Intex SWG - Dreaded 91 Low Salt Code

[LandCruiser]

My Intex ECO5110/26667EG (up to 7000g) SWG has been installed for about 3-4 months. It's undersized for my pool but was doing the job fine at 6-8 hours a day runtime keeping my pool crystal clear until it wasn't and I dealt with my first SLAM using 4 gallons of bleach from cloudy water (assume algae).

I've tested my Salt with a Taylor K2006-SALT test kit and it registers 3400PPM and I validated with Salt test strips which read about 3150.

So, I will say my Taylor test kit was registering 3800ppm previously when it was working but I disregarded the results because I was new to testing and the salt test is particularly sensitive to the water volume for the test.

Additional info, when the relay kicks on, the titanium electrode plug registers 13v output and 11.5v when connected to the electrode running (not fully seated so I can put probes on the plate posts).

The ECO plate plug is registering 14v when unplugged and like 5v when plug is backed off enough to touch posts with probes.

Thoughts? I don't really want to add salt at this point, my ladder is already rusting big time!!!

So, can I assume the plates are bad and which one? I have searched and can't find a definitive on which voltage the control board uses for "low salt" voltage. The ECO has the bigger drop in voltage but I have no idea if it's really important to chlorine production or this error.

Lastly, unfortunately I did try cleaning per the manual with straight cooking vinegar poured into the electrode tube and sat for an hour. It wasn't until AFTER I cleaned it that I ever saw the low salt error, only reason I cleaned it was because I didn't think it was working since my FC was always low (probably from the cloudy/algae water?). I never saw an error before turning it off for the SLAM!

 

[kwfiggatt]

I had a similar situation at the start of the year. Mine's an 8110, I believe. Apparently, these are somewhat dumb systems and the only judge salt level by measuring the current being pulled through the system, assuming that the voltage that's coming out of the transformer is constant and that the conductivity of the titanium electrodes do not change over time. These two assumptions lead to the low and high salt errors that everyone has been having with these systems, as the titanium plates appear to change over time. A smarter design would be to actively control the current being fed to the SWG cell.

Here's my thread where I pulled mine apart and wired the board up to an external power supply (variac in my case). intex repair

I've been using this all summer and it has been keeping my pool clean, but have had to replace the main 10 amp fuse on the circuit board a few times, as I got a little bit ambitious on the voltage and current. Now, I aim for ~4.5 amps current when it is running, and it seems to work well. I have my on time set for 12 hours per day and the pool looks fabulous.

Since yours is a smaller system, your max amperage may be less. Look at the main fuse on the board and see what the rating is. This should give you an idea as to the max amperage setting that you can use with the cell that you have.

If I had to do this again, I'd get an adjustable 10 amp DC power supply (instead of the variable AC supply that I used) and set it up for constant current of ~8 amps, which means all that it would feed the board is 8 amps. I would wire the DC power supply up directly to the board's DC input terminals and skip using the rectifier that is with the swg system. This should eliminate the fuse blowing situation that I've had. Here's a link to an adjustable power supply that you could use --> power supply

Hope this helps!

Kevin

 

[kwfiggatt]

Looking through my reply above, let me restate the problem with these systems. The low salt code is caused by the controller not measuring enough current (amps) flowing through the system out to the titanium salt chlorinator electrodes. The ECO electrodes on these systems do not cause a "low salt" code, based on my experience.

 

[Backyard Dreams in NYC]

I went through something similar w our ECO5110 before (and the cause of) my current FC problem. Full disclosure, I didn’t do anything as in depth and sophisticated as you with electrode troubleshooting.
According to Intex (and I spent hours on the phone with them), when you get 91 and your salt is not low, the titanium electrode is bad. If your system is <1yr old, they’ll replace the electrode under warranty. If not, you can buy one from them online.

If after you replace the titanium electrode and still getting error messages (in our case we started getting 92), Intex will tell you to replace the control panel, which they’ll do under warranty if it’s <2yrs old, or if not, you can buy online.

After replacing both of these parts we stopped getting error messages! Unfortunately, during the 6+ wks of no functioning SWG (and apparently inadequate manual chlorination) something started growing in the pool… Thanks to TFP for supporting me to turn it around

 

[Backyard Dreams in NYC]

I went through something similar w our ECO5110 before (and the cause of) my current FC problem. Full disclosure, I didn’t do anything as in depth and sophisticated as you with electrode troubleshooting.
According to Intex (and I spent hours on the phone with them), when you get 91 and your salt is not low, the titanium electrode is bad. If your system is <1yr old, they’ll replace the electrode under warranty. If not, you can buy one from them online.

If after you replace the titanium electrode and still getting error messages (in our case we started getting 92), Intex will tell you to replace the control panel, which they’ll do under warranty if it’s <2yrs old, or if not, you can buy online.

After replacing both of these parts we stopped getting error messages! Unfortunately, during the 6+ wks of no functioning SWG (and apparently inadequate manual chlorination) something started growing in the pool… Thanks to TFP for supporting me to turn it around

PS Supposedly the ECO electrode is for bonus oxidation, but not involved in chlorine generation. The titanium electrode has multiple plates and supposedly all of the chlorine generation occurs within that one electrode

 

[LandCruiser]

Thank you both for the replies. I've seen both your threads and @Backyard Dreams in NYC , I previously replied to your thread being that it was so close to my experience (degradation of the cell causing an outbreak in the water).

