New Owner, Old VERY Neglected Pool

[TurbineTester]

Should be lots of Youtube vids on doing gel coat.. I used to do it to my older fiberglass kayaks. You can paint it with a brush, but it comes out smoother if you spray it on.

As to the SWG cell...is this the first time you turned it on? I can't recall

Regarding the salt cell, no it was on and connected for most of this process, until maybe a week and a half ago. The prior message was always either "Purifier off check flow" or "add 488 lbs salt". Once I added some salt is said this same message. At first I assumed it was because of low salt in the pool as I only added enough to get up to 2800ppm. But now at 3400 ppm it still says the same thing.

Here are test results from lunch and pics of the current test results.

 

[TurbineTester]

I added DE before I left at lunch. Came back and the filter was at a high pressure again and the pool pilot Red light was flashing. I can't recall if the was the "purifier off check flow" or "Low amps" but I think k it was check flow. It makes sense since there was very little water flowing bit I can't be sure. I backwashed the filter and set everything back. Then Turned off power and checked all the connections. Turned it back on and got a temp sensor error, then unplugged and replugged the sensor cable and it fixed the temp sensor error. But now it's stuck on "Purifier off check flow". Water is absolutely flowing, and the temp sensor is working. I checked and cleared the manifold screen, and I can't make the error go away. What should I try next?

 

[Saturn94]

I hope you added bleach. 3.5 is too low for 80 CYA. You sure don’t want algae coming back after all that effort!

 

[TurbineTester]

I hope you added bleach. 3.5 is too low for 80 CYA. You sure don’t want algae coming back after all that effort!

Yeah I tested and had 3ppm and added all the bleach I had left, about a gallon, which was what the app called for to get it up to 6ppm.

 

[frogabog]

6ppm is the MINIMUM for 80ppm CYA. Your target is 11ppm FC. Can you get to the store for more bleach? At 6ppm, you'll be under your minimum in a matter of hours.

The minimum and target is meant to keep you above minimum for an entire day, not accounting for other factors than just the sun. Therefore, you'll want to add bleach to reach target (many, including myself target 1-2ppm above that just in case) daily so that you never fall below minimum. Many prefer to do this at night, after dark. Accounting for swimmers or other factors (rain/debris/whatever) means you may even have to add more than just the target amount each day.

 

[TurbineTester]

6ppm is the MINIMUM for 80ppm CYA. Your target is 11ppm FC. Can you get to the store for more bleach? At 6ppm, you'll be under your minimum in a matter of hours.

The minimum and target is meant to keep you above minimum for an entire day, not accounting for other factors than just the sun. Therefore, you'll want to add bleach to reach target (many, including myself target 1-2ppm above that just in case) daily so that you never fall below minimum. Many prefer to do this at night, after dark. Accounting for swimmers or other factors (rain/debris/whatever) means you may even have to add more than just the target amount each day.

I guess I was reading the chart for SWG pools and 4 was minimum and 6 was target. But I guess that effectively I'm not a SWG pool until I have a working SWG. At any rate, I dosed this morning with 5 gallons of 6% bleach as it was what I could get at 6 AM. I went to the pool store au lunch and bought 15 more gallons of bleach to get me through until I can finish troubleshooting the issues with the tri-sensor and cable. I took the tri sensor out of the manifold and it looks fine to me. When I go back this afternoon I'm going to try and move the flow sensor while I have the ohmeter set to ring and then try to jumper the middle pins and see if the problem is the tri-sensor or if it's the cable or if it's the board. I checked the water and levels seem ok for now.
FC-14.5 And CC-0

 

[mguzzy]

I guess I was reading the chart for SWG pools and 4 was minimum and 6 was target. But I guess that effectively I'm not a SWG pool until I have a working SWG. ...
FC-14.5 And CC-0

Yeah.. but you wanna be a salt pool... so you get a mulligan

 

[TurbineTester]

Yeah.. but you wanna be a salt pool... so you get a mulligan

Hahah

 

[TurbineTester]

So who's the best online outfit to CALL to diagnose the hardware issues I'm having with the best prices and service for DIY folks? Inyopools, SaltPoolGuys...?

 

[YippeeSkippy]

So who's the best online outfit to CALL to diagnose the hardware issues I'm having with the best prices and service for DIY folks? Inyopools, SaltPoolGuys...?

What's the problem?

 

[TurbineTester]

What's the problem?

"Purifier off! check flow". See a couple of posts above of what lead to it and what I've tried so far.

