Directly controlling variable speed pump via RS485 port

[caliber6]

Hello All, greetings from Melbourne, Australia.

I am embarking on a summer project to create my own pool controller with a Raspberry Pi. My main motivation to do this is to integrate all things pool related (temperature, chemical levels, controls) into my Home Assistant system.

First off, I want to be able to control my pump. I have a Reltech V5 Pro variable speed pump that I am a trying to communicate directly with using the RS485 port. Unfortunately, there isn’t any documentation on what the wires for this are, and when I contacted the manufacturer, they didn’t want to share with me a wiring diagram other than to say I need to buy their wifi enabled controller.

My current pool controller (a Waterway V9SPS) performs the following functions:

• Turns the pump on HIGH speed at 8am.
• Reduces pump speed to ECO at 9am.
• Adjusts Jandy valve actuator for solar heating if the roof temperature is high enough, and pool temperature is below 30 degrees (celsius).
• Turns everything off at 8pm (closes solar valve and turns off pump).

It seems the pump is acting in some kind of passive mode. The pool controller has a setting to update the pump every 30 seconds. For example, If the controller says the pump should be on ECO speed and I manually turn the pump off directly, within 30 seconds, the pump turns back on at ECO speed.

There are five wires coming from the pump into the controller. Black, red, white, green and brown. I’d like some guidance on how I can program control of the pump directly. I’ve come across a lot of different posts that talk about integration with other systems but can’t understand how communication to variable speed pumps works.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Katodude]

Generally RS-485 only uses 2 wires for data. The black and red are most likely for power which you should not need. If I had to guess the green and brown wires would be data.

The easiest way to use a Raspberry Pi to control your pool is with the NodeJSpoolController

 

[mas985]

Do you have the communication protocol for the Reltech V5 Pro? RS485 is the physical layer which is fairly well documented. However, for the communication layer (i.e. actual commands sent to/from the pump), different manufactures use different commands and formats for their VS pumps so you would also need to figure that out. You will either need to find someone who has already done it or capture the commands with an actual controller that is sending them. This how it was done for the Hayward AquaLogic controller that I have.

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