Lightning strike fries pool controller

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+1 on the junk drawer!

sorry you've got to redo all this. i'm curious about all the boards that blew up... it seems the ones that died all have an rs485 connection? i'm not familiar with the relay board or MegaInd, but I checked out the photo you just published in this other thread where I can see the relay board:

Yet another DIY pool controller thread

The Pentair driver in their VSPs aren't heatsinked adequately, hence they die an early death in an otherwise fully solid state design. The only thing that dies in there, most of the time, is a proprietary motor driver that doesn't have the adequate heat sink. On an open market such parts range...
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

did your whitebox hat also die - or are you just adding one to the system now? i was just curious because i thought those just connected to the pi's gpio port?
 
Well lightning works in mysterious ways.

There are two main boards in addition to the Pi. There is the Sequent MicroSystem Mega Industrial board, and an 8 relay board. My initial thoughts were that both of those boards got fried. Just for fun I took the 8 relay board out an hooked it up to the spare Pi. Turns out it works, sort of. Relays 7 and 8 are blown. The rest still work. I did not test the MegaInd board since I dont really need it anymore and it was blocking the relay board from functioning at all so I am going to assume its fried.

I did not have a white box labs hat, I had a IXIAN board from Atlas Scientific. That also got blown. So that will get replaced with a WhiteboxLabs board (which I need to order).

Turns out I probably dont need new MegaBAS board but will use it anyway since it can power the Pi with 24VAC. That is going to let me only have one power supply in my box. Everything will run off 24VAC. It will also be required when I hook up a pressure sensor to the my filter (which I have not bothered to do yet due to laziness). I will use one of the 0-10v inputs for that.
 
thanks for the explanation... after going looking back at your original v1 photos, it makes a lot more sense (i was confusing the din rail mounting board in an early photo for the industrial automation board, doh!). anyway, what you've got is pretty cool and i hope you get it sorted soon

it's interesting that the pump still runs at 1200rpm... I wonder if that's just a default speed, and whether it'll do that without the keypad connected at all. or maybe the keypad isn't totally dead? if you can't send rs485 commands to the pump - and you're game - it'd be interesting to see some photos of the keypad cracked open... i'd expect the rs485 chip inside it to be dead but maybe the atmega in there is still alive.
 
So I tried hooking up the RS-485 to the pump today and no love. It would not communicate with the pump.

However, I am not going to crack that thing open until I get direction for Leslies on the warranty.
 
NOT an automation comment - did you have any surge protection on your equipment or the incoming power panel? If not, you might want to splurge the $100 on a good SPD and most give a $10k warranty on equipment if the SPD fails to protect it.
 
Soooooo. No. I did not have surge protection. I was always told (probably mistakenly that it does nothing for a lightning strike).

In retrospect just the warranty is probably worth it. Well I guess I need to find me a good one, and an electrician to install it.
 
Ok, on the bench (actually coffee table in my office) and fully functional.

All relays and schedules working (I think but can be tweaked easily once installed)

New Raspberry Pi 4, 4 gig. $65. (This was not necessary, but neither is pool automation)
New 8 Relay card. $45
New MegaBAS. $95
Hours of my time. Too many to count

Still need to order WhiteBoxLabs Hat
Atlas Scientific EZO for pH

Not bad all considered.

I think I am going to try to hook it up to the Hayward SWG to see if the RS-485 port is working. But I have never gotten that to work before so it might not be test I am hoping for.

If I am feeling extra froggy I might just do the filter pressure monitor too.
 
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I got the rs485 sortof working on my aquarite, but my intellitouch needs the data quicker than the aquarite gives it, so it gets into a weird state.

Forgive me if you already know this, but the pinout/color-code is different on Aquarite and Pentair... maybe it didn't work because of the diagram you used?

Aquarite: Green=GND, Yellow=-DT, Black=+DT, Red=+12v
Pentair: Green=-DT, Yellow=+DT, Black=GND, Red=+12v
 
Katodude said:
Soooooo. No. I did not have surge protection. I was always told (probably mistakenly that it does nothing for a lightning strike).

In retrospect just the warranty is probably worth it. Well I guess I need to find me a good one, and an electrician to install it.
Click to expand...

A direct strike … no. That will blow up just about everything in the house…

But it’s very unlikely you suffered a direct strike. You very likely suffered from a ground strike near a utility pole and the wires charged up like a Van deGraff generator. The wires probably transferred a few hundred volts onto the mains and your panel went POOF! A high quality SPD would have shunted all the charge to ground and probably, not definitely but very probably, would have saved something from going POOF!

A SquareD SPD can be self-installed very easily and they are high quality and rated for a lot of power dissipation. They’re around $100 or so. Your next $2,000 variable speed pump will thank you for the investment…
 
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Yes, it absolutely was not a direct strike. I remember seeing the bright flash fairly close and the loud boom.

Ok, one SquareD will be ordered and since it is panel work I still prefer and electrician to do it.
 

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no, just the two data wires should be fine... there's typically a common ground as well but even that isn't really necessary since it's a differential signal. good example is the intelliflo pumps which only use the two data lines
 
I would run a ground wire also. The signals are indeed differential, but there are limits on the common mode voltage allowed. Ideally keep the power supplies for your RPi and associated gear isolated from the electrical protective ground and the ground wire along side the RS-485 pair be the only connection.

I'll also second Matt's recommendation for a surge protector in the panel feeding the equipment. Assuming you have a 2-pole space free in the panel it will take ~ 10minutes to install.
 
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@rstrouse

Well everything is back up and running. I have a new Intelliflo3 VSF.

Guess what I cannot get Nixie to talk to the pump. Checked the jumpers on the MegaBas. Checked the Serial settings on the Pi. Reversed the wires at least 6 times.

I am out of ideas.
 
Ok so it should be purple. Are you connected to it via wifi?

Also, make sure the pump address is correct for the setting you have in dashPanel. I too have an IntelliFlo3 so getting a replay would be grand for what njsPC is sending and what we are seeing from pump responses.
 
I am connected to it via WiFi. However, in the other pumps once I attach the 485 it ignores everything else.

The pump address is 1 which is what I have always used. Also I just have 1 pump.
 

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