Intellicenter temp sensors not working

[smcdonald001]

Hey everyone, trying to get my pool going for the season now that it is getting warm in central Florida. I couldn't figure out why my solar heater wasn't working. Started looking at the intellicenter and all 3 sensors (air, water, solar) are reading "ERR". I opened up the panel. All 3 are connected. So I tried replaced 1 sensor as I had a spare that my pool builder gave me last year. It did not fix that sensor's readings. I checked the ohms on the air sensor and it checks out as a good sensor. Is there a setting or something I should be looking for in the software perhaps? All 3 of my calibrations say 100 (I think that is right). everything else is working fine, so I wouldn't think the board is bad.

Also I did update to the new firmware, but I was having the problem before and after the update. As far as I know last fall it was working fine. And through the winter the pool would run to keep clean, but I just figured the pool was getting cold because it was cold outside and the solar wasn't warm enough to run.

My temporary solution has been to manually turn on the solar valve so that the pool can start to heat up, but obviously I want the automation to do it's job.

Any input or thoughts is appreciated.

 

[setsailsoon]

1.

Sometimes weird problems like this can be solved by cycling power at the breaker. I don't think you connections are a problem since it's unlikely that would happen on all 3 at once. I'll see if our experts can help as well @Jimrahbe @MyAZPool .

I hope this helps.

Chris

 

[Jimrahbe]

S,

As Chris points out, you obviously do not have three bad sensors, so it has to be something else. Not sure what, unfortunately.

If you have not already done so I would follow Chris' suggestion to reboot the system.

Normally with an EasyTouch, if the temp sensors are not in the loop not much else works.

Does the IntelliCenter not have a diagnostics self-test page?

Here is another call for help.. Calling @Turbo1Ton

Jim R.

 

[Turbo1Ton]

Hmmmm... Interesting. Definitely bizarre that all 3 went wonky at the same time. I would definitely start with Chris's suggestion and cycle the power.

I don't remember what the actual local panel has for diagnostics on the sensors. I would go look but it is 40 degrees and raining out. Looking at the manual, there should be a status screen at the local display that could have further information on the issue. Doesn't look like it would be much help, but it may indicate when the issue began.




On the web client in the upper left corner, next to the Pentair logo is a bell icon. Clicking this will bring up a notifications message bar, see below. You can select status messages and see what you get there.



I will say that if the system is indicating 100 on the sensor adjusted value/true readout on the settings page, this is what it does when there is nothing connected. I suppose, unless it truly is 100 degrees out.

I have nothing connected to the solar temp input and you can see what mine shows below:


If your's is showing the same, it must think that there is nothing there. Any chance you have an actual 10kOhm resistor to install on one channel and see what that does?

Not sure I am of much assistance. Calling @matthewsunshineflorida - Maybe he has some thoughts or things he can think of to check.

--Jeff

 

[matthewsunshineflorida]

Hmmmm... Interesting. Definitely bizarre that all 3 went wonky at the same time.

Calling @matthewsunshineflorida - Maybe he has some thoughts or things he can think of to check.

Not sure if you thought to reach out because of our last intellicenter collaboration or you happened to see my older thread that didn't get much traction about a similar issue with my newly installed solar sensor I was trying to figure out a couple months back!

Unfortunately, my problem was different - at very low temperatures for our area (under 55ish), the sensor would suddenly jump to something like 250+ degrees. At very high roof temperatures (120+), it plummeted to a global warming defying -10 degrees here in Tampa, Florida. If Intellicenter truly has error detection for its temperature sensors, they don't seem to notice a problem with going from 115 degrees to -10 degrees in 60 seconds, because I never saw any error messages on the web portal, app, or local screen. I also tried re-terminating the ends that connect to the motherboard, in case they were somehow not seated well enough or something.

I did actually test the sensor with a multimeter once and it DID register the proper resistance to temperature readout. The problem is that I never got a chance to test it while it was going haywire because that was either 3pm while I'm at work and it's 120 on the roof, or at 5am when I'm catching up on as much sleep as I can before this baby is born.

