Do i need somekind of relief valve

[smcdonald001]

So Im going to try to explain this as concise as possible, but on our new pool we have 3 valves on the return side of the water feature pump. I valve for the slide, 1 for the deck jets, and 1 for the sunshelf bubblers. All 3 valves are 2way valves (there are no return jets on this pump). Attached is a image from the intellicenter app showing the 3 features. When you turn on 1 of the features. The corresponding valve opens and the pump revs up to the rpm that I set for that valve (slide is 1250, deckjets 1500, bubblers 1600. If 2 features are turned on, both valves open and the pump goes to the higher speed. The problem is when all 3 features are turned on 1600rpm is not adequate so I have another feature circuit (water boost) to rev the pump to 2200. Everything works great, I'm just worried that if someone accidentally turns on only water boost, the pump will rev to 2200 but no valves would be open.

Is there a way to make the feature only able to be turned on if the other features are turned on first. Or do I need a relief valve plumbed after the pump. Or would the pump know that its revved up but doesn't have any GPM and shutdown before a pipe bursts? We have the intelliflo vsf pumps.

 

[Dirk]

I can't speak to creating some sort of programming failsafe. @Jimrahbe might know how to do that.

I can think of one work-around if there are no others. And you might do this even if there is a way to provide some safety programmatically. The actuators can be set so that open is 100% flow, but closed is something other that 0% flow. Like 10% or 20% or whatever. You could set one of the actuators to always allow some amount of flow. Maybe the bubblers. That way, there is somewhere for the water to flow, even if everything is supposed to be off. I'm not sure what the minimum flow should be to accommodate the highest RPM setting you're using, but you could experiment. Any amount is better than zero.

You have to disassemble the actuators and manually adjust their cams, inside. There are YouTube videos that show you how to do that, based on the model of actuator you have. Here's one for a Pentair actuator (though there maybe be better ones than this one, I just did a quickie search):

 

[smcdonald001]

Dirk, not a bad idea. I wonder if they were closed (but at say 10%) if just the deck jets were on, pump at 1500, would you notice them bubbling up. My guess is no, but I would have to play around with it. I wish I would have had the builder put a few extra return jets in the sides of the pool, and 1 of the valves could have been a 3 way valve. Then that port would be the home position. Ooh well, hindsight is 20/20

 

[Dirk]

I like three-way valves on both the supply- and pressure-side of a pump, because there's no way to dead-head the pump. Something is always open. I was writing a post to that effect earlier, for your feature valving setup, which would be a good solution if you were working those valves manually, because you'd have full control over all three features, without any way to deadhead the pump. But I couldn't imagine how you could automate that.

Then I stared at your screenshot for a while, and wondered if instead of a "Water Boost" feature you added four Circuit Groups:
- slide, deckjets
- slide, bubblers
- deckjets, bubblers
- slide, deckjets, bubblers

Each with their own pump speed. So that would cover every possible combination of features, and allow the optimal pump speed for each combination. But I have no idea if that works that way or if a customizable pump speed is available to a Circuit Group. Hopefully Jim or someone else with an IntelliCenter will know.

Regarding the first idea, it'd be easy enough to open up one of the actuators and play around with the cams to see if you can get that idea to solve the issue.

 

[smcdonald001]

So i did try to program something like this, but I could never get the intellicenter to work like I wanted. I tried a "all features circuit group" set to turn on the 3 individual circuits and enable the pump to 2200 rpm. Problem is that after enabling "all features", if you turned off 1 feature, the pump would stay at 2200 and all features would stay on even though that vavle would close. So then to correct, you would have to turn "all features" off. Which would kill the pump and move the valves, and then turn on the other 2 features back on one at a time. Not a huge deal, but it would take a few seconds for the pump and valves to move again. Just wasnt as smooth as I though it would be.

Another problem with circuit groups is they do not appear on the homescreen you have to click features and then scroll down to the feature groups.

 

[Dirk]

Hmm, yah, Pentair programming always leaves a little to be desired. Did you ever try more than one Circuit Group? If you had the four I suggested, maybe turning the first one off and a second one on would be a little quicker than what you just described?

 

[Dirk]

I wish I would have had the builder put a few extra return jets in the sides of the pool, and 1 of the valves could have been a 3 way valve. Then that port would be the home position. Ooh well, hindsight is 20/20

That's sort of what I was suggesting with the bubblers. If they're set at some percentage that relieves the pump but doesn't break the surface, then it shouldn't matter too much that they're always on (at either 100% or xx%)...

 

[Jimrahbe]

001,

My initial thought was to use some kind of Circuit Group, but from reading your posts I can see that is not as smooth as you would like.

I have an old EasyTouch, which does not have Circuit groups, so I really have no way to play with it and come up with a solution..

I suggest that you ask MyAZPool and see what he can come up with..

It is never a good idea to plumb a pump that can obviously be deadheaded. As you have pointed out, there should have been a 3-way valve in the system that would have routed all the water back to the pool if none of the 2-way valves were open..

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Dirk]

@MyAZPool, what do you think?

PS. Are you the go-to guy for IntelliCenter? We really need one...