Is my Intellichlor screwed?

[pcirullo]

I have an Intellichlor IC-60 that is in it's second year of life and was working well until recently. Earlier this season, I was getting a "low salt" warning consistently where it was reading about 2800 ppm. Measurement with a separate calibrated salinity meter was reading 3600-3700 ppm at the same time. The Intellichlor reading kept dipping into the 2600 ppm range where it would shut off chlorine production. OK, so from reading TFP forums, I suspected that the thermistor in my flow sensor was failing. I looked into the wires leading from my flow sensor to my IC-60; It is a 3-wire arrangement with a shared ground, so I cut the white wire from the thermistor leading the IC-60 to use a default temperature in its calculation of salinity. That worked really well and I had chlorine production for several weeks.

The real problem started about a week ago, when my IC-60 showed no lights at all and no response to button presses. I suspected a dead fuse in the Power Center, but guess what??? On opening the Power Center, the green power light is on and a voltmeter confirms that it is producing 24 volts (on the low side, but the manual does give a normal operating output voltage of 22-36 v). I'm using liquid chlorine via Stenner pump in the meantime, but am I screwed here?

Is there anything else I can do to troubleshoot this or is it just dead?

Is this how it is with Intellichlor products? They are way overpriced and fail after a year or 2. I had only 20% of its lifetime used before it failed. Did my cutting the thermistor wire contribute in any way?


Thanks,

PC

 

[Jimrahbe]

PC,

I doubt that cutting the white wire has anything to do with your current problem. More likely low voltage from the Power Center, or maybe a lightning hit.

The Cell gets about 35 to 40 volts DC from the Power Center and the cell regulates that down to whatever it uses to run the lights and the rest of the cell.

Could be your Surge card is bad and not providing enough DC power to the cell, or it could be the cell has gone bad.

I've had great luck with my three pools that all have IntelliChlor SWCGs. I've had to replace two of them in the last couple of years. One was over 9 years old and the other was over 7 years. The one on my pool is over 5 years old and (Knock on wood) will last another few years.

The average life span of an IntelliChlor is 5 to 7 years, but that means some die sooner and some later.

Let us know if you also have the iPh acid feeder which is known to cause issue with the Power Center.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[mknauss]

Check your warranty status. Intellichlor has a two year warranty if a replacement cell.

 

[pcirullo]

Jim,

Thanks for the response. I'm not aware of any nearby lightning activity and I haven't had any other home electrical problems, but 24 volts does sound like a low value. I don't have an acid feeder and I adjust the pH manually with muriatic acid. It looks like I'm going to be replacing both the IC-60 and the power center, but it kills me to call my pool service company to do it.

Thanks,

PC

 

[pcirullo]

That's really good to know about the 2 year warranty. Do you think that cutting the thermistor wire would invalidate the warranty?

PC

 

[mknauss]

Just splice it back together before they visit. More likely is they may just send you a replacement cell and you install it. Very easy to do.