Ultimately, what fixed my problem was a new sensor provided by the manufacturer. I unfortunately suspect that is not the case in this situation because my other sensors were fine and the bad sensor behavior was predictable when looking at the "history" in intellicenter's log.

Sincerely sorry that's not more help. Normally I'd start your typical troubleshooting scenario - check the sensor for proper resistance, swap it for a known good sensor, power cycle the board and update its firmware. You've already done everything I'd do. I guess my lean is that the common denominator between three sensors spontaneously going bad is the most likely issue - your intellicenter's motherboard. What's strange is that it went bad for all three sensors. Typically one series of inputs OR a single sensor would go bad on these things unless they have something else in common, so it does lead me to believe something is haywire on the motherboard itself.

Following this thread and wishing you the best!! Let us know what you discover as you work through it

 

[matthewsunshineflorida]

Actually just read through this again and do have a couple of questions.

When you say "checked the ohms" for your air sensor, are you saying that the check you did confirmed it also read 100 degrees like intellicenter said? It says you're in Ocala, and I'm more than an hour further south than you, but we have not had a single day in 4 months that reached above the low 90s.

I think @Turbo1Ton is correct that intellicenter is just giving a default value when sensing unlimited resistance (i.e. no connection). I still think it's likely that your motherboard is bad, simply because all 3 being suddenly wrong is just a heck of a coincidence unless they were all installed at the same time incorrectly and went off all together.

Even so, I'd like to at least confirm that your sensors do line up relatively close to this specific chart:

File:10K thermistor chart.png - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

If you don't have one, I'd grab an inexpensive multimeter from Amazon or your big box store and throw it onto the intellicenter screws - that will tell you that either the sensor is bad, the board is bad, or they were sloppily installed and the wires are touching...

 

[Turbo1Ton]

Not sure if you thought to reach out because of our last intellicenter collaboration or you happened to see my older thread that didn't get much traction about a similar issue with my newly installed solar sensor I was trying to figure out a couple months back!

Both! The previous collaboration made me think you might have some input on this. Then I remembered there was someone with a wonky temp sensor issue but didn't realize it was you until I searched for it!

My thought is also a bad board, but extremely weird that it goes bad on all the temp sensor inputs at the same time.

I agree with the troubleshooting efforts. If the OP's intellicenter is still under warranty, I would call Pentair and start a warranty ticket. Or possibly the PB who installed it.

--Jeff

 

[matthewsunshineflorida]

Hey everyone, trying to get my pool going for the season now that it is getting warm in central Florida. I couldn't figure out why my solar heater wasn't working. Started looking at the intellicenter and all 3 sensors (air, water, solar) are reading "ERR". I opened up the panel. All 3 are connected. So I tried replaced 1 sensor as I had a spare that my pool builder gave me last year. It did not fix that sensor's readings. I checked the ohms on the air sensor and it checks out as a good sensor. Is there a setting or something I should be looking for in the software perhaps? All 3 of my calibrations say 100 (I think that is right). everything else is working fine, so I wouldn't think the board is bad.

Also I did update to the new firmware, but I was having the problem before and after the update. As far as I know last fall it was working fine. And through the winter the pool would run to keep clean, but I just figured the pool was getting cold because it was cold outside and the solar wasn't warm enough to run.

My temporary solution has been to manually turn on the solar valve so that the pool can start to heat up, but obviously I want the automation to do it's job.

Any input or thoughts is appreciated.

I'm now experiencing this same issue, except only on the solar terminals - after Hurricane Ian shredded the sensor wire. Multimeter checks out the new sensor just fine, but when connected directly to the board, the read temperature skyrockets until I get "ERR" (meaning near zero resistance, i.e. a short). When it's not connected, the sensor reads around 85 (1k ohms, way too low resistance for nothing being connected). I'm wondering if the sensor wire being cut shorted them together and friend something on the board that senses them.

What did you end up doing to fix this? New board?