iAquaLink and Intelliflo vs - speeds

[Lancerif]

Hello just joined the forum. I have a 6 month old iAquaLink and Intelliflo vsf 3hp.

What I would like to do is turn on the spa & spa heat, but not a spa speed. Something like 2300 rpm rather than 3200, so that I minimize electrical spend while I am waiting for spa to get up to temp.

I have a One touch "Hot Tub" setup for the normal spa operation (3200).
It seems that I can only control 1 speed using spa One Touch. iAqua tech support confirmed that only a schedule can control speeds, or I can have 1 spa speed. If I want a different speed I need to manually go in and change spa speed in VSP... that is not gonna work for me.

So i figured out a workaround.... almost. I added an additional One Touch called "Warm tub", with a slower vsp setting.
If I press "Hot Tub", wait a few minuted then press "warm tub" the speed will reduce to 2300rpm.... but it only holds that speed for exactly 20 minutes. I looked for a setting in iAqua that is set for 20minutes and could not find anything.

Does anyone have any suggests to try that I may be overlooking? Could this be something that is set on the Intelliflo motor controller that is overriding iAqualink?

Thanks,
Lancerif

 

[Lancerif]

Update... I just went back to re-recreate the issue, with screen captures... and now it works past the 20 minute mark??? I did learn if I make any changes, like turn off the heater once it is in warm tub mode, the speed reverts back to the 3200. I am still open to your suggestions of how to improve this setup.

 

[MSchutzer]

While I don’t have an Intelliflow pump I read that higher motor speeds win out when two motor speeds are selected. I can’t explain the 20 minute thing though.

But you might want to try this to see if it works. Set the SPA motor speed in the VS table to the lower motor speed you want to use for the spa warm up. Then have a “SPA warm-up” one touch setting that looks just like your ”Hot Tub” one touch that you have now. Then set up a motor speed called “high speed” in the VS table that is your 3200 rpm.

Set up another one touch setting for “Hot Tub” with all the same settings as ”SPA warm-up” but also add “high-speed” to the list of active items. I think the higher speed will over-ride the lower SPA motor speed as two speeds will be set and the faster one is supposed to win.

I don’t know if this actually works or not but that’s how I read the speed settings are supposed to work on an intelliflow pump.

Its easy enough to try though...

Mark

 

[PoolGate]

If you go into your VSP speed setup, you should have a keyword for your spa. That is what controls the spa speed when you turn it on. What is that set for?

Mine is a "pool or spa" so my keywords are "Temp1" and "Temp2". Yours is most likely a "Pool and Spa", which has different keywords. As you can see below, I lowered my pump speed to 3000 for my heater.

 

[Lancerif]

Thank you for the advice. Will try this tonight and let you know how it works.

 

[Grillman]

Just a concern, Whenever the heater is running the water flow needs to be higher to keep the heat transfer at a maximum. Especially in a Spa when temps are in the upper 90's. Over time the heat exchanger will get damaged and the loss of efficiency from the heat exchanger will far outweigh any costs saved on electricity.

 

[Lancerif]

Thanks for bringing that up. What rpm are you thinking is good for the heater? I am at 2500 now. The default was 2250 for pool heater.

I ended up renaming the speeds, and that seems to do what I was looking for. I have 2 onetouch buttons set up. Normal and high speed. I have noticed that when the heater turns on the pump does speed up slightly, then return to normal speed.