Help Diagnose a Possessed Pentair Easytouch2 8

[Danimal86]

This just started happening last night. About 6pm, our spa pump turned itself on, and tried to turn on the heater. I logged into the screenlogic on my phone, and turned it off, few minutes later, it turned itself on again. I did this a couple times before i unplugged and re-plugged in our pentair wireless adapter that pluggs into the router and then went outside and turned off/on the breakers on the control box next to the pool equipment. Everything seemed to be fine, no more on/off of the spa and the pool light turned on at 6pm as it is scheduled to.

Fast forward to about 10min ago, the blower for the spa turned on. I was having a hard time connecting on my phone (the app finds our controller but doesn't connect) so i logged into the ScreenLogic on my windows computer and the "air blower" and "cleaner" were active. I turned them off (wasnt sure if the cleaner just meant the pool filter or the sweeper so i just turned both of them off).

Is it possible that someone outside is connecting to my system? Whenever we connect in, its always within our network. We had a large wind storm last wednesday, but everything has been fine since then.

here's the info from the Screen Logic System Information (on the windows computer)
Controller Model: EasyTouch2 8
Controller Firmware 2.140
Protocol Adapter Version: POOL: 5.2 Build 738.0 Rel
Configurator Version: 5.2 Build 738.0 Rel

Let me know if you need any more information.

Edit: I went ahead and added a password for remote access, maybe this will help.

 

[ajw22]

Do you have an IS4 or IS10 Spa Side Remote keypad? If so disconnect the wires to it at the panel and see if your ghosts go away.

What has your air temperature been? Could it be Freeze Protection kicking on?

 

[Danimal86]

Do you have an IS4 or IS10 Spa Side Remote keypad? If so disconnect the wires to it at the panel and see if your ghosts go away.

What has your air temperature been? Could it be Freeze Protection kicking on?

We dont have the spa side keypads.
Last week we had a pretty crazy storm in northern california. Crazy amount of wind and rain, but temperatures have been 40's to 60's.

 

[ajw22]

I will turn you over to @Jimrahbe as I think the answer may be to clear the programming in your ET and reload your settings.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Dan,

I agree with Allen...

Sounds like an iS4 wired spa issue or freeze control.. Freeze control works off of Air temp, so it can often come on at 40 degrees or so, depending on the calibration..

How old is your EasyTouch?

Have you done any recent programming changes?

Does not sound like a programming issue to me.

You can go in a shut off freeze control and see if the problem goes away.. You really don't have to worry about anything freezing unless it goes below 32 for a day or so..

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Danimal86]

I will turn you over to @Jimrahbe as I think the answer may be to clear the programming in your ET and reload your settings.

Thanks!

Dan,

I agree with Allen...

Sounds like an iS4 wired spa issue or freeze control.. Freeze control works off of Air temp, so it can often come on at 40 degrees or so, depending on the calibration..

How old is your EasyTouch?

Have you done any recent programming changes?

Does not sound like a programming issue to me.

You can go in a shut off freeze control and see if the problem goes away.. You really don't have to worry about anything freezing unless it goes below 32 for a day or so..

Thanks,

Jim R.

Hi Jim,
We dont have the iS4 or iS10, but it did get a little cold but probably only into the mid/upper 40's. Our system is about 3.5 years old. This is the first time its started doing things on its own. We added solar heating to the pool last spring, but nothing ever since then.
It wouldn't turn on the spa air blower for freeze mode would it? I'll still go in and change it to turn freeze mode off until we get it figured out. It doesn't really get below freezing for a few hours a couple times a year.
Thanks,
Dan

edit: going through the settings, i did see that "spa side remote" was enabled, even though we dont have one. I disabled it and set the pool freeze turn-on to off.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Dan,

Please show me the following set up page from your PC..

View media item 1964
Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Dan,

Also... If it happens again, the first thing to do is check this page... Left side bottom line shows freeze on or off...

Home page.PNG

• Jimrahbe
• Mar 28, 2018

Jim R.

 

[Rocket J Squirrel]

Controller Model: EasyTouch2 8
Controller Firmware 2.140

I don't know what the "2" in "EasyTouch2" means. Never heard of that.

But your firmware is way behind. Current is 2.180. My ET8 main panel is on 2.160 and that seems to work OK, but my remote controllers are on 2.150 and have bugs. Upgrading ET firmware is a real pain because it requires specialized equipment.

 

[Danimal86]

Dan,

Please show me the following set up page from your PC..

View media item 1964
Thanks,

Jim R.

Hey Jim,
Thats the page i used to turn the pool freeze to off (it was set to "ON" before):


and it looks like it transferred the freeze mode to off

 

[Danimal86]

I don't know what the "2" in "EasyTouch2" means. Never heard of that.

But your firmware is way behind. Current is 2.180. My ET8 main panel is on 2.160 and that seems to work OK, but my remote controllers are on 2.150 and have bugs. Upgrading ET firmware is a real pain because it requires specialized equipment.

I posted a screenshot of what the configuration that shows what versions i'm on.
Everything was working well, until Sunday.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Dan,

If Aux 1 (blower) was set to freeze control, then I suspect the system went into freeze mode...

Let us know if the problem comes back.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Danimal86]

Dan,

If Aux 1 (blower) was set to freeze control, then I suspect the system went into freeze mode...

Let us know if the problem comes back.

Thanks,

Jim R.

I'm keeping an eye on it. I've been watching the History on the screenlogic to see if it turns on the spa or heater for a split second that i didn't notice.
The only thing that was on "On w/Freeze" was "Pool"

 

[Jimrahbe]

Dan,

If Aux 1 was not set to be "on with freeze", then the problem has to be something else..

The blower would not be able to come on unless the Aux 1 relay closed..

If it happens again, collect as many facts as you can.. What time it comes on, what else might come on at the same time, etc..

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Danimal86]

Dan,

If Aux 1 was not set to be "on with freeze", then the problem has to be something else..

The blower would not be able to come on unless the Aux 1 relay closed..

If it happens again, collect as many facts as you can.. What time it comes on, what else might come on at the same time, etc..

Thanks,

Jim R.

Will do Jim.
I kinda have a feeling that one of the neighbors signal may have overlapped with ours, hopefully adding that password will change it. I can only imagine one of the neighbors trying to turn on their spa, and it kept turning of as we were battling back and forth.

 

[Danimal86]

Well its been a couple days and i think that we have exorcised the daemon that was haunting the pool equipment. I contacted Pentair, about the issues, and they came up with the same ideas as you guys, either a poolside/spaside remote, freeze control or someone using our 6 digit code for the app/program. I think it was the last one, and i bet the password fixed it. I should have added the password, from the get-go. Lessons learned.

I'll update you guys if the daemons come back. thanks @Jimrahbe and @ajw22 for your help!