Jandy iAqualink system pump speed stuck with Heat Pump enabled

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dbetterton

Member
Apr 21, 2024
15
Northern Maryland
My pool company is telling me this is normal, but if so, it is a stupid design...

We have a new construction fiberglass pool with Jandy equipment including a VS pump and a Jandy JRT Series Heat Pump. The iAqualink RS board is the "Yg" revision. The heat pump is connected via the 4-wire automation connection.

The problem is that enabling the "Heat Pump" setting in the App sets the pump speed to 2750 and it never lets it go lower even when it reaches the set temperature. That makes it (even more) expensive to run the heater and means I have to manually disable the Heat Pump setting whenever it reaches temp.

The Heat Pump says it has a "Maintain Temp" function when connected via the 4-wire setup, but I'm not sure how that works and would mean that the Heat Pump is no longer controlled via the automation system.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.
 
Yes, stupid design.

Since the Aqualink can only be updated by replacing the board Jandy has no easy way of improving what you have. Pentair and Hayward now have OTA (Over the Air) updates for their latest automation systems.
 
Your Aqualink system isn’t set up correctly. The heat pump heating is turned on and off by the Aqualink system as the water temperature changes.

While I don’t have a heat pump I have a Laars/Jandy LX gas heater that is connected to the Aqualink via the four wire RS-485. If your VSP speed settings are set up correctly you should have a speed associated with the heat pump (aka pool heat function).

I can have the Gas heater on and when firing the VSP pump speed increases to the speed associated with either Pool Heat, or Spa heat, whichever is enabled.

As soon at the water reaches temperature the VSP pump speed falls back to the filter/pump speed setting, or the spa speed setting if the spa is enabled.

I suspect that your VSP speed settings are not correct. Show us this VSP setup page in your Aqualink setup menu pages:

IMG_0318.png
 
MSchutzer said:
Your Aqualink system isn’t set up correctly. The heat pump heating is turned on and off by the Aqualink system as the water temperature changes.

While I don’t have a heat pump I have a Laars/Jandy LX gas heater that is connected to the Aqualink via the four wire RS-485. If your VSP speed settings are set up correctly you should have a speed associated with the heat pump (aka pool heat function).

I can have the Gas heater on and when firing the VSP pump speed increases to the speed associated with either Pool Heat, or Spa heat, whichever is enabled.

As soon at the water reaches temperature the VSP pump speed falls back to the filter/pump speed setting, or the spa speed setting if the spa is enabled.

I suspect that your VSP speed settings are not correct. Show us this VSP setup page in your Aqualink setup menu pages:
Click to expand...

Sorry, I missed this post. This is what shows up (I have to cycle through to "Pump 5" to see the settings).

IMG_3519.JPG

The pump does change to the Heat Pump speed when the "Heat Pump" toggle is enabled in the app.
 
Your problem is that you have renamed almost all of the VSP Speed Labels. On the Jandy RS system almost all of the speeds are hard coded to a function regardless of what you name the speed label.

With most systems only speed labels 7 and 8 are unused and available for renaming and using unrestricted. In some cases the cleaner and spillover speeds can be reassigned if those functions are disabled.

If your heat pump is your primary (only) heater then its pump speed will be defined by the pool heat, and spa heat speed labels as it is considered “the heater”.

Defining a speed label Heat Pump causes the Jandy system to treat the heat pump as a function rather than a heater so any time the function is on the pump runs that speed.

First off change the VSP speed labels for the first 6 speeds to match mine (as shown earlier in this thread) as those are the default labels and those functions are hard coded and that is what the system does regardless of the names.

You can rename and assign speeds 7 and 8 as you like, but don’t use heat pump.

The Dip switches should be set up so that your system knows that the heat pump is your “heater” and as such the pool heat and spa heat speed labels will control the “while firing” pump speeds. “pool heat” and “spa heat” are the functions used to enable the heat pump with the set points of “pool temp” and “spa temp”.

The “pool” and “spa” speeds are the speeds the pump runs when the heater isn’t actually firing, like after the temp has been reached.

The other thing to note is that the fastest speed always wins when multiple speeds (or functions) are active.

First off change all your speed labels back to the defaults and get rid of the heat pump speed label. Set the speeds you want for the label names accordingly.

It’s very possible that your heat pump isn’t properly configured to be the “heater” in the system, and we can fix that also (by setting the dip switches correctly) but please get the speed labels fixed first.
 
Thank you!

I know that the dip switches are not set correctly - was told by the pool company that they "aren't used" with the automation. That didn't seem correct, but first time pool owner, so I have been hesitant to change things.

I'll pull out my manual later and confirm the dip switches I should change. I'm trying to enjoy the pool before it starts storming here. :)

EDIT TO ADD: Does it matter that I don't have a separate spa? We have a tanning ledge, but it simply overflows into the main pool - so it is effectively one body of water. The pool company got the pool and spa combo board because it came with the two automatic valves that are used for the tanning ledge return and the bubbler in the tanning ledge.
 
So confirm I should change the following dip switches to On - everything is set to Off right now.

S1 DIP #7 which is described as "Not Used" but the manual also says "When ON the pool and spa share the same heater"
S1 DIP #8 Heat Pump instead of gas
S2 DIP #1 Heat Pump priority (instead of solar which I don't have)
 
Since your heat pump is connected by the RS-485 interface I think you only need to set S1 DIP switch 8 to on as that tells the system that you have a heat pump instead of a gas heater,

S1 switch 7 is only used for dual equipment systems (separate pumps and heaters for two bodies of water) so that should stay off.

S2 switch 1 can stay off also. Heat pump priority is used when hooking the heat pump up to the solar relay contacts (you have the RS-485 interface) and also used when you have both a gas heater and a heat pump. The priority setting uses the heat pump to maintain the temp before the gas heater (I believe, not completely sure of this).

Once you tell the system that you have a heat pump instead of a gas heater with S1-8 on then the heat pump should be enabled any time you enable "Pool Heat" or "Spa Heat". Think of the Pool heat and Spa Heat labels as two separate temperature set points, with pool heat being lower than spa heat.

When set up right with the pump on (filter/pump function on) the pump will run at Pool speed. When you also enable Pool heat (or Spa heat) you will be enabling the heat pump with the respective temperature set points. When the heat pump is actually heating the pump speed will increase to the pool heat (or spa heat) speed setting. As soon as the water reaches temperature and the heat pump shuts off then the pump speed will drop back to pool speed.

It sounds like your Spa function is just used to redirect water to you shelf and bubblers, if you need to run the pump faster for that then you can change the speed setting for spa. The two heat settings are just that, two different temperatures and are not specifically linked to the spa or pool functions.

I think you will be okay by just setting S1-8 to on, then you can use pool heat and spa heat functions to enable the heat pump. You also need to change all the VSP speed labels back to their defaults and get rid of the heat pump label. Then just set your speeds accordingly remembering that the fastest speed always takes priority.

So your pool speed that is associated with filter/pump wants to the the slowest speed you ever want to run and pool heat / spa heat want to be faster. That way the speed increases when the heat pump is running, and then drops back down to a lower speed when it turns off.

Here is some more information on how the RS system handles VSP speed settings:

Jandy Aqualink RS - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
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Another thing, lets make sure that your Aqualink RS system is actually connected to the RS-485 interface on your heat pump. From the home of Aqualink web interface page click the help button on opening screen. Then click next twice and you will see a list of the RS-485 controlled devices. You should see your pump, the aqualink WiFi unit, and your heat pump there. Here is what that page looks like on my system:


Help_remotes_e.jpg
 

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