Greetings TFP SWG Gurus!
I'm looking for advice on what to do about my SWG system. I have a Circupool RJ-45 Plus unit running on my 9640-gallon pool/spa. I bought it 4x oversized based on advice I got from these forums to purposely not over-work/stress the SWG. That was great advice!
Here are my pool chemistry numbers today before I added corrective measures and opened the pool for summer:
FCL: 5.30
TCL: 5.30
pH: 8.1
ALK: 210
CH: 385
CYA: 75
SALT: 3640ppm (measured by AquaCheck strip & a calibrated Orapxi digital tester) (Circupool recommends 3000-4000ppm salt levels)
CSI: +0.78
TEMP: 76F
WATER FLOW: ~50GPM
After plugging the above numbers into TFP's pool calculator, I added 95oz of 31.45% muriactic acid to kick the pH down to 6.9 and the CSI to -0.39. Because I have a waterfall feature, the pH will always drift upwards towards pH 8.0 or so after a few days and I've done this chemistry see-saw ritual for years without issue.
After making sure the chemistry was corrected, I removed the bypass tube, installed the SWG cell, and powered it up to it's normal 35% generation. I never run the cell if the water temps are <70F, and it is disconnected after the swim season in fall. The 2-year old cell was also cleaned before installation with a ~6% muriatic acid solution for 10 minutes as it was very lightly scale contaminated from last year.
My problem is: the cell performed well at first, but shuts off with a LO SALT warning light after about 20-30 minutes. I recycled the SWG power off, then back on again - it performs well for about 20-30 minutes before throwing another LO SALT warning. After the second time it did this, I watched the digital display on the controller carefully. After a few minutes of turning the cell on, the SWG display will stabilize at ~3200ppm salt; 22.8V; 4.71A. But, as the minutes go by, the salt level will slowly creep down after 20-30 minutes, until it goes below 2900ppm, at which time the LO SALT will start flickering, then it will completely shut down as the salt level goes down <2850ppm.
I've read through some of the older forum posts and some have suggested this may be a flow switch problem, but with Circupool, the flow switch is sold as a "Generic Flow Switch" with no apparent salt measurement ability (maybe I'm wrong about that function?). This raises another question in my mind - how are salt levels measured with the Circupool system? It must be in the SWG cell itself?
I have a bunch of questions that I have no answers to: Should I kick the salt level of the pool up to the upper range - like 3800-3900ppm? Is this 2-year old cell that I have taken very good care of just dying? Or what am I missing here? Any ideas or suggestions on what I should do?
Thanks in Advance for any ideas!
I'm looking for advice on what to do about my SWG system. I have a Circupool RJ-45 Plus unit running on my 9640-gallon pool/spa. I bought it 4x oversized based on advice I got from these forums to purposely not over-work/stress the SWG. That was great advice!
Here are my pool chemistry numbers today before I added corrective measures and opened the pool for summer:
FCL: 5.30
TCL: 5.30
pH: 8.1
ALK: 210
CH: 385
CYA: 75
SALT: 3640ppm (measured by AquaCheck strip & a calibrated Orapxi digital tester) (Circupool recommends 3000-4000ppm salt levels)
CSI: +0.78
TEMP: 76F
WATER FLOW: ~50GPM
After plugging the above numbers into TFP's pool calculator, I added 95oz of 31.45% muriactic acid to kick the pH down to 6.9 and the CSI to -0.39. Because I have a waterfall feature, the pH will always drift upwards towards pH 8.0 or so after a few days and I've done this chemistry see-saw ritual for years without issue.
After making sure the chemistry was corrected, I removed the bypass tube, installed the SWG cell, and powered it up to it's normal 35% generation. I never run the cell if the water temps are <70F, and it is disconnected after the swim season in fall. The 2-year old cell was also cleaned before installation with a ~6% muriatic acid solution for 10 minutes as it was very lightly scale contaminated from last year.
My problem is: the cell performed well at first, but shuts off with a LO SALT warning light after about 20-30 minutes. I recycled the SWG power off, then back on again - it performs well for about 20-30 minutes before throwing another LO SALT warning. After the second time it did this, I watched the digital display on the controller carefully. After a few minutes of turning the cell on, the SWG display will stabilize at ~3200ppm salt; 22.8V; 4.71A. But, as the minutes go by, the salt level will slowly creep down after 20-30 minutes, until it goes below 2900ppm, at which time the LO SALT will start flickering, then it will completely shut down as the salt level goes down <2850ppm.
I've read through some of the older forum posts and some have suggested this may be a flow switch problem, but with Circupool, the flow switch is sold as a "Generic Flow Switch" with no apparent salt measurement ability (maybe I'm wrong about that function?). This raises another question in my mind - how are salt levels measured with the Circupool system? It must be in the SWG cell itself?
I have a bunch of questions that I have no answers to: Should I kick the salt level of the pool up to the upper range - like 3800-3900ppm? Is this 2-year old cell that I have taken very good care of just dying? Or what am I missing here? Any ideas or suggestions on what I should do?
Thanks in Advance for any ideas!
