Intellivalve failures

[Ahultin]

So last week two microbrites failed, I have a warranty claim pending on those. This morning while checking levels the app reported my intelichor, mastertemp and Second pump all offline. I shut everything down and attempted a reboot which did not work and I had to leave. Came back this evening and they are still offline and now two of the 5 intellivalves are flashing all lights

Not sure if there is anything more I can do short of calling pentair on Monday. Any suggestions?

 

[Ahultin]

Dug into this further for troubleshooting.
The rs485 was daisychained from the i10ps to the ic40 com board to a comm extension board. I rerouted the chain to the expansion board first then the ic40 comm board and that brought my water feature pump and master temp back online. The ic40 is still out as are two of the intellivalves.
The ic40 is controllable thru the intelliph, so it is still working (and I pressume the comm to it)

 

[Jimrahbe]

A,

The IntelliValves are not controlled via the RS-485 com port.

I have no experience with the new IntelliValves, but they only get 24 VAC inputs. Seems like just rebooting the system would have reset them.

I suggest that you unplug your IC40 from the iPh and see if it works when plugged into the bottom of the Automation panel.

The RS-485 bus does not really care how the wires are connected as long at every device is on the bus. They can all be connected to the same port assuming you could cram all the wires into the same connector. The different connections are just there to make the connections easier.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[guinness]

The IntelliValves are not controlled via the RS-485 com port.

Technically that's true, but OP should confirm that IntelliValve yellow/green wires aren't connected to the IntelliCenter.

 

[Ahultin]

Technically that's true, but OP should confirm that IntelliValve yellow/green wires aren't connected to the IntelliCenter.

That is actually correct, both of the malfunctioning intellivalves where in fact connected (and are the only two that had been connected thus far) to the spot on the expansion card designated for them. Disconnecting those wires and rebooting restored the ic40 connection but did not restore function of those intellivalves.

 

[bradgray]

That is actually correct, both of the malfunctioning intellivalves where in fact connected (and are the only two that had been connected thus far) to the spot on the expansion card designated for them. Disconnecting those wires and rebooting restored the ic40 connection but did not restore function of those intellivalves.

To confirm, the yellow and green from the Intellivalve were previously connected? When you say "spot designated" I'm confused because there is no spot for those yellow and green wires from the intellivalve. The standard black terminal is all that's used to operate those.

Also confirming if "all lights" means status lights or also the diverter position leds?

 

[Ahultin]

To confirm, the yellow and green from the Intellivalve were previously connected? When you say "spot designated" I'm confused because there is no spot for those yellow and green wires from the intellivalve. The standard black terminal is all that's used to operate those.

Also confirming if "all lights" means status lights or also the diverter position leds?

I have a serial comport expansion board, 520818, it does indeed have 6 2 port headers labeled intellivalve and 2 of my 5 intellivalves had the yellow and green wires landed here (hoping for future use on the 2 that would benefit from intermediary positioning)
All lights on is all status leds as well as position leds

 

[bradgray]

I have a serial comport expansion board, 520818, it does indeed have 6 2 port headers labeled intellivalve and 2 of my 5 intellivalves had the yellow and green wires landed here (hoping for future use on the 2 that would benefit from intermediary positioning)
All lights on is all status leds as well as position leds
View attachment 465070 View attachment 465068

Yessir. I'm familiar with the board but I'm gonna have to admit I've never installed, nor even seen, an intellivalve set up on those terminals.

It appears you are indeed familiar with the nature of those wires. As far as I'm aware, they're still useless pending a firmware update.

The Intellivalves come with the same black 3-pin connector as the legacy actuators and plug into the same terminals as the legacy actuators. The yellow and green wires aren't terminated and are strapped to the side of the cord; I'm intrigued by yours with the white terminal block.

I've never used them differently than a legacy actuator, so I think I'm prepared to sit at the desk and wait for a professor to arrive.

I often like to think I'm smarter than I am. But I'll happily be educated on this if any of the excellent veteran contributors have more experience with these.

 

[MyAZPool]

I have all six of my IntelliValves connected to the RS-485 bus via the Pentair Serial COM Port Expansion board without any functionality problems to my IntelliValves.
Pentair Serial COM Expansion Board



However, the 5-position feature of the IntelliValves will NOT function until Pentair releases the applicable firmware update.

That firmware update is reported now to occur in two phases (Phase I - adding RS-485 support on both the actuator side and IntelliCenter side and Phase II. - more advanced valve controls added to IntelliCenter features.)
Completion of Phase I should occur sometime after this next IntelliCenter firmware update (coming soon) and Phase II completion around Q4 of 2023. It's reported that IntelliValve support is the next major project for the software dev team after this next update.
So keep your fingers crossed.
r.

 

[Jimrahbe]

I "assume" that connecting the IntelliValves to the connections on the expansion card connects the valves to the RS-485 bus whether they are used or not. The problem is that if one of the RS-485 chips in one of the valves goes bad, it could stop the whole bus from working.

