Intex SWG Service Light - Fixed!

[mpower36]

I have an Intex CS8111 SWG that's been running great for years, but this year after about 3 weeks of running fine, the service light came on and the pump shut down. Cycling the power caused the pump to turn on and the 'Working' light to illuminate, but after about 1 minute, it would shut down and the service light would come back on. Manual says that means the input voltage is low. I confirmed that I have 121 VAC at the outlet, so the house voltage isn't the problem. I can run the unit in FP mode, so I added some liquid chlorine to the pool so it wouldn't turn green while I figured this out.

I have an old CS8111 that has a bad transformer, so I have parts that I can swap. I swapped the electrolytic cell, but same issue. Just to verify the cell was good, while the pump was running in FP mode, I connected by car battery charger to the posts on the cell. The plates started producing chlorine bubbles immediately, so the cell is good. With the unit put back in order, I checked the voltage to the cell from the controller and measured 9.4 VDC. I'm not sure why 9.4 VDC won't generate chlorine, but it won't.

I opened up the control unit and hot-wired the cell directly to the 12 VDC screws on the board essentially bypassing the board. Same problem. Turns out this was a waste of time, but it eliminated the control board as a potential cause, so it couldn't be solder joints, blown fuses, or other board issues. Next I swapped the rectifier with the one from my old unit and measured the DC output to be 13.4 VDC. I put everything back in order, and it worked. Nice bubbles coming off the plates as before.


So the Intex manual is somewhat correct. The board was correctly sensing low voltage, but rather than the cause being the household voltage, it was low voltage after the transformer and the rectifier. Fortunately, I had a rectifier on-hand from my old unit, but if this is your problem, you can buy a new one on Amazon for about $5.

I saw lots of great fixes for problems with these SWGs, but none of the symptoms were quite like mine, so I hope this helps the next guy.

 

[Texas Splash]

Wow. You really cracked the code on that one. Congrats. Thanks for sharing.

 

[guywithchickens]

I'll pile on with my solution. My SWG (CS8110) is more than 5 years old (maybe 8?). This year it gave me the red service light. After lots of poking around with the multimeter, I determined it wasn't providing any voltage to the chlorine generating plates. Rectifier and power supply were OK. These two components had corroded and lost connection (red arrows in picture). I desoldered the screw post from the board, added a short wire and resoldered. The capacitor (bottom arrow) had lost one of it's posts to corrosion so I scavenged one from another unused Intex pump and soldered it on. Works fine now.

 

[Chewer25]

I have an Intex CS8111 SWG that's been running great for years, but this year after about 3 weeks of running fine, the service light came on and the pump shut down. Cycling the power caused the pump to turn on and the 'Working' light to illuminate, but after about 1 minute, it would shut down and the service light would come back on. Manual says that means the input voltage is low. I confirmed that I have 121 VAC at the outlet, so the house voltage isn't the problem. I can run the unit in FP mode, so I added some liquid chlorine to the pool so it wouldn't turn green while I figured this out.

I have an old CS8111 that has a bad transformer, so I have parts that I can swap. I swapped the electrolytic cell, but same issue. Just to verify the cell was good, while the pump was running in FP mode, I connected by car battery charger to the posts on the cell. The plates started producing chlorine bubbles immediately, so the cell is good. With the unit put back in order, I checked the voltage to the cell from the controller and measured 9.4 VDC. I'm not sure why 9.4 VDC won't generate chlorine, but it won't.

I opened up the control unit and hot-wired the cell directly to the 12 VDC screws on the board essentially bypassing the board. Same problem. Turns out this was a waste of time, but it eliminated the control board as a potential cause, so it couldn't be solder joints, blown fuses, or other board issues. Next I swapped the rectifier with the one from my old unit and measured the DC output to be 13.4 VDC. I put everything back in order, and it worked. Nice bubbles coming off the plates as before.
View attachment 106285

So the Intex manual is somewhat correct. The board was correctly sensing low voltage, but rather than the cause being the household voltage, it was low voltage after the transformer and the rectifier. Fortunately, I had a rectifier on-hand from my old unit, but if this is your problem, you can buy a new one on Amazon for about $5.

I saw lots of great fixes for problems with these SWGs, but none of the symptoms were quite like mine, so I hope this helps the next guy.

Do you happen to have a link to the rectifier on amazon? I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I am having this same problem. They sent me a 2nd motor and that one has the light coming on also.... I checked with a digital meter and I have 121V at my outlet...

 

[markayash]

Do you happen to have a link to the rectifier on amazon? I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I am having this same problem. They sent me a 2nd motor and that one has the light coming on also.... I checked with a digital meter and I have 121V at my outlet...

I like seeing people still fix things, seems too many people today just throw it away and buy a new one.

 

[mpower36]

Do you happen to have a link to the rectifier on amazon? I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I am having this same problem. They sent me a 2nd motor and that one has the light coming on also.... I checked with a digital meter and I have 121V at my outlet...

