Need help to wire Stenner acid pump to Aqualink RS

[Damsroy]

Hello,

Trying to wire a new Stenner acid pump dispenser to my existing Aqualink rs automation panel.

This is my panel:


The relay I circled in yellow was not used and I found the harness not plugged in behind the upper cover.

I tried to wire the transformer using the below option 1 from @santacruzpool below (but except of using relay 3 I used my “unused relay” now relay 7) . Like him it would trip when Aux 7 ( I plugged the unused relay in the Aux 7 socket) was on. @santacruzpool i'm using your pics from a previous post. If it is an issue please let me know and I will remove them.


I then tried @santacruzpool option 2. Same result. The main pump breaker will trip when I switch on relay 7.



I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong here. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[santacruzpool]

I am not an electrical expert by any means - so I don't have any more help I could offer.

I had my wiring checked by an expert just to make sure I was doing things correctly...perhaps there is something we both missed that would work properly.

My issue was trying to get the acid pump to share the wire that the filter pump uses -- as an additional fail-safe so that the acid pump could not be energized IF the pump was not running and was off...

I couldn't make that work -- and never got an answer as to how to properly make that work. When I added one wire for the acid pump to the filter relay it would cause the breaker to trip. Wiring it to an open relay I had, and skipping the additional fail-safe wiring, has been working for a few years.

 

[Flying Tivo]

You can also use the relays with AC. I would not want the PS on all the time. That being said you can power the relay from the pump relay(load side). As a safety measure as to not pump acid if the pool pump is not on. Then use a regular schedule depending on how much acid per minute. I dilute 50/50 so its less harsh on the stenner equipment. As for the wiring i dont have AL

 

[Damsroy]

@Flying Tivo this is what i was trying to do. To have the acid pump relay energized only when the pump relay was energized/the pool pump was running.
So fat no luck. Hopefully an iaqualink guru here will be able to assist me with the wiring.

 

[ajw22]

Where is the white neutral wire from the transformer connected to? I cannot see thst in your picture.

 

[ajw22]

Neutral does not go to bus bar when connected to a GFCI CB. Neutral must be connected to neutral lug of the GFCI CB.

 

[Damsroy]

Neutral white wire connected to bus bar on the left hand side.
No ground connected yet but don't think that would be the issue.
So based on your response above that might be my issue with option 1 I was trying to do. My white neutral wire needs to go back to the neutral lug (the one in the middle) of the GFCI CB.

 

[ajw22]

Neutral white wire connected to bus bar on the left hand side.
No ground connected yet but don't think that would be the issue.

See post #6. Neutral needs to connect to GFCI CB.

 

[Damsroy]

Very clear. Thank you. Will adjust wiring as suggested and revert.

 

[eWiRED]

Checking in to see if you had any luck?

Option 1 is what you would need to do to get the desired operation with the Stenner pump only being able to run with the pump.

Pretty straight forward. I do not claim to be an electrician so there is that.

Jandy Relay wiring
0 -negitive of Aux
1 +positive of Aux
2 Line 1 in
4 Load 1 out
6 Line 2 in
8 Load 2 out
(technically the line in/outs can be wired backwards with no ill effect and can be any ac or dc current, so its best to turn off the pool pump relay and verify which lugs are the lines (always hot) and loads just in case. If they wired the Line/Loads backwards then the pump could be hot all the time even when pump is off.

Assuming the wiring is outlined as above, make a jumper from either lug 4 or 8 of the pump relay doesn't matter and attach to lug 2 (or 6)of the Stenner Pump relay. Attach Line (hot/black) from Stenner Pump to lug 4 (or 8 if you used 6)
Make sure the neutral goes to the Pool Pump GFCI breaker as mentioned in post 6 and not the neutral bar. I believe this is your tripping culprit. Wire up Stenner as directed.

Program away for AUX X to turn on Stenner Pump and you should be good to go.

I have a separate load center (sub Panel) at my pool eq and only have the small RS panel with just relays no load center. The only other thing to check would be to make sure the neutral bar is isolated from the ground bar and panel. I think it would be but that could cause some nuisances as well if they were bonded together.

Let us know how its goes.

 

[jesse-99]

I have my Stenner Pump wired so that it's only powered when my Filter Pump is running. Also connected to a Jandy AquaLink RS system, so anytime my filter pump is running, the Stenner is running as well. If you need, I can share how I did the connection. The one thing I didn't do (which some prefer) is to have a separate flow sensor added in, because if my Filter Pump relay is ON, the Stenner pump will run, even if the Filter Pump itself is broke or not working. A flow sensor would help with this (rare) situation, but for me, I opted to skip it.

 

[Damsroy]

@eWiRED and @jesse-99 Thank you so much for following up!
So much to do around the house at this time of the year that I put the acid pump automation project on hold. Back to doing MA manually for now.
I hope to go back at it this week and will keep you posted. I need this done before pool season is in full swing.

 

[Damsroy]

Happy to report that following guidance's from @ajw22 and @eWiRED above I was able to make the acid pump running. Connecting the neutral to GFCI CB (and not to bus terminal) was the key
Since the acid pump relay is powered by the main pump relay the acid pump shouldn't be able to run when the pump is not powered.

I will schedule the acid pump to run 30sec every day or whatever is needed to deliver the required quantity of acid.

I see that there is also a device runtime that a can activate for the acid pump. What is the relationship between scheduling and device runtime?

If I schedule the acid pump to run 1 min every day and put the device run time at 30sec, will the pump stop after 30 sec. Every time it is being powered on by the schedule?
Should one put the device runtime (as a safety measure) equal to the time you schedule the pump to run for?

 

[jesse-99]

Personal point of view, but I'm not sure I like the idea of running the stenner pump for only 1 minute every day. That means you're probably trying to dose a LOT of acid in a very small window of time. I think it'd be preferable to run the stenner pump over the course of several hours which results in spreading out the acid injection over that time instead of dosing all the acid in a (very) short 1 minute window. I just wouldn't do that if it were me. (to be extra safe about pool plaster, *OR* if someone were in the water right next to the returns and had open cuts/wounds, etc.)

OTOH, I have my stenner pump running ANY time my filter pump is running (which means like 12 hours a day) but that means the acid injection is also controlled (through the variable speed) with very tiny drops instead of injecting all the acid at once.

Food for thought...

Also, how many gallons are you planning on dosing in a week's time overall?

 

[Damsroy]

Good question!

My pool was finished in May 2023. Overall during the entire 2023 season I was putting 2 cups of MA per week to keep my PH on track. This year already the pools seems less demanding in acid but let's use 2 cups of full strength MA per week as the base line.

I will be diluting MA 1:1 in the tank so I need the pump to deliver 4 cups of solution per week. Based on my initial tests the pump delivers 2/3 cup per minute. So to get to what I need i will need the pump to run 1 min per day 7 days per week.

It also means that during each run of 1 min the pump will deliver 5oz of MA (10oz total diluted 1:1).

My thinking was that this is not much acid delivered when the pump is running at 2300rpms through 2" PVC pipes.

Thoughts?

 

[jesse-99]

Ah gotcha. That's not a ton of acid. I'm used to dosing 2 gallons a week overall, so big difference, lol.