If they update the valves to work (I would not hold my breath) it makes sense to have them connected to the bus. Until then, I would not connect them to the bus.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Ahultin]

I have all six of my IntelliValves connected to the RS-485 bus via the Pentair Serial COM Port Expansion board without any functionality problems to my IntelliValves.
Pentair Serial COM Expansion Board

View attachment 465236

However, the 5-position feature of the IntelliValves will NOT function until Pentair releases the applicable firmware update.

That firmware update is reported now to occur in two phases (Phase I - adding RS-485 support on both the actuator side and IntelliCenter side and Phase II. - more advanced valve controls added to IntelliCenter features.)
Completion of Phase I should occur sometime after this next IntelliCenter firmware update (coming soon) and Phase II completion around Q4 of 2023. It's reported that IntelliValve support is the next major project for the software dev team after this next update.
So keep your fingers crossed.
r.

That makes me feel good lol. I am awaiting contact by the warranty guy pentair sends out so "just in case" I disconnected both from the rs485 bus as I don't want some nom-standard no warranty bs lol. I'm told they are sending him 2 intellivalves as well as a replacement board just in case.

 

[Ahultin]

Yessir. I'm familiar with the board but I'm gonna have to admit I've never installed, nor even seen, an intellivalve set up on those terminals.

It appears you are indeed familiar with the nature of those wires. As far as I'm aware, they're still useless pending a firmware update.

The Intellivalves come with the same black 3-pin connector as the legacy actuators and plug into the same terminals as the legacy actuators. The yellow and green wires aren't terminated and are strapped to the side of the cord; I'm intrigued by yours with the white terminal block.

I've never used them differently than a legacy actuator, so I think I'm prepared to sit at the desk and wait for a professor to arrive.

I often like to think I'm smarter than I am. But I'll happily be educated on this if any of the excellent veteran contributors have more experience with these.

The white connectors are standard jst-xh 2 position male plugs with the metal connectors crimped onto the bare green and yellow wires

 

[Ahultin]

@MyAZPool , I was looking at your photo and noticed that your intellivalve rs485 wires land green right and yellow left. I thought when we put mine together we followed the traces on the expansion card to be green left yellow right. Curious if it makes a difference and could have created the issue?

 

[MyAZPool]

@MyAZPool , I was looking at your photo and noticed that your intellivalve rs485 wires land green right and yellow left. I thought when we put mine together we followed the traces on the expansion card to be green left yellow right. Curious if it makes a difference and could have created the issue?

Well, I had the same question when installing coz there are no indications on the front of the board which is green and which is yellow on those JST connectors that I can remember now.
So I traced the solder lines on the back of the card. I traced the lines from the jst connections on the top of the board to the terminal screw connections on the bottom of the board. I then installed the green and the yellow wires accordingly.
However, there's certainly the chance that I goofed the whole thing up.
I did actually tap into one of my IntelliValve's RS-485 connections while using the same green/yellow methodology when several of us were "grooting" those actuators (trying to send the IntelliValve commands and trying to get it to respond to those commands). I had the green and yellow wires the same and nothing ever started "smoking" or anything.

Guess I'll leave it like so for now until some instructions come out. And like you said, I'm not even sure whether or not it even matters.
r.
p.s. I think if it were me, I'd just leave them disconnected like @Jimrahbe suggested until such time as you need them. Especially with warranty service coming over. They might try to blame the failure on you coz those wires were connected prematurely. Who knows.

 

[Ahultin]

r.
p.s. I think if it were me, I'd just leave them disconnected like @Jimrahbe suggested until such time as you need them. Especially with warranty service coming over. They might try to blame the failure on you coz those wires were connected prematurely. Who knows.

Yup, assuming that the warranty guy will just be replacing them not trying to fix them, I cut the connectors off and wrapped the wires back up as if it never happened lol

 

[rstrouse]

The answer to swapping the green/yellow wire is yes it can make a difference since all the signals from the IntelliValve will be inverted and message from other things will be as well. IntelliValve periodically announces itself with what we call "I am Groot". This is because when we first looked at it, no matter what you send to it, it always seemed to send the same message back. However, if you invert the bits then it is a completely different, random, and valid message. This also means that other equipment can send commands that might be valid on that bus but mean something completely different.

Also if one of the messages on the bus contains enough valid bytes to start a firmware upload you will get the valve smiley face or the watermelon if you are hungry. I've made a valve or two smile at me but it took a couple hundred million messages the first time. The second one I managed to get right away with the same sequence.

 

[MyAZPool]

The answer to swapping the green/yellow wire is yes it can make a difference since all the signals from the IntelliValve will be inverted and message from other things will be as well. IntelliValve periodically announces itself with what we call "I am Groot". This is because when we first looked at it, no matter what you send to it, it always seemed to send the same message back. However, if you invert the bits then it is a completely different, random, and valid message. This also means that other equipment can send commands that might be valid on that bus but mean something completely different.

Also if one of the messages on the bus contains enough valid bytes to start a firmware upload you will get the valve smiley face or the watermelon if you are hungry. I've made a valve or two smile at me but it took a couple hundred million messages the first time. The second one I managed to get right away with the same sequence.

Good to know. That answers that question.
Thanks much!