Hayward OmniPL Salt Reading Inaccurate

[blue442]

Hi there, New here.
Hoping you guys can help me out.
I've had my pool for just about 1 year and this is the first year I've opened it since it was built. It was installed last year and closed by my installer. He physically opened it for me this summer which involved just removing the safety cover, priming the pumps, reinstalling all the plugs. It was left to me to clean/balance the pool.

Not a problem. So I did that.
When the cover came off it looks pretty much ready to go. Ran the filter a few days, vacuumed, and backwashed.

I took some water to my local pool store stuck it in a spinner. They tested the water and told me the salt reading was low at 1,704. This struck me as odd, as the hayward system was showing around 3000 instant salt, and 3200 average salt. I expressed my concern to the pool store regarding my salt level. So they used a second different test (a stick test) to confirm it was working correctly. So I was comfortable adding the salt now. They also said the calcium was low (Hardness 62) and the pool required a phosphate treatment (1,151 ppb).

When I left the pool store sold me 120 lbs. of salt, 25 lbs. of calcium, a bottle to treat the phosphates, and some fresh stick tests. All around maybe $175. Not bad.

I added the salt, waited, added the calcium, waited, added the phosphate treatment, waited, then vacuumed to waste. Waited and then retested the next week.
Pool store said the tests are great. Everything is in check. Pool looks amazing. But it is does feel a little different than last year. But then again, I was a negligent pool owner and did not properly maintain my chemicals. While I tested chlorine and PH, at the end of the pool season when I was closing it down, there was clearly some scaling happening as I found some white chunky stuff near the returns. So I'm vowing to do better this year.

Ok, so you've made it this far... So here is the weird part. Hayward OmniPL now shows the Instant Salt at 5,150 and the average salt at 5,379. I've been looking for a way to recalibrate it. But I can't see that there is a way. There are a few buttons for clearing the average salt, and reversing the polarity to clean it, but neither of those made a difference.

I'm stumped guys. I've reached out to my pool installer and he... idk. he just gave me a really weird answer.

When I asked him about the difference, he texted me this:

"Go by the Omni System. Brand new systems will show a higher reading than actual salt level, that's fine because it is designed to work that way". following with "So basically the long and short of it is on the salt system, Hayward adds a special coating onto the fins to extend the warranty so they last a little bit longer. Because of that it throws off the salt reading. That's not a bad thing because it thinks it is higher than what it is but it is still able to work just fine. It's fine. I have had multiple conversations with Hayward about this and I need to start letting customers know going forward to go by what the system is saying on salt readings".

Pool store also suggested I recalibrate the system But I can't for the life of me find any information on doing that to an Omnilogic system. Only an Aquarite system which I do not have.

So what is your opinion on the matter? I'm not really sure what to do here other than ignore the Omnilogic meter. Appreciate any help!

 

[mas985]

More than likely you have the OmniLogic set to the wrong cell size. T-15, T-9 and T-5 are all different and if there is a mismatch, the salt level can read high or low. This change is done through the menu system which is explained in the manual.

BTW, you should really get your own test kit and not rely on pool stores as they are often very inaccurate. On this forum, we avoid pool stores like the plague. You might want to start reading pool school to get more information about how to manage your own pool (without pool stores).

Pool School

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[blue442]

Thank you for the reply. I will have to see how it is setup and read the manual to figure that out. I did not configure the system, my installer did.
Is the cell type written on the side of it?
I'll check out the pool school section, appreciate the suggestion.

**Edit**
looking at my configuration online, I can see it was entered as a "TYPE_T9".
I'll have to see what type they actually installed.

 

[mas985]

Yes, it is written on the side of the cell. The example below shows a T-15 Cell:



If the unit is set to a T-9, the salt will read higher than it should.

 

[blue442]

Hey, slow day at work for me. I was able to go through some photos. It is a TCell940 that is installed.
I found this PDF.

Looks like I need to change it to a T-15 (Or T-940 if the option is there?)

This seems logical to you I presume? Also thanks again for the help!!

Screenshot from the PDF:



*Edit* also looks like I incorrectly have been calling it an Omnilogic system, when its clearly an OmniPL system. My bad. I've edited my post to reflect the correct term.

 

[mas985]

Yes, the 940 is the same as the T-15 as far as the controller is concerned.

 

[blue442]

@mas985

You nailed it! Super slow day at work, went home at lunch and checked the setting. I changed it to the T-15(T-940) setting. It's now reading 3,628 ppm (and falling - at first it said 3,800 ppm). Going to keep my eye on it for the next few days. One other question, do you think that this will impact the chlorine generated? I'll keep my eye on it, but I had to set it at 11% to keep it in check. I'll probably have to revisit that setting if it is impacted.

 

[mas985]

The setting only affects the displayed salt level and alarming in the unit based upon the amps used. If the amps are too high for the version of the cell, the unit shuts down the cell and gives a high amps warning. The amps and salt level readings are directly related along with the size of the SWG plates (i.e. cell version).