Intellichlor connection to Intellicenter

[soleen]

I am converting my Intellicenter to include Intellichlor. To do this, I bought the card below.

It has three 4-pin connectors. Which one should I use to connect to my board? What is the difference between them? Why would I need more than one, when the card that is a standalone Intellichlor power supply only has one 4-pin connector?

 

[Jimrahbe]

S,

Why?

When the IntelliCenter does not come with a salt cell, you just add the external power center, You wire the AC power going to the power center to the load side of the Pump/Filter relay and then you wire the 4-pin com port on the surge card in the power center to the com port on the main card in the IntelliCenter,

You do not need the new card.

If you are trying to put the power center inside the IntelliCenter you need a lot more than just the surge card.

The two extra 4-pin connectors are just additional places to connect things to the RS-485 com port. They do not 'need' to be used.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[soleen]

S,

Why?

When the IntelliCenter does not come with a salt cell, you just add the external power center, You wire the AC power going to the power center to the load side of the Pump/Filter relay and then you wire the 4-pin com port on the surge card in the power center to the com port on the main card in the IntelliCenter,

You do not need the new card.

If you are trying to put the power center inside the IntelliCenter you need a lot more than just the surge card.

The two extra 4-pin connectors are just additional places to connect things to the RS-485 com port. They do not 'need' to be used.

Thanks,

Jim R.

I understand, that I need more than the surge card. I already purchased and installed a transformer, and Pentair 520724 cable. For aesthetic reasons, I wanted to reduce the number of external boxes (the rational may sound stupid to others but here I am ).

All pictures that I found on the internet that include this board have something connected to one of these extra 4-pin ports (three different sources, see pictures below). But, I see no information about it in the documentation how these should be used. This is not like we can extend the number of RS-485 com ports with these connections, right? What exactly is wired there?

 

[soleen]

I think, these extra ports can indeed be used as regular Serial COM Port extensions to the main board. Based on the way COM Port expansion board is wired through one COM Port.

http://www.backyardpoolsuperstore.com/assets/images/PDFs/OwnersManuals/Pentair520818OwnersManual.pdf

That is interesting, thank you for the help.

 

[Jimrahbe]

S,

The three 4-wire connections are all connected together. They are just different places to connect to the same RS-485 com port..

In most cases a 4-wire cable is connected between com port on the main card in the automation, and one of the 4-pin connectors on the surge card. It can connect to any of the 3 connections. This means that the other two connections can now be used to connect to the com port.

As an example..

The main card is connect to the surge card
This connects the com port to the SWCG.
The other two connections can be use to connect the pump to the com port, or anything else that needs the RX-485 control.

Keep in mind there is just one com port, but there can be many places to connect to it.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[soleen]

Keep in mind there is just one com port, but there can be many places to connect to it.

Thank you for your help. This is exactly what confused me!