time). I don't see anyone replacing their cell without the service light coming on.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Greg

 

[ping]

Welcome to TFP!

Without error codes I have a feeling the cell is producing chlorine but it is being consumed by a low level of algae that is in the pool. With the output set to 100% unscrew the union on the return side of the cell and take a water sample from that leak and test it for chlorine.

Please post test results of all the parameters so we can see if there might be something else to cause this.

 

[greg7673]

Thanks for the quick reply! I'll try your suggestion tomorrow. Actually, I was slightly troubled by a bit of green around the water line where a few tiles had fallen off this winter. The Cl did go under 1ppm a few times while I've been troubleshooting this. I brought it back to ~5ppm each time with 12.5% bleach.

Temp - 80F
CYA - 75ppm
TA - 90ppm
CH - 275ppm
Current Cl - 3.5ppm
pH - 7.2
NaCl - 3400ppm

 

[pooldv]

Sounds like it is time to give your pool a little Pool School - SLAM - Shock Level And Maintain to get it back under control. Brush daily to speed the process up.

 

[greg7673]

Thanks for both of your replies.

Today I tested the pool Cl (2.2ppm) and, as ping suggested, at the union after the SWCG (2.2ppm) while the cell was on (it wasn't reversing either). It really isn't working.

I really don't want to shut down my pool for a week or two by shocking it since it is crystal clear and my CC is 0.2ppm or less (one drop removed color at 0.2ppm per drop). Also, my Cl is only going down about 1ppm per day while I'm using bleach to maintain during this breakdown. No signs of an algae bloom.

I guess I'm going to bring my water to the local pool supply to double check my testing and chat with them about the cell. I'm sure they will try to sell me a new one.

Any other thoughts? I'm I correct in assuming there is no algae issue here?

 

[ConradM]

You need a new cell. Also in warmer months you need to run your pool a lot of hours. 18 t0 24. System needs time to make CL.

 

[ping]

Make sure you bump up the FC with bleach while you are dealing with the cell, follow this guide Chlorine CYA Chart.

Have you removed the cell and inspected it for scale? Scale can cause the cell not to produce chlorine like it should.

Pool store testing is not to be trusted for the most part, what test kit are you using?

It does look like the cell is worn out, but I would think you would be getting error codes if wasn't working. You might have to look at the display for 5 minutes or so to see an error code pop up.

 

[ping]

You need a new cell. Also in warmer months you need to run your pool a lot of hours. 18 t0 24. System needs time to make CL.

I agree that the cell is going out, but needing to run 18-24 hours is just plain wrong. With an output of 100% the unit will make 6.8ppm of chlorine in 24 hours for his pool and that should be around double to triple the amount of chlorine the average pool should be using in MA during the summer.

 

[greg7673]

I think I'm giving up on the cell. Probably switch to an Intellichlor IC40 as it seems the newer Jandy sensors are garbage. Two sensors will cost as much as a complete changover to Pentair. I did unplug the cell while it was running and it still didn't give me an error code. But, the board cell voltage and current went to zero, as expected. Still reading 6amp cell current with the cell plugged in. It's using power but doing nothing.

I agree 18-24hrs is not close. Perhaps if you SWCG is undersized. I ran 12hrs at about 20-35% last year to maintain 2-3ppm Cl.

Thanks for all of your input.

 

[ping]

I don't think you have the newest Jandy sensor as it has recently been redesigned. They have removed the small adapter board from the latest sensor and I have heard on this board that the new design seems to be working as of now. I think the new sensor has a rectangular control box built into the cable, see this link for a picture of it from Jandy, Zodiac Pool Systems.

Something for you to think about is that the IC40 only has rough output settings of 20% increments if you don't have automation.