Help With Salt Generator Not Producing Chlorine

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tylercol

Member
Jun 29, 2021
15
Phoenix, AZ
Hello, I am having a rather frustrating experience with my Circupool SJ-55 and am wondering if anyone on here has any other ideas on what can be done. I had the unit for 2 years and it worked pretty well until this year. It now fails to produce any chlorine at all. A few months ago I noticed various warning lights come on and the chlorine level was subpar/nonexistent so I called Circupool and they asked me to send the unit in. They replaced the circuit boards and sent me a new salt cell. After hooking it back up, I still get an error signal intermittently, but even when there are no error lights the unit fails to produce any chlorine. The chlorine level in the pool was 0 after running the pump for 10 hours with the salt cell at SuperCL Mode. There are also no bubbles present within the cell when the pump is running to indicate production of any chlorine. My pH is 7.6, salt level is 4750, and CYA is 50. I have called Circupool several times and they suggested turning on the salt cell 30 minutes after the pump comes on to mitigate any problems with air bubbles, checking the connection between the salt cell and the control unit, and also making sure the power is ok to the unit. I have done all of this and everything seems to be in order and nothing has worked. It does seem like the salt cell is not getting any electricity to convert the salt to chlorine, but I'm not sure what else I can do. Thank you.
 
Welcome to TFP :)

I am really sorry you are having issues with the SJ.. I have had mine old SJ45 for 8 years and now the SJ45A for a year.. Both are working flawless...

Lets see if we can get you going..

1. 4700 salt content is high, I know in the manual is says you can go to 5000, did they tell you to get it that high? I have never been that high and almost always have it at 3500..

Are there any lights on? Can you post some pictures of the cell and controller so we can start to troubleshoot what is happening.. :)

Here is the manual.. https://www.circupool.com/assets/doc/CircuPool-SJ-Manual.pdf
 
There are currently no lights on, but no chlorine production based on no bubbles in the water around the cell and no chlorine in the water during testing. A solid orange warning light will sometimes come on, but it is not on now. What specifically do you want to see on pictures of the cell and controller? As I said before it is a new cell sent from Circupool and all the boards were replaced in the controller, so almost a new unit.
 
How are you testing your salt level? TFP recommends the Taylor K-1766 salt test kit.

Have you tried manually reversing polarity? Hit the + button and put the unit in Super CL (Boost) mode. Then, push and hold the + button until the service lights flash. See if this changes anything (other than reversing polarity).

I just replaced a similar 3-year-old system. Mine was made by Calimar, which was the same unit as the SGS Wave 40K, which appears to be the same unit as the older gen Circupool SJ-Series. I swapped it out recently due to inconsistent chlorine production. Due to the raised cell design, I wasn't able to run the pump at lower speeds without the cell filling with gas and exposing the plates. I assume you're cell is completely filling with water?

Good luck!
 
You have no chlorine in the pool?? SWG have a VERY hard time raising chlorine.. You need to bring your chlorine up to 7 FC before the SWG can maintain the FC level.. On that also if your chlorine is at 0 you probably need to SLAM Process the pool before you turn on the SWG...

Is the pool green? What are levels at now?

Recommended Levels
 
Everything mentioned above is working fine. The pool is not green, only slightly cloudy, but I also have some floating solar ionizers which seem to have kept any algae from blooming. I also dumped 4 gallons of acid and 6 gallons of liquid chlorine into the pool 2 nights ago and the next morning chlorine level was only 1ppm (~35000 gallon pool). I think it is probably either phosphates or high levels of organic matter. I put some phosphate remover in and after another day am going to shock it again. However, on the SWG control module there is a warning light on about the half the time and not on sometimes. It is my understanding the only way it should come on chemistry wise is if the the salt level is low which it clearly isn't. I tested the salt level a few times with test strips.
 
tylercol said:
Everything mentioned above is working fine. The pool is not green, only slightly cloudy, but I also have some floating solar ionizers which seem to have kept any algae from blooming. I also dumped 4 gallons of acid and 6 gallons of liquid chlorine into the pool 2 nights ago and the next morning chlorine level was only 1ppm (~35000 gallon pool). I think it is probably either phosphates or high levels of organic matter. I put some phosphate remover in and after another day am going to shock it again. However, on the SWG control module there is a warning light on about the half the time and not on sometimes. It is my understanding the only way it should come on chemistry wise is if the the salt level is low which it clearly isn't. I tested the salt level a few times with test strips.
Click to expand...