 

[TurbineTester]

Ok i jumpered the middle pins and that has cleared the check flow error. I know now that when I removed the tri sensor earlier it dropped on the ground and damaged the tip of the sensor. See pics. Now I am back to the original error of "Low Amps -Cell?"

 

[TurbineTester]

I ended up calling salt pool guys and I need a new tri-sensor, salt cell and cable. They have been ordered and should be here Saturday. This afternoon I spent about 4 hours trimming bushes and a large oak away from the pool. That one tree probably accounts for 80% of the leaves. This weekend I'll cut back two crepe myrtles and two River Birch trees and that should fix the rest of the regular contributors. In the meantime I've been adding LC to the pool once a day to keep it above the 11 ppm target.

 

[TurbineTester]

I ended up calling salt pool guys and I need a new tri-sensor, salt cell and cable. They have been ordered and should be here Saturday. This afternoon I spent about 4 hours trimming bushes and a large oak away from the pool. That one tree probably accounts for 80% of the leaves. This weekend I'll cut back two crepe myrtles and two River Birch trees and that should fix the rest of the regular contributors. In the meantime I've been adding LC to the pool once a day to keep it above the 11 ppm target.

Well the new tri-sensor, cable and salt cell arrived yesterday. The salt cell and cable were a breeze but the tri-sensor was exceptionally difficult to get into the assembly. I had to lean all my weight on it at the diving board to get it to fully seat. Oh well, all worth it to have a work SWG. Unfortunately, none of it fixed the "LOW AMPS. CELL?" issue. So I'm still talking with salt pool guys about the next step in troubleshooting.

In other news I made use of the winch on my truck and cut and pull down about 7 trees just outside the pool's brick fence, so I think I've effectively minimized the leaves that will fall into the pool for the next few years.

Kids swam yesterday and the water is clear and clean. I'm going to start doing some more DE to really polish the water.

 

[mguzzy]

well done.. keep posting up... I monitor this thread whenever you post an update. I curious why the low amperage message is being generated.

So you used the winch on your truck... and just justified for all us guys out here that want to have winches on their vehicles... I'm going to put on on my Matrix now just so I can cruise the neighborhood in search of trees to pull down, YEAH!

 

[ManiacalMama]

Awesome green to clean thread! Good job!
I just wanted to jump on and suggest using hair nets in the skimmer to help a little bit with grabbing some of the finer particles. I use these: Hair nets on Amazon
The neighbors have pine trees behind our house that drop a ton of pine needles, I like the hair nets to collect those so they don't clog up my filter so fast.

 

[wireform]

Awesome green to clean thread! Good job!
I just wanted to jump on and suggest using hair nets in the skimmer to help a little bit with grabbing some of the finer particles. I use these: Hair nets on Amazon
The neighbors have pine trees behind our house that drop a ton of pine needles, I like the hair nets to collect those so they don't clog up my filter so fast.

I use them by one of my pools that borders a row of long needle pine trees. Those trees are always dropping something and the nature of the beast is it gets through all the baskets and into the filter. The net keeps them mostly in the skimmer now and and very few actually make it to the pump.

 

[frogabog]

Why no more pics?

Wah...

 

[TurbineTester]

Why no more pics?

Wah...

So the problem with the SWG was the 20A fuse in the top left of the control board. When I replaced that the low amps check system light went away. Now I feel like I thoroughly tested this fuse and found the following:
1-Fuse out of circuit it passed a continuity test and showed a very low resistance.
2-With the fuse in the circuit there was no voltage drop across the fuse.

Even passing all of those tests the fuse was still bad. Also, new control units ship with a clear fuse that is ready to tell if it is blown. The old units have opaque ceramic fuses. Regardless the fuse fixed the error message. Hoping that was the only problem, I swapped back in the old salt cell to see if the system would work. It did not. So, saltpoolguys.com steered me correctly. Now I have a working SWCG, pump, filter, skimmer, main drain, slide, diving board, liner and balanced water. Next up is to pressure wash the deck and slide and refinish the slide. Meanwhile I still have the main pump running 24/7 and is currently outputting at 76% . I added .5 gallons of bleach before I left today. How do I tweak the output and run time to keep the pool properly sanitized?

 

[jtpipkin]

run it and check daily - use pool math to determine what your optimal should be and dial it in slowly. better to over sanitize than under in my book. This was my first year using TFP and i'm just now figuring out what my magic number is on the SWG. Currently 35% and just south of you... my logs are accessible in my sig, but to the best of my knowledge, it's going to really depend on what YOUR pool needs. I like to keep my CL on the high side.

PS - Great job on the pool and the SWG issues - I was betting against you solving that one, but rooting for you. Pool looks great!