If the ECO cell isn't involved with chlorination then I guess I won't worry about it but it has a huge voltage drop from the 14v that is coming from the plug down to 5v when the plug is engaged on the posts with my meter on them too. This seems suspect.

I also used to see more bubbles coming from the ECO plate as the water moved over to the titanium chlorination plates that I don't see anymore. To me, it seems like the ECO cell is bad, I still see plenty of bubbles off the larger titanium chlorination plates.

Intex is sending me a new titanium cell so we shall see. As a humorous aside, when the CS person asked for my model, I told her it was a 26667EG and she's like "that's not any model number for a SWG", she of course wanted the ECO5110 that is not the referenced model when you are purchasing at most online retailers. So low and behold on the warranty claim page, what does Intex reference as the model? 26667EG...

 

[CT-Steven]

I have the same issue and I on my 2nd season with it. I Googled it and there are a few videos showing how to hardwire and bypass the system allowing it to just continuously make chlorine. I would not recommend doing this unless you are comfortable with working with electronics and electricity. I am hoping to baby this thing along until the end of the season where, it will go up for sale and I will be purchasing a CircuPool which will be more inline with my equipment since I have moved to industry standards.

 

[Backyard Dreams in NYC]

Thank you both for the replies. I've seen both your threads and @Backyard Dreams in NYC , I previously replied to your thread being that it was so close to my experience (degradation of the cell causing an outbreak in the water).

If the ECO cell isn't involved with chlorination then I guess I won't worry about it but it has a huge voltage drop from the 14v that is coming from the plug down to 5v when the plug is engaged on the posts with my meter on them too. This seems suspect.

I also used to see more bubbles coming from the ECO plate as the water moved over to the titanium chlorination plates that I don't see anymore. To me, it seems like the ECO cell is bad, I still see plenty of bubbles off the larger titanium chlorination plates.

Intex is sending me a new titanium cell so we shall see. As a humorous aside, when the CS person asked for my model, I told her it was a 26667EG and she's like "that's not any model number for a SWG", she of course wanted the ECO5110 that is not the referenced model when you are purchasing at most online retailers. So low and behold on the warranty claim page, what does Intex reference as the model? 26667EG...

thank you, LandCruiser, have appreciated your input in my thread.

I’ve had a few good CS reps there, but mostly terrible ones. And the hold time is awful (2 or 3 times it was literally over 3 hrs, and then no call back when we got disconnected. thank goodness for WFH… if you call as close as possible to 1130a ET when they open, there’s little to no wait). Seems they have some basic algorithm, but have no knowledge of how any of their equipment works, even the supervisors. They replaced my titanium electrode under warranty, but sent a faulty one apparently and then would not replace that. Supervisor was involved and wouldn’t budge— miserable experience.

I haven’t been able to find much good info about the ECO electrode other than the above. Seems it clearly is not involved in chlorine generation, but I share your suspicion/?curiosity re it’s purpose. Btw it’s currently out of stock anyway. If you find out more about it, please share

 

[kwfiggatt]

Land cruiser, you might try unplugging the ECO cell and try to run the chlorinator without it if you're getting that much voltage drop across it. The Eco cell may be pulling the transformer voltage down and be causing the "low salt" condition.

 

[CT-Steven]

Question... What is the ECO plate, where is it, and what does it look like?

 

[LandCruiser]

Land cruiser, you might try unplugging the ECO cell and try to run the chlorinator without it if you're getting that much voltage drop across it. The Eco cell may be pulling the transformer voltage down and be causing the "low salt" condition.

I tried this, it still caused a low salt code.

 

[kwfiggatt]

Question... What is the ECO plate, where is it, and what does it look like?

Its a "copper ion" celll that intex puts on some of their SWG's. It is supposed to help with sanitation. I guess their systems aren't robust enough to sanitize from chlorine alone... Its located in the same housing that the SWG cell is located. I've noticed that mine draws~ 0.5 amp when the relay clicks on and that the copper plates are a bit pitted, so I guess it is doing something.

 

[kwfiggatt]

Since you have a new cell coming from Intex, I guess that's your next step. If that doesn't fix it, you could hook up an external power supply to the board as I did, and I would think that'd fix it. I would go with a current limited DC supply - link above. I could walk you through hooking it up if you'd like...

 

[LandCruiser]

Its a "copper ion" celll that intex puts on some of their SWG's. It is supposed to help with sanitation. I guess their systems aren't robust enough to sanitize from chlorine alone... Its located in the same housing that the SWG cell is located. I've noticed that mine draws~ 0.5 amp when the relay clicks on and that the copper plates are a bit pitted, so I guess it is doing something.

I think that was on the older Intex units? Side doesn't look like copper on mine.

Also, I got the titanium cell replacement, installed and zero issues with low salt error. I'm getting 10.2v across it measured the same way. So less volts than the old one?

 

[Backyard Dreams in NYC]

No idea about the voltage question, but thrilled to hear that replacing the electrode seems to have done the trick, as long as you’re producing FC too. Congratulations. Enjoy