Issues with Scheduling

[goherd90]

I just moved into a home that has a pentair ET system. For some reason I cannot get my LIGHTS to turn on as a SCHEDULE. I have successfully set up the spa to go on 7 - 10 AM and then pool 10-7 but when I try and schedule my lights to go on they don't turn on. I'm sure its USER error but any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[mknauss]

Welcome to the forum!
What model of lights do you have?
Make sure the Circuit you have designated as Lights has the proper Circuit Function for the light you have.
Just select Lights when scheduling.
Do you use the spa every day so that is why you have it scheduled?
I suggest you read through Pool Care Basics - Trouble Free Pool and even look at a few of our videos TFP-TV - Trouble Free Pool

 

[Jimrahbe]

90,

Show us a pic of the front panel of your EasyTouch so we can understand which one you have, as there are several..

There really is just no need to every schedule the spa... You just turn it on when you want to use it.. It will automatically override the Pool mode.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[goherd90]

Welcome to the forum!
What model of lights do you have?
Make sure the Circuit you have designated as Lights has the proper Circuit Function for the light you have.
Just select Lights when scheduling.
Do you use the spa every day so that is why you have it scheduled?
I suggest you read through Pool Care Basics - Trouble Free Pool and even look at a few of our videos TFP-TV - Trouble Free Pool

Good question and I should of stated WHY I have the SPA for a few hours in the AM. We have a ton of grackle birds and I have some floating gator heads and owls around my spa as this is where they tend to go on the ledge and make a mess. I found that having the spa on in the AM when they are most abundant helps to keep the gator heads MOVING and seems to be keeping the birds away.

I have the pentair globrite lights....

 

[goherd90]

90,

Show us a pic of the front panel of your EasyTouch so we can understand which one you have, as there are several..

There really is just no need to every schedule the spa... You just turn it on when you want to use it.. It will automatically override the Pool mode.

Thanks,

Jim R.

see above about why I have the spa on for a few hours during the AM. I have the temp all the way down so I'm not using my gas. Here is a pic of my system and the 4 lights that I have.....the lights will come on manually but NOT with the timer function

 

[Jimrahbe]

90,

You have what is called an EasyTouch "lite".... This means you have a maximum of 4 schedules, and that includes any Egg-timers not set to the default of 12 hours..

If you have ScreenLogic, it will let you enter a bazillion schedules, they just won't work.

Show me or tell me your schedules and egg-timer settings.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[goherd90]

90,

You have what is called an EasyTouch "lite".... This means you have a maximum of 4 schedules, and that includes any Egg-timers not set to the default of 12 hours..

If you have ScreenLogic, it will let you enter a bazillion schedules, they just won't work.

Show me or tell me your schedules and egg-timer settings.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Jimrahbe]

90,

You have the lights coming on for one minute???

I am not sure the ET can one minute increments???

Keep in mind that if you manually turn a scheduled device on or off.. it can get the system confused and it might not come on until the next on/off time.

I assume you are using Aux 1 and that you have named Aux 1 as "lights".. You can use any Aux, just want to make sure the right Aux circuit is named lights..

Are your lights color changing LEDs or just regular lights?

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[goherd90]

90,

You have the lights coming on for one minute???

I am not sure the ET can one minute increments???

Keep in mind that if you manually turn a scheduled device on or off.. it can get the system confused and it might not come on until the next on/off time.

I assume you are using Aux 1 and that you have named Aux 1 as "lights".. You can use any Aux, just want to make sure the right Aux circuit is named lights..

Are your lights color changing LEDs or just regular lights?

Thanks,

Jim R.

yeah I had lights set for one minute just to see if they would work. I have the colored LED globrite lights that change color. Not sure what you mean by aux 1....this stuff was all done prior to me buying home that had pool already.

When I'm in the app and hit add new schedule I have these options as Circuits...... Pool, spa, lights, aux 3, air blower, feature 1, feature 2

Under the FEATURES section in the app it has air Blower, aux 3, feature 1 and feature 3 all in the toggled off position

 

[Jimrahbe]

Understand...

Let's try this.. Add a schedule for the time you actually want the lights to run..

When done, go out to the main panel and push the "Reset" button.. This will not erase anything, it is just like rebooting your PC.. Everything will shut off, and it make take a few minutes, but everything will come back up on its own.

Let me know if the lights don't come on as scheduled.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[goherd90]

Understand...

Let's try this.. Add a schedule for the time you actually want the lights to run..

When done, go out to the main panel and push the "Reset" button.. This will not erase anything, it is just like rebooting your PC.. Everything will shut off, and it make take a few minutes, but everything will come back up on its own.

Let me know if the lights don't come on as scheduled.

Thanks,

Jim R.

No bueno...still no lights. Maybe when they installed this they just didnt wire it properly to allow for lights to be set on a timer???

