IntelliFlo Wiring on EasyTouch Panel

[jimmyz80]

The house we moved into about six months ago has an EasyTouch panel, with an IntelliFlo, IntelliChlor, BoostRite, and 120V IntelliBrite lights managed by it. There have been a couple of times where the 20A GFCI breaker will trip, causing the pump to shut down. So far I've always been home to reset it, but I fear the day it happens while we're away on vacation and chlorine production comes to a halt.

I was doing some homework online to see if things were wired properly, and some of it seems a little fishy. Basically it is set up like this:
- EasyTouch panel has two breakers in it.
- One breaker is a 240V 20A Siemens GFCI. It has two sets of wires coming out of it. One set goes directly to the IntelliFlo, and the other set goes to the "Pool" relay. This pool relay appears to then feed power to the booster pump relay, and the IntelliChlor transformer. I assume this is to ensure neither of those operate without the IntelliFlo operating.
- The other breaker is a 120V 20A Cutler Hammer non-GFCI, again with two wires coming out of it. One wire goes to a GFCI outlet mounted on the side of the enclosure, which then feeds/protects the relay for the IntelliBrite lights. The other wire goes to the system transformer for the EasyTouch logic boards.

To me this seems a little weird for a few reasons.
- Double tapping circuit breakers is generally a bad thing unless they're listed for it. Pretty sure neither of these are.
- The IntelloFlo manual states that the pump should be on its own dedicated breaker.
- Having both the IntelliFlo and BoostRite on the same breaker seems bad, since I believe the max combined current draw would be ~21A (plus the tiny amount drawn by the IntelliChlor).
- Also not sure if the 20A GFCI breaker is plain old Siemens, or if it's the special Pentair branded version. Is there a way to tell?

My gut feeling is that I should:
1. Remove the second set of feed wires from the IntelliFlow breaker that go to the pool relay, and run them from a separate 240V 15A or 20A GFCI breaker. This would mean the IntelliChlor and BoostRite would be powered/protected by their own GFCI breaker, and the existing 20A GFCI breaker would ONLY power the IntelliFlo. The EasyTouch relay logic would be used to ensure the IntelliChlor and BoostRite don't operate without the IntelliFlo operating. But what happens if the IntelliFlo pops its breaker. Would those other two items continue to operate?

2. Remove the double tapped wiring from the 120V breaker, such that both the IntelliBrite transformer AND the EasyTouch logic boards would be protected by the external GFCI outlet.

Curious what everyone else thinks. Attached is a photo of the panel interior. To avoid any confusion, there are two hots (black and red) running to the pool lights. One for each light. Not sure why they did that, instead of just running a single hot and wire nutting together the two lights in the elevated junction box.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Jimmy,

The way your system is wired is really pretty normal, code or not..

My system has the IntelliFlo on its own breaker and nothing else..

I have another breaker that provides power to the Pump/Filter relay (What you are calling the Pool relay) and the Pump/filter relay provides power to the SWCG transformer. This is a requirement, the SWCG transformer must be powered by the pump/filter relay. This same relay could also provide power to a booster pump, but I live in this Century, and have a robot..

I would not wire the system transformer and the lights to the same GFCI.. Because if the lights pop the GFCI the system will shut down. The system transformer does not need GFCI protection anyway..

If your IntelliFlo keeps popping, I would invest in the Pentair GFCI breaker...

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Rocket J Squirrel]

The EasyTouch relay logic would be used to ensure the IntelliChlor and BoostRite don't operate without the IntelliFlo operating. But what happens if the IntelliFlo pops its breaker. Would those other two items continue to operate?

This is such a good question I decided to go test it. With both IntelliFlo and BoostRite running, I tripped the IntelliFlo breaker. The EasyTouch didn't notice and the BoostRite continued to run off its own breaker.

 

[jimmyz80]

Jim, thanks for confirming my setup is fairly common. It's so confusing since the filter pump is supposed to be on its own breaker, yet the SWCG should not be powered without the filter pump running. Rocket Squirrel confirmed that with these two on separate breakers, there's still a possibility of the SWCG operating with the filter pump breaker popped. It would be cool if the EasyTouch monitored the IntelliFlo RPM and shutdown the pump/filter relay if it was zero. Apparently that's not a thing though.

I just did some quick testing with a clamp meter, and even with the IntelliFlo at max RPM and the boost pump on, total current flow on the 20A breaker is only about 16A. During startup it peaks above 20 for a split second, but not long enough to thermally trip the breaker. None of my schedules have the IntelliFlo running anywhere near that speed anyway, so I'm guessing my breaker pops must be GFCI-related instead of overcurrent-related.

I guess I'll start by swapping out the GFCI breaker with a new one from Pentair and see if that helps. If not then I'll set up a separate breaker for the SWCG and boost pump, fed via the pump/filter relay.

 

[jimmyz80]

Made some changes today and also discovered something new in the process. Basically what I changed is:
1. Installed a Pentair-branded GFCI to power ONLY the IntelliFlo filter pump.
2. Repurposed the old Siemens GFCI to power the pump/filter relay, which as before feeds both the SWCG and booster pump relay.
3. Separated the double-tapped loads on the 120V non-GFCI breaker. Now the system transformer and the pool lights each have their own breaker.

What I discovered in the process is the opposite of what Rocket Squirrel had observed. I had both pumps running and then manually tripped the filter pump breaker. EasyTouch took a minute but finally realized the filter pump was offline. It put the boost pump back into delay status, so it would not be operating without the filter pump.

Since the SWCG takes itself offline via the flow switch, it seems like this will all work well. Fingers crossed that the new Pentair GFCI doesn't trip like the old one. I also discovered a few loose electrical connections (including the L1/L2 lugs), so I took the opportunity to torque those to spec before they caused any damage.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Jimmy,

Much too neat..... makes me look bad...

Looks like a pretty good job to me..

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Rocket J Squirrel]

What I discovered in the process is the opposite of what Rocket Squirrel had observed. I had both pumps running and then manually tripped the filter pump breaker. EasyTouch took a minute but finally realized the filter pump was offline. It put the boost pump back into delay status, so it would not be operating without the filter pump.

Good catch. I can confirm your finding. I simply didn't wait long enough when I tested this. It did take a full minute for the ET to react to the shutoff of the IntelliFlo. I am glad I was mistaken about this.