IC40 - Intelli Panel Salt Reading

[FattyLumpkin]

Hi - just purchased and installed a new IC40. The lights on it are telling me I have low salt. I checked the panel, and it's reading 2750ppm. I performed a salt test with my kit, and I'm getting a reading of 3400. Also, my prior IC40 (as of this morning) wasn't reading low salt. Is this an issue that may clear itself, or do I have a bum unit?

 

[kchinger]

The accuracy of salt tests are not very good. The one on the IC40 is apparently +/- 500 ppm, and the one you're doing by hand is +/- 200 ppm. So there's a really big range. Your salt could actually be 3200. In my experience with my SWG my K-1766 is usually higher than the generator says. So I assume somewhere in the middle is probably about accurate. Right now mine is reading something like 3800 by hand and 3200 by the generator.

I'm not sure what that means for you though. Should you add salt? Or is the unit bad? I don't really know. If it were me I'd add salt assuming I was around 3100 probably, enough to get to 3400 or whatever is ideal for the IC40, and see if it seems happy and generates the right amount of chlorine that I'm used to. But I'm not an expert.

 

[FattyLumpkin]

The accuracy of salt tests are not very good. The one on the IC40 is apparently +/- 500 ppm, and the one you're doing by hand is +/- 200 ppm. So there's a really big range. Your salt could actually be 3200. In my experience with my SWG my K-1766 is usually higher than the generator says. So I assume somewhere in the middle is probably about accurate. Right now mine is reading something like 3800 by hand and 3200 by the generator.

I'm not sure what that means for you though. Should you add salt? Or is the unit bad? I don't really know. If it were me I'd add salt assuming I was around 3100 probably, enough to get to 3400 or whatever is ideal for the IC40, and see if it seems happy and generates the right amount of chlorine that I'm used to. But I'm not an expert.

Thanks for the input. I always trusted my K1766 quite a bit more than the panel, and while the previous IC40 also always reported less than my K1766, it wasn't anywhere near the difference now. My concern is that I'm either harming the cell or it's not running at all (i.e., not producing chlorine). I'll try cycling the system again and seeing if it changes -- I'm hesitant to add salt, but I've also read that as long as your cell is happy, your salt level is good.

 

[kchinger]

Is your light red or another color? I think the IC40 has two levels of low salt, a warning that is yellow or something, and then an error that is red. When it's red it's not generating, but the other is just warning you that it's getting low.

I think high salt harms the cell more than low salt (because the conductivity gets very high, the resistance gets low, and there's essentially a short inside the cell when a ton of salt passes through at once, this is why you wait after adding salt before running the cell).

 

[Jimrahbe]

fl,

The IC40 only measure salt twice a day, so I would not take one reading to mean anything for sure.. As kc points out, the IC40 does a pretty poor job on measuring the salt level.

I would shut the power off to the cell for a few minutes and then power it back up.. you will see it doing the red/green flashing calibration routine and then once it stops see if the reading has changed.

I always try to make my cell "happy" and add a little salt if I can do so without going over 3800 ppm when using my K-1766 salt tester. When I can't do that I normally replace the flow switch assembly which usually gets the readings back closer to normal.

Thanks for posting,

Jim R.

 

[FattyLumpkin]

Thank you both. The salt LED is red. But my manual says "Low Salt" and "Add Salt" are *both* red (?)... definitely not intuitively written, but I suspect there may be different strengths of the red LED? Since my panel reads 2750, I suspect it's the "Low Salt" reading. I've gone ahead and added 40 lbs., so hopefully that will give me a little boost to 3600 (and 2950 on my panel, which would take it out of the "Low Salt" state, which has a 2800ppm threshold).

I'll try the power cycle to see if the reading changes as well.

Thanks again.