Have a wierd salt cell story...Read on!

[dhldmoore]

Somewhat of a backstory-

Had to have the pool guy that installed my new liner last January come back out to smooth some wrinkles left from a 3-4 foot water bubble that appeared under the liner. Pool man shut off the power to the pump and the SWG at the breaker. About 75% of the water had to be pumped out to do this task and all was good and I started the task of refilling the pool with water. Once that was complete and I added 13 bags of salt and all the other required chemicals (thanks PoolMath app!) to get the water ready for circulation and waging war on the imminent algae, I reset the circuit breaker and started the pump and the SWG. I have a Cirucpool SJ-55 SWG system and with that comes the benefit of having a clear sight glass to see the condition of the cell. Pump started successfully and bit.I did not pay any attention to the SWG but only verified that the control board was up and running. I noticed after about a half a day or day later that there were no bubbles being produced in the sight glass of the cell and I tried multiple different times turning of the SWG and restarting it. No error lights ont he control panel at all, everything appeared normal. Long story short, I pulled the cell (pictures are attached) and I saw the base of the salt cell appeared to be melted somewhat. Having been down this road before with a CompuPool system that did completely melt on me, my first thought was that the cell was shot. I ordered a replacement cell from discoutsaltpools.com and it was scheduled to be delivered today - 7/24/20.

As I got home from work excited to replace the cell, I remembered that I left the SWG switched on not thinking that it would do any good and low and behold there are bubbles being produced in the sight glass. I couldn't believe my eyes!. Just as a sanity check, I took a sample of water directly from a return jet (nice method I found on this forum on how to do that without getting much, if any, water from the rest of the pool in my sample) and tested it and the chlorine level was at 24 (CYA was roughly 43 at the time). Admittedly, I had shocked the pool 2 days earlier to get it up to about that level and when I tested it last night - 7/23/2020 - the chlorine level was 17. I had deduced that my consumption from 2 days ago went from 24 or 22 down to 17 dues to the sun from yesterday and the heat but now that the SWG appears to have been working, it apparently drove it back up to about 24 which were it is right now. I will admit that I was running the SWG at 100% but as I said earlier, I didn't think it was working so it made no difference to me what I set it at as I thought I was about to replace the cell.

So now I'm waiting to get this new cell delivered just so I can get an RMA and send it back.

Any ideas on what would cause this cell to start working out of the blue?

Edit - Fixed my signature as I noticed it still had my old SWG listed.

 

[Newdude]

Whenever I start to question something like this I worry I will jinx it and tell myself to shut up and smile.

 

[revitup]

I wouldn't send that new cell back right away.

 

[dhldmoore]

I wouldn't send that new cell back right away.

Think I should hang on to it for a few days, huh?

 

[dhldmoore]

I have an update from the original posting. I finally got a chance to install the new salt cell as I noticed today that there are no bubbles being produced in the sight glass. This is what was happening previously. I stopped the pump and powered off the SWG and switched the old cell out and put the new one in. I then turned on everything and I still see no bubbles being produced. I want to wait until the polarity on the control box changes from 2" to "1" just to see if anything changes. If not, I am taking the new cell out and putting the old cell back in.

Other than seeing the gas bubbles produced, I only know of one other way to see if the cell is producing and that is to use the method I described in my original post and that is to take a sample directly from a return and test the chlorine level. However, I will also need to sample water from another area of the pool to see if the level is different. Otherwise, how would I know if the sample taken from the return jet is freshly chlorinated water?

Anyone else have ideas?

 

[Newdude]

You’re on the right track. A sample from the other corner from the return would have mixed well by the time it got there. If it’s still high than the whole pool is that level. If not, you are making FCs

 

[kimkats]

If you have a timer on the SWG...........are you sure it is "time" for the SWG to be powered/workig?

 

[dhldmoore]

If you have a timer on the SWG...........are you sure it is "time" for the SWG to be powered/workig?

Yes, I have mechanical timer that provides power to the SWG. All lights are on on the SWG and the only fault light shown on the panel is not lit up so I have to assume there are no issues with the panel.

 

[dhldmoore]

You’re on the right track. A sample from the other corner from the return would have mixed well by the time it got there. If it’s still high than the whole pool is that level. If not, you are making FCs

Update based on Newdudes advice - I obtained a sample from the deep end return jet via the "thumb over the bottle trick" whereby I placed the bottle directly in front of the jet with my thumb covering the bottle and took a sample and closed it up so no or very little existing pool water got mixed in with the bottle sample. I then got another sample from a different area away from all return jets and used my TFT Kits chemicals to come up with the following:

Sample taken directly from return jet: 14 ppm
Sample taken from other pool area away from jets: 17 ppm

I suppose this means that SWG is not producing chlorine after all as there are no bubbles present still in the sight glass.

