Intellicenter Dead

[Turbo1Ton]

Alright - Had a severe storm roll through last night, and took a lightning strike near/to my power pole. Not sure what the failure was, as I was not here when they came out to repair, but it was isolated and only affected myself and my neighbor that gets power from the same transformer.

Got home this evening and began checking everything out. Intellicenter controller will not power up. I can run the pumps manually so I've got that going for me.

Here's what I know. When I power the control power breaker off, and back on, a couple of the aux relays will toggle on then off quickly, one time, and that is it. I have checked to see that the control board is receiving 24V and 18V at the appropriate connector pins. Other than that, nothing happens. No display, nothing.

I'm thinking the board is fried. There are no obvious signs of a surge to the board such as a fried trace or a damaged capacitor or other component. But not sure what else it might be. I didn't see any mention of onboard fuses to check, nor did I see anything that looked like a fuse.

Not sure what else to check. Hoping someone has some other ideas of things to look for.

Everything else in the house appears to be fine. I would have thought a surge would have taken out more than just the pool panel, but maybe not.

--Jeff

 

[mknauss]

Warranty claim? I know @Jimrahbe had some Pentair equipment replaced via warranty after a lightening strike.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Jeff,

I took a lightning strike that took out my EasyTouch and several other items.. It came in on the com port, and not the AC line.

Anyway, Pentair came out and replaced everything under warranty.. I did not tell the tech we had a lightning strike and he never asked. He gave me the impression that if there is not obvious evidence of a strike, like blown traces or components, then the failure is just considered a warranty repair.

Go look at your pumps,, they should say "Display not Active" when in the Auto mode.. If it does not, then your com port is not working.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Turbo1Ton]

Yeah, the pumps are definitely active at the local display. That is how I turned mine on to circulate some water.

Now that I am getting further into this, the strike definitely came over the com port as I have other devices that are not functioning via wired connection.

I don't know how lightning strikes work, however it appears to me that the strike came in from the pool panel com port. My ethernet switch is fried. Everything except for the pool panel is still functioning. I would have expected some other stuff to go if it came in elsewhere. But I really have no idea, that's just me guessing.

I will call Pentair and start a claim. We'll see. Worst case is they say no.

--Jeff

 

[ogdento]

agh, sorry to hear it Jeff.

hopefully the comm chip was able to protect the rest of the intellicenter panel... in my experience with lightning-struck intellitouch and easytouch panels, the comm chip and maybe some other components will be dead (possibly burned, blown up, or internally shorted) but the rest of the board is often ok... these intellicenter boards (which I'm just getting into thanks to @Phil G) are generations more complex but can hopefully be repaired.

if pentair comes out and replaces it, see if they'll let you keep the dead one... i'd be happy to check it out, it may be a relatively inexpensive fix.

btw... do you have an rs485 bridge that connects your intellicenter to your ethernet? in the case of the old screenlogic systems, a lightning strike could hit the comm port, jump to the on-board ethernet and kill the ethernet on any routers/switches/computers/etc that were also connected

 

[Turbo1Ton]

@ogdento - Yeah, it is a bummer. I know I said I would but I'm still not certain if I will call Pentair or not. That is a little bit of an ethical dilemma for me, knowing that it was not a manufacturing defect that caused the issue.

There are no I5P boards available that I could find, so I may be out of luck anyway. I have the RPI already for adding the nodejs pool controller, so I may just go ahead and go full on RPI pool controller for now. That will require a little bit more work, but may cost less than replacing the Pentair board, now that I already have half of the stuff.

I have thought about trying to find someone that may be able to look at the board and see if it could be repaired. I used to have a supplier that could rebuild industrial PLC boards, but of course, now I can't find his information to get in touch with him. I would be happy to pull it out and send it to you, if you were interested in taking a look at it. I'll PM you.

My network communications skills are weak, but I don't think I have an RS485 bridge. I was only connected through the on board ethernet port to my switch. It did fry my switch. Did not kill anything else though.

--Jeff

 

[Phil G]

I bet it is the same .80 cent part that blew on my ips5 board. It was definitely the com port. If that is the case, that would be three confirmed intellicenterss from the TFP memebers.

 

[ogdento]

Yeah Phil it would definitely be interesting (and a bummer) if it's the same dead part. The CDBHM260L-HF rectifier that smoked on yours is rated for 2 amps, but it's in a TINY package which doesn't seem right to me... I did a quick search for others in that same format and they're all under an amp. Maybe this one can't really do 2 amps, or there could be a heat dissipation issue.

I'll look for a beefier replacement will fit on the board and can handle more current, but in the meantime I can connect it to a larger unit from the parts bin.

 

[ogdento]

Interesting... I was just re-reading the thread that Phil replied to:

Intellicenter Magic Smoke

Very long story short, we need to replace the "Pentair IntelliCenter I5P OCP Circuit Board" (part 523050). I found "Pentair IntelliTouch/EasyTouch to IntelliCenter Upgrade", but I'm not sure if it can be used in the same part or if there is different functionality because it's the upgrade...

www.troublefreepool.com

...and now that I have his dead board I can see that yes that rectifier is absolutely smoked... AND that the 24v port has a "160mA MAX" warning label on it. I'll solder a temporary rectifier in, and if I can get the board working I'll check how much current it's drawing. I'm wondering if Pentair undersized the part.

I will also add that looking at how the ethernet is laid out, I'm thinking that Turbo's board will have more problems than just the rectifier

 

[Turbo1Ton]

Update - Got in touch with my PB who gave me the local Pentair warranty person contact info. He ordered me a board and replaced it. Unfortunately he did not let me know when he was coming out so he came by today while I was at work. Didn't get a chance to ask him if I could keep the old board.

Now that the IC is up and running again, I have learned that my heater board appears to have gotten toasted as well. That one is on me as I have swapped out the board with the updated RS485 board. Looks like I need to find one of those.

--Jeff