IntelliCenter Went Dark and Won't Power On

[pool512]

For a reason I can't discern, my IntelliCenter went dark yesterday afternoon and will not power on now. I have been troubleshooting what I can, but have reached the end of what I can figure out, and hoping for some guidance in further troubleshooting the issue.

• The breaker for the system board was tripped:
• The high-voltage breaker tests fine.
• The input and outputs of the transformer for the system tested fine.
• Testing the wires coming off the breaker, I get 27.3V on the 24 VAC wires (red) and 20.09V on the 18 VAC wires (orange).
• If I disconnect the system board, I can reset the breaker. If not, it pops again immediately (and I can't reset for +/- 9 seconds).
• I disconnected everything connected to the system board until it wasn't connected to anything but power, and it would still trip the low-voltage breaker.
  
• There is no visible damage, and the system is less than 2 years old.
• The ONLY thing I noticed at all odd was that one of the wires from my heater to the GHTR harness (which I believe controls calling for heat) had come loose and was not connected).

Any thoughts on next steps to try to troubleshoot would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,
Brian

 

[an1vrsy]

I will bump this for you. Get more eyes on your problem. I am assuming you hard reset prior to disassembling?

 

[pool512]

I will bump this for you. Get more eyes on your problem. I am assuming you hard reset prior to disassembling?

Yes I did. Thank you!

 

[ajw22]

• I disconnected everything connected to the system board until it wasn't connected to anything but power, and it would still trip the low-voltage breaker.

You did a fine job troubleshooting.

Your board needs to be replaced if the breaker trips with only the power cable attached to it.

Consider sending your bad board to @ogdento . As he has time he is trying to help figure out why IntelliCenter boards are failing and if there is anything we can do fore repairs.

 

[ogdento]

Ugh, as @ajw22 said, there's definitely an issue with your i5P but it could be the top or bottom board... (and they are not available except as a pair with a display)

- the "bottom" board (where the display is attached) is a little linux-based computer - think of a slow raspberry pi - that runs all the firmware and controls the outputs on the top board and any attached personality boards
- the "top" board (where all the connections are made) does a lot, including converts the 18vac input to 24vdc (for both the top/bottom boards), has the relay driver chips, the "160mA max" power supply for the wireless adapter, and also has another power supply that powers items connected to the comm port.

What I would try next - and this won't fix anything but it might tell us where the problem is - is separate the top/bottom boards (see link below for instructions) and then connect ONLY the power to the top board. If the breaker still blows then it's likely an issue with an on-board power supply or relay driver, and has a good chance of being repairable (the bottom board might still have a problem though)

Here is a link to @ajw22 's post about his blown intellicenter... it's got details on how to separate the top/bottom boards and how to power them (ignore my comment about watching the polarity - it doesn't really matter since we're going through a bridge rectifier)

Storm Blew Out IntelliCenter

TLDR - My IntelliCenter OCP was bricked by a storm and to get a parts I am considering buying a full new IntelliCenter bundle, keeping some parts, and selling the rest. I have been traveling the last few weeks. The IntelliCenter was left on its normal schedule running the VSF pump 24/7 and...

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[pool512]

Thank you for all the help and information @ajw22 and @ogdento! After a call to Pentair, they're sending out a tech to repair the Intellicenter under warranty, though this has me spooked about the quality and repairability of these things.

 

[ogdento]

you're welcome! and glad to hear they're going to get it sorted for you... keep the old one if you can because you never know what's still good on it.