I have since taken the replacement cell out and put the original cell back in a fired everything back up. When it's not quite as hot as Satan's armpit outside, I will go back out there and shut off power to everything via the circuit breaker and remove the 110 volt wiring from the mechanical timer and take the box down and try to remove any panels to see if there are any obvious burn marks on a PCB board or just generally see if anything is out of order. BTW, I pressed the reset button on the bottom about a dozen times...

Also, according to this page (SWG Generation Cycle Times - Further Reading) the SWG cycle time for the Circupool SJ series is 120 minutes meaning every 2 hours the salt cell is on then off. Not sure if it fluctuates based on percentages of 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% like the others state on that page but nonetheless, I am running at 100% so therefore, the SWG should be running and there should be bubbles present in the sight glass.

 

[Newdude]

I suppose this means that SWG is not producing chlorine after all as there are no bubbles present still in the sight glass.

It appears it wasn’t at the time of the test. Would it have come on 5 mins later by itself is anybodies guess.

 

[dhldmoore]

It appears it wasn’t at the time of the test. Would it have come on 5 mins later by itself is anybodies guess.

I can say that the control panel is/was lit up during this entire exercise. I will keep going out there to check on the sight glass to see if anything is happening.

 

[mguzzy]

I reread your first post.. did you fire up the pumps and SWG at the same time after adding the salt? Or did you fire up the pumps and let the Salt dissolve and mix before you let turned on the SWG? If you didn't let the Salt mix then the high salinity water may have hit your cell all at once and caused it to run too hot.

I think we need @ajw22 and/or @JamesW to chime here...

 

[dhldmoore]

I reread your first post.. did you fire up the pumps and SWG at the same time after adding the salt? Or did you fire up the pumps and let the Salt dissolve and mix before you let turned on the SWG? If you didn't let the Salt mix then the high salinity water may have hit your cell all at once and caused it to run too hot.

I think we need @ajw22 and/or @JamesW to chime here...

mguzzy:

Good question and I should have addressed it earlier. Salt has long been dissolved in the pool for several days if not a week or more. Last time I had a pool store check my numbers (I know, I know...I only need them to justify that my numbers are correct AND I need the salt reading from them as I didn't purchase that part of my TFT kit. As a side note, my local Leslie's pool store uses a small electronic sampler now that takes the guesswork out of their subjective readings) and the salt level was at 3500. If I am not mistaken, I think I added 3 more bags as I was reading the Circupool literature on their website and the SJ-55 called for around 4200 ppm as the ideal salt level so I am sure that I am at that level by now. The 3 bags were put in about a week ago so pool salt should be completely dissolved.

Regardless, I have run the system as low as 2700 and bubbles have been produced in times past and I usually keep it at around 3200 to 3500 ppm.

 

[mguzzy]

OK.. I just wanted to rule that one out.

 

[dhldmoore]

Woke up the morning to check on SWG and it appears that it is producing chlorine. Mind you, I have the original salt cell back in it and everything is as it was prior to any of this troubleshooting. This is wierd....

At any rate, I guess I cried wolf for nothing. I suppose it is running as intended. Now I have to RMA the salt cell I just bought Discount Salt pools but this is an interesing plot twist. When all of this troubleshooting started, I went ahead and ordered a generic salt cell from Salt Pool Solutions (I think they are the ones) and after I ordered it, I searched on this forum and they didn't get the best reviews so I cancelled the order and ordered from Discount. I did get an email the next day that the order from Salt Pools had been ordered and I verified that the money was refunded. Yesterday, I receive a package in the mail via DHL - it came from Australia - and it is the salt cell that I ordered. Interesting to say the least. Doing the right thing, I emailed the company asking if they wanted it backand I have not heard back from them.

This whole experience thus far has been surreal. Anyways, thanks for the advice one and all!

 

[mguzzy]

Sooo. now you have two spare cells? .. If your old cell is more than 5 years old I would keep one of them for when that inevitable cell replacement time comes.

 

[dhldmoore]

Sooo. now you have two spare cells? .. If your old cell is more than 5 years old I would keep one of them for when that inevitable cell replacement time comes.

Yes, I have 2 spare cells. I will return the one I ordered from Discount Salt so that I can get that refund and hopefully (fingers crossed) the other company that accidentally shipped the generic cell will "forget" about it or just tell me to keep if it's a lot of trouble for them to ship it back to Australia. Ha!

Regardless, I will not be paying to ship it back. They are the ones who could not cancel the shipping order.

 

[Brett S]

If you have a way to measure the current that your SWG is using then that might be another way to tell if it’s working. In my case, my RJ-30+ draws around 130W when its generating and only a couple of watts when its not. But frankly it certainly sounds like it only works intermittently.

I do wonder about the polarity reversal... if it is working in one polarity and not working in the other. That could explain the intermittentness.