I would look at the numbers on your rectifier. Like I said, I didn't buy one, I just swapped one from my old unit. If I had to guess, it would be one like this: Amazon.com: 400V 25A AC to DC Bridge Rectifier (KBPC2504) Boxiti: Automotive

 

[RRack]

Just another possibility to share. I have one of the large box SWG with the ozonator. Think it’s zs8230. I had to hot wire the plates early last season because intex had no parts available. I’ve discovered that the epoxy sealing the cap breaks away from the plates and plastic from all the wiggling to remove the darn things to clean them. Be sure to grease up the o-rings. Anyway, I finally managed to order two new electrode plates and after rewiring back to where everything should be, I got no power at all to the plate leads an the service light. Rectifier and all posts looked good until I found a blown 10A fuse. I soldered a cheap line fuse to the board and it’s running like new with the new plates! I’ve since upgraded the fuse and still going strong. Hope it helps someone.

 

[aviator79]

Figured post here even though old thread rather than make a new one..

Just fixed mine (I think) Was a missing capacitor at c13 by the terminals top left in first pic.

It is a 100uf 50v. Soldered new one on with negative lead toward terminals. Removed bad terminal forks, soldered new ones on. Had to drill out screws. Replaced with some self tapping screws.

Getting low salt warning now vs red service light. It is making chlorine until get low salt warning. Adding salt and testing water. Started at 800ppm. Added 320lb which was too much. Getting 2000ppm now which is low but should be higher so not adding more as it is15'x30' oval ~4' deep so ~ 10k gallons. Think its working...just waiting for rest of salt to dissolve as am still scooping some up with net just not enough to make sense. Idk if other reason for low ppm like algae. Added gallon shock and has gone from dark green to lighter green/slight blue. Will keep working on it. Also just order new electrolight housing as mine is leaking. Will need many backflushes so if salt ends up high can get it down. We will see...

Ok just took reading only 10 drops says 2400ppm but system now staying on and not going to low salt warning. So yes did fix it. Maybe the pool is more than 10k gallons. From chart i see that For each 2000g needs 50lb to raise 3000ppm so still makes no sense that ik so low. Can always add more salt once I'm sure but suspect ppm will keep rising given how much salt already added.

 

[visitor]

We're getting the red service light on an Intex 26679EG combo pump/SWG when the chlorinator is activated. The pump runs fine and we have our old independent SWG temporarily running after the pump, but would prefer to have the combo unit working as it should.
So far, the rectifier reads good and the leads out to the electrodes test good & not shorted.
There is a short between CL+ & CL- at the board:

i haven't got past this point testing other components, but thanks for the help with your posts/pics and any suggestions for where to proceed from here.

 

[aviator79]

Pull the whole circuit board out. I cant tell from pic if anything wrong and that CB looks different than mine but I would suspect a bad capacitor or something just like I had.

 

[visitor]

Pull the whole circuit board out. I cant tell from pic if anything wrong and that CB looks different than mine but I would suspect a bad capacitor or something just like I had.

As it sits, the relays from CL+ & CL- both have continuity to the throws that are soldered on the back side of the board to a bar that connects them both to GND , so i don't know that what i called a "short" isn't normal for this setup, just the relays in their rest status.

Whatever is causing it to go into "service" mode is likely happening when the relays are energized to their other positions and this isn't going to be a simple problem to run down with my little ohm meter.
There are no obvious physically corroded, loose or missing components that i can see and the board & connections appear clean, for whatever that's worth...

 

[HaleJ]

I diagnosed my chlorinator before finding this thread but I did narrow it down to the 100uf 50volt capacitor on mine being dryed out and not feeding voltage to the 5 volt relay. replaced it with one out of an old tv power supply that was the same value and it works perfect again. Took me a bit of trouble shooting to find it though.

 

[littlebitey]

I have an Intex CS8111 SWG that's been running great for years, but this year after about 3 weeks of running fine, the service light came on and the pump shut down. Cycling the power caused the pump to turn on and the 'Working' light to illuminate, but after about 1 minute, it would shut down and the service light would come back on. Manual says that means the input voltage is low. I confirmed that I have 121 VAC at the outlet, so the house voltage isn't the problem. I can run the unit in FP mode, so I added some liquid chlorine to the pool so it wouldn't turn green while I figured this out.

I have an old CS8111 that has a bad transformer, so I have parts that I can swap. I swapped the electrolytic cell, but same issue. Just to verify the cell was good, while the pump was running in FP mode, I connected by car battery charger to the posts on the cell. The plates started producing chlorine bubbles immediately, so the cell is good. With the unit put back in order, I checked the voltage to the cell from the controller and measured 9.4 VDC. I'm not sure why 9.4 VDC won't generate chlorine, but it won't.

I opened up the control unit and hot-wired the cell directly to the 12 VDC screws on the board essentially bypassing the board. Same problem. Turns out this was a waste of time, but it eliminated the control board as a potential cause, so it couldn't be solder joints, blown fuses, or other board issues. Next I swapped the rectifier with the one from my old unit and measured the DC output to be 13.4 VDC. I put everything back in order, and it worked. Nice bubbles coming off the plates as before.
View attachment 106285

So the Intex manual is somewhat correct. The board was correctly sensing low voltage, but rather than the cause being the household voltage, it was low voltage after the transformer and the rectifier. Fortunately, I had a rectifier on-hand from my old unit, but if this is your problem, you can buy a new one on Amazon for about $5.

I saw lots of great fixes for problems with these SWGs, but none of the symptoms were quite like mine, so I hope this helps the next guy.

Attempting the rectifier swap out and two connections (red/black) don’t pull easily off the old rectifier. Do I need to cut and replace these connections or am I missing something simple?