I really hate to tell you this but the way you are managing your pool is the problem... We can bring you back to a clear pool but the pool industry and pool stores have taught you all the wrong things...

1. never pour 4 gallons of anything especially Muriatic acid in the pool... There may be a time when you start a SLAM that 4 galloons of liquid chlorine will need to be added but that is it...
2. get rid of the floating ionizers, they are slowly killing your pool and adding metals into your water... You NEVER want to add metals and especially copper as it can stain you plaster and turn hair green and all kinds of other not nice things...


You need a good test kit, that will allow you to take control of your pool.. We do everything here knowing what we are adding into the pool and why we are adding it...

Test Kits Compared

Keep your SWG on for now and pour 1 gallon of liquid chlorine in your pool every day until you get one of the test kits... once you receive the kit do all the tests and post back here..
Recommended Levels

Please stop putting anything else in the pool except liquid chlorine, all that pool store stuff is hurting your pool and water...
 
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Thanks for the replies. We have gotten a little off topic with the ionizers and chemical talk. I realize ionizers have pluses and minuses but my pool water has been fine for years until the salt system stopped working. My water is not green and there are no algae blooms, but it is cloudy because there is no chlorine production from the cell. I just took the cell out of the case and placed it into a bucket of salt water and turned it on at 100%. There was zero bubble or gas production into the water in the bucket. Circupool has no answer for it and told me it was high phosphates but I do not think phosphates, copper ions, or any non-egregious chemistry issue prevent a salt cell from converting sodium chloride to usable chlorine. It just seems like the salt cell is not getting any current. How do you test this quantitatively? I know someone posted about testing amps to the cell but I do not know how to do that as there are no exposed wires or contact points from the control module to the cell. Thanks.
 

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I just thought of this...

Is this the original SJ55? If it is there is no flow switch.. It just turns on and works.. If it is not creating any bubbles there is something wrong with the cell or the brain.. That is the reason I love the old SJ, it either works or does not...

I did not have to troubleshoot mine in 7 years that I had it so I have no idea what to check on it... What is discount salt pool saying to check, they are usually really great at getting these systems going...
 
I think it is the original as there is no flow switch. I have called Circupool many times and they seem to have no idea since according to them it is basically a new unit, hence why they blamed the problem on phosphates or pool chemistry or my power supply despite it being the same power I used for years when it worked and no problems with the voltage as verified with a multimeter. They say they replaced all the circuit boards in the controller and due to a mistake on their part they sent me a new salt cell. What happened is I sent the control module and the salt cell in to them. They sent both back, but it still did not work. When I called they claimed I did not send in the cell for them to check despite 10 minutes earlier opening the box they sent back and taking the cell and controller out of it to hook back up. They did send me a new cell because of that, but I am a little skeptical about their attention to detail on the repairs if they can't even notate that I sent in the salt cell. I will try calling again, but my guess is I will have to send it all back to them again.
 
that is crazzzy, it has nothing to do with phosphates if the SWG is not making any chlorine nor turning on... Is it set for 120v or 220v? the old one had a wire to change it?
 
It comes set to 240V which is my setup verified by the multimeter. It worked for 2 years set up like that. Unless they switched it to the 120V mode when I sent it in for testing and didn't switch it back. I guess I could open the controller box and look at that. The lights on the control module do light up, but the cell clearly is not getting power.
 
You should be able to see what power the cell is getting by testing the leads going to the cell.. there should be 2 positives and 1 negative going to the cell (I think )
 
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