 

[Jimrahbe]

90,

Ok.. Show me the inside of the EasyTouch so I can see all the relays.

What button on the main panel do you push to manually turn on the lights??

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[goherd90]

Aux 2 to manually turn lights on. However, AUX 2 is not listed as a circuit in the scheduler

 

[Jimrahbe]

90,

I kind of wanted to see the relays in behind the metal panel...

The way this works is that your system comes with three Aux relays.. Aux 1, 2 and 3

You Name the Aux relays anything you want to help you remember what they do..

Someone has named one of the Aux relays as "Lights" and another as "Blower" and I suspect the Aux 3 is not used or at least not named.

It sounds like Aux 1 turns on the blower and Aux 2 turns on the lights.. Is that correct.??

Each Circuit has three attributes.. Circuit, then Circuit Name, then Circuit Function..

For your lights.. The Circuit is "Aux 2", the Circuit Name is "Lights" and the Circuit Function should be "IntelliBrite"

Check and see of the Circuit function for "lights" is IntelliBrite.

Menu, Settings, Circuit Function.. Scroll down and find "lights" and see what the function is.. I doubt it matters, but worth checking..

Sometimes the EasyTouch can store schedules that do not show up in ScreenLogic.. just to make sure, use the main panel and check to see that only the schedules you want are actually in the EasyTouch..

Menu, Schedules, the Scroll through and see what is in the EasyTouch.

Sorry, but I do not understand why your lights do not work when scheduled..

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[goherd90]

90,

I kind of wanted to see the relays in behind the metal panel...

The way this works is that your system comes with three Aux relays.. Aux 1, 2 and 3

You Name the Aux relays anything you want to help you remember what they do..

Someone has named one of the Aux relays as "Lights" and another as "Blower" and I suspect the Aux 3 is not used or at least not named.

It sounds like Aux 1 turns on the blower and Aux 2 turns on the lights.. Is that correct.??

Each Circuit has three attributes.. Circuit, then Circuit Name, then Circuit Function..

For your lights.. The Circuit is "Aux 2", the Circuit Name is "Lights" and the Circuit Function should be "IntelliBrite"

Check and see of the Circuit function for "lights" is IntelliBrite.

Menu, Settings, Circuit Function.. Scroll down and find "lights" and see what the function is.. I doubt it matters, but worth checking..

Sometimes the EasyTouch can store schedules that do not show up in ScreenLogic.. just to make sure, use the main panel and check to see that only the schedules you want are actually in the EasyTouch..

Menu, Schedules, the Scroll through and see what is in the EasyTouch.

Sorry, but I do not understand why your lights do not work when scheduled..

Thanks,

Jim R.

Yes, you are correct...aux 2 is lights and aux 1 is blower......i went in to the circuit function for lights and Intellibrite was listed....also went into the scheduling system on the easytouch and everything looked normal.....thank you so much for trying to help. Do you think it would be worthwhile getting a pool company out here to investigate?

 

[Jimrahbe]

90,

That kind of depends on you...

They would not be cheap.. Based on history here, I would suspect they will tell you the EasyTouch card needs to be replaced.. (Bad or not..)

One more thing to try.. Just as a test, set the Circuit Function for the lights to generic and see what happens.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[ogdento]

to follow on Jim's line of thinking... after you set the Aux2/Lights circuit function to generic, when you press the Aux 2 button do you hear the relay click? (If you're out at the panel it should be loud enough to hear without much trouble).

I may have missed something in the posts but I didn't see any statement that pressing the Aux2 button actually turns the lights on... if you're not hearing that relay click, the lights won't turn on... so I wonder if your relay drivers (socketed chips on the easytouch board) are bad

 

[Jimrahbe]

Tom,

The OP said that the lights turn on manually..

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[goherd90]

90,

That kind of depends on you...

They would not be cheap.. Based on history here, I would suspect they will tell you the EasyTouch card needs to be replaced.. (Bad or not..)

One more thing to try.. Just as a test, set the Circuit Function for the lights to generic and see what happens.

Thanks,

Jim R.

Jim,

Wow.....you are the man. Not sure WHY but when I changed lights to generic it is now working. Very strange because I'm 100% sure the lights are the pentair globrites.....thank you again so much

 

[Jimrahbe]

90,

Well, they may turn on, but they won't change colors.. The lights change colors when the power to the light turns on and off quickly, x number of times. The exact number of times tells the lights what color to be. To do this the EasyTouch very quickly pulses the relay on and off. This will not happen when the Circuit Function is "Generic".

Do your lights have some kind of external control unit to select the color?

I do not have color changing lights, as they tend to last about 5 microseconds... So, I have no experience with them.

If nothing else, we have found that the problem is related to how the color lights are set up..

Menu, Lights... There are a number of selections listed, but none of them make any sense to me..

Thanks,

Jim R.