Intellivalve shuts off?

[jeremystitt]

Hello!

I have an Intellicenter panel connected to an intellivalve on the “Valve A” connection on the control panel. It diverts water to the cleaning system or the water feature in my pool.

This valve has worked great for a year, but recently when I turn on the water feature circuit, the valve appears to just turn off (all lights on the valve go dark). If I shut the ”water feature” circuit off, the valve comes back on. I find this very odd as I was under the assumption that toggling the “water feature” feature circuit would move the valve from the home position to the other set position (which I believe I have set correctly on the value).

Is this some sort of power malfunction? I can’t see anywhere in the Intellicenter portal where I could modify this behavoir and just wanted to check here before I paid someone to come out and have a look at it.

 

[ajw22]

That behavior is not correct and nothing in the IntelliCenter software should be shutting power to the valve.

Is that the only actuator in your system and that you have?

Are you comfortable doing diagnostics with a multimeter?

Is your equipment under warranty?

 

[jeremystitt]

Thanks for your reply ajw.

This is the only automatic actuator in my system.

I have used a multimeter before and understand that it could be used to determine if power is being sent over a line. I’d need to google some specifics about voltage etc.

My equipment was installed just over a year ago so I probably could make a case for warranty but would like to understand what the issue is so I can state my case clearly.

 

[ajw22]

I think you should make the warranty claim, describe what you know, and see where it goes.

The actuator socket in the IntelliCenter is tight and if you short pins while trying to test with your multimeter you can blow out things on the boards. It has to be done very carefully. Better if you let it be dealt with under warranty before you take it into your own hands.

 

[jeremystitt]

Just wanted to share an update in case anyone else had a similar issue. Eventually the valve shut off completely and would not operate by pushing buttons or from the control panel.

To be sure it was the valve, I moved the connector over to “valve B” connector on the circuit board but that did not have any affect and the valve remained dead.

Unfortunately the valve was out of warranty so instead of spending the $400 for a new one, I bought a cheaper actuator for $200 that plugged right into my IntelliCenter panel and everything worked as expected.

Turned out the valve was bad. Disappointing because it wasn’t old and there was no reason for it to go bad but stuff happens I suppose. Hopefully this will help someone else later on.