Aquarite - Diagnose & Troubleshoot your own Main Board

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The salinity readings are based on the performance of the cell. They seem to be reasonably accurate for the purpose.

How accurate do you think the salinity reading needs to be?
 
I think that the precision is more important than the accuracy as long as the unit works.

The Aquarite determines the salinity based on the applied voltage and how much current is generated from the production of chlorine gas.

The salinity calculation is adjusted for the water temperature.

Higher temperature and/or salinity will result in higher amperage and the salinity calculation will increase.

I'm not sure how you could calibrate the salinity calculation or if it's worthwhile to try.
 
shokwaverider said:
I do not want to, I just want to see how it works in the Schematic. Do we have a complete schematic for the board?

Honestly, that was more curiosity that anything else. I have a masters in Electronics and want to see if I can modify the board to have more reliable Salt readings at different temps. It seems as if the salt reading is proportional to Temp and has no real bearing on the actual reading. I have probably tried 10 cells and all read different salt readings at different temps, none of which reflect the actual salt content when measured on a proper instrument. I have also tried many main circuit boards all with the same results. Salt reading high when cold, lower when warm. I would like to design a circuit with an adjustment so the average salt reading is more accurate for given temperatures.
Click to expand...
Any idea why my salt reading changed from 3200 to 3.2 after changing the current limiter?
 
Meadow said:
Re: Aquarite - In Depth Sub-Sectional onboard Power Supply

Giving this a bump for those Electronic Enthusiasts willing to revive those dead AQR main board.

Use the Negative Black Terminal or the R15 (.015Ω) metal jumper on the board when measuring TP Voltage as shown in the below pic. Test points are accessible with the Display bd in place.
Measure the voltage in the following order from 1-5. You cannot have Voltage reading on TP-2, 3, 4, & 5 if TP-1 is out, no reading on TP-3 if TP-2 is out, and so on... refer to the below Schematic Diagram to analyze the Voltage distribution path.

View attachment 82828

AQR sub-sectional onboard Power Supply Schematic Diagram. The marking code on the U13 is unreadable hence, my wild guess! Please correct me if I'm wrong!

View attachment 82829
Click to expand...
Meadow, I am hoping you are still around here. Can you verify the part numbers for U13 and U14? U13 as an MCP1700 is easy enough to find, but the MIC2s14 number you have for U14 doesn't seem to come up. I am an EE, but having trouble understanding what Hayward was thinking in this design. I have three (!) bad circuit boards, and these components are all the casualties. In the meantime, I have resurrected one of the boards by simply removing U13 and U14, and bypassing them with a single 1N914 diode from the output of the +5V regulator to the output of U14. This nets about +4.35v into the processor, but everything seems to be working fine. I do not see the purpose of the cascaded LDOs, except for some kind of noise reduction (or shift frequency higher), isolate the processor power, or more likely - this revision is a hardware patch on previous work. Comparing the boards I have on hand, there seems to be some of that.
 
OK, those part numbers make a whole lot more sense as to what Hayward/Goldine was thinking in the design. These two part numbers make up a 'supervisory' circuit that will reset the main processor if the voltage 'sags' due to a brown out or some other electrical event. This will prevent the processor from hanging in an unknown state, and cause problems.
 
Hello Meadow,

Thank you for your very good and clear information. I have an old version R1.45 without the K4 and my power led was off just after I replaced my cell for a new one. Voltage around 2.5 and no current.

At the first view, the thermistor was looking good, no mark, no cracks. Then I took the voltage at the pins you mention which was about what shown on the screen.

Reminder with the diagnostic button:
- Default salt display
- Pool temp
- Cell Voltage
- Cell current
- Desired output (% of the knob)
- Instant salinity
- Product name
- Software revision (r.XX)

Then I decided to touch it and some sparks appeared between the thermistor pins and the pad. When I was touching the voltage was rising. Eureka !

The solder was really bad, almost no tin from the manufacturer. So I just re-solder it correctly and now I am generating chlorine again !

Thank you again, you saved me a lot of headaches, hopefully it will last.
 
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