I think my Salt cell is going bad.

[ceril]

A little back story that may or may not have relevance to the cell,

I started service with a new pool company about a month ago. Prior to them coming out I checked my readings on my panel and everything looked great. My Hayward t-9 cell was showing 3100 PPM and everything else was in line. Shut everything down and Cleaned the DE filter and salt cell. Added 3 pounds of De powder to filter and put everything back together. 2 days later was our 1st service with the new company. I wasn't home but apparently they came over put in stabilizer and then might have backwashed the filter or not but did add De powder to the filter, no idea how much. I can only assume either they didn't backwash long enough or if they did backwash they put to much powder in but the next day my pool was cloudy. I ran the filter for 24 hours hoping to clear it up but it just got worse and on top of that it was turning green. Had them shock it. Form there I cleaned the pool my self, ran the filter for 2 days 24 hours a day also backwashing etc. then added floc ran the pool for 2 hours on recirculate and let it settle for 24 hours then vacuumed to waste. Finally got the pool back to blue last week but now my aquarite control panel isn't reading correctly now. Pool company also put in 2 bags of salt afterwards

Salt cell is just over 5 years old
Hayward t-9
Serial # 3E17137-204089
Power, check salt and inspect cell are steady.
when turning on the pump NO FLOW goes form solid to blinking to no light so I don't think I have an issue with that. .
Had my water tested and salt levels from pool store as well as digital reading was 4000PPM which is high
10,000 gallon pool, chlorine output on cell was originally set to 40% moved it up to 60%

My reading when I came home last night at 4 PM were
2300 avg salt level
94 temp
31.0 cell volrage
0.00 cell amp
60P desired output
0 instant salt levels
AL -0 program code
r 15.9 board rev
t-9 cell size

After recalibrating I got the following 3 hours later
3000 avg salt level
92 temp
27.9 cell volrage
3.94 cell amp
60P desired output
-2300 instant salt levels
AL -0 program code
r 15.9 board rev
t-9 cell size

Can high levels of shock throw this off or is the cell just going out?
I am going to get the cell tested tonight but it appears to be generating some chlorine after the calibration but it slowly drops
Pretty sure I am going to need a new cell in the near future but is is just coincidence that my pool went green and all this happened at the same time.

Should I stick with a t-9 sized cell or will i get more life out of a t-15 and move the output to 25-30%?
trying to decide if i want to go with Hayward again or maybe try the Circupool CIR-Gen9

Thoughts? TIA!! Also I will update this thread with my pool numbers when i get home

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[jark87]

I don’t know what your readings are. I’m guessing that the first one is salt level and 4th is free chlorine. Start by getting a good test kit to test your water - don’t rely on the pool store. I use Taylor and many people here use a TFP kit. I think there’s a TFP kit that includes the salt test. With Taylor, you have to buy it separately.

You noted that you cleaned your salt cell and trouble started soon after. If you used acid to clean, you may have damaged the cell. There’s no reason to clean your salt cell unless you have calcium deposits, and even then, there are better ways than using acid.

Since you have a SWCG, you might want to consider maintaining your pool yourself instead of hiring a service. You’ll save tons of money and you won’t have situations like you state above where you don’t know what they did. I spend all of about 10 minutes per week maintaining my pool. It’s super easy and I started with zero experience.

5 years is probably on the low end of the average lifespan of a SWCG, but since you’re in Florida, you may run yours 365 days per year, which would shorten the lifespan.

Others can give better advice on the recommendation for replacement.

 

[ceril]

I update the hayward settings to show what each reading was. I will look into getting a test kit myself but my original pool service that I had for 5 years was only $40.00/ month so I just let them deal with it.
I clean the salt cell with a 4 to 1 ratio of muriatic acid and water per instructions as needed. Last time it was done was about a year ago. typically i just spray it with a hose if there's no build up.

 

[jeffchap]

Just FYI, I run my SWG equipped pool all season on just $200-300 in consumables (salt, CYA and muriatic acid) using the TFP method. I also leave it open year round.

 

[ceril]

Had my salt cell tested at Leslie's. its bad. I will replace it shortly. I did increase the output to 100% and it seems to be producing some chlorine but i doubt enough to keep the pool up. I was looking at after market cells from circupool but I think I'm leaning toward another hayward cell.
since I do not have a test kit yet below are my reading from Leslie's. Thanks
Free Chroline 1 ppm
Total Chroline 1.19
PH 8.1
total akalinity 8.1
calcium hardness 313 ppm
cyanuric acid 54 ppm
iron 0 ppm
copper .3 ppm
phosphates 270 ppb
salt 3488 ppm

 

[ceril]

Quick update.

circupool salt cell is working fine now. for tailor test kit and the salt reading from the kit is a little lower than the salt cell reading but other than that is working.