Old School Pump Controls

[amesaway]

This is what the control board (is there a different name for this?) looks like for the pool at my new house. I feel like I'm trying to set my pool by sundial

The left side is marked 'filter pump' and the right side 'polaris'.

How long is my filter running? What time does it run? What about the polaris (it's actually a pentair thing in the water, but I don't think that matters).

Is this a good schedule? Should I adjust it? How would I go about adjusting it?

The pool also has a water fall but I can't find a separate switch for it so I can't figure out how to turn it on. A small trickle of water comes on while the machine is running, but not a full waterfall. My guess is I need to take the vacuum out of the water to make the waterfall work. Thoughts?

View attachment 74740

 

[MinerJason]

The green colored tabs on the edges of the dials are for the on time, and the brass colored for off, so it looks like your filter pump is set to run from 10am to 5pm, and the pressure side cleaner pump from ~9:45am to ~3pm. But the time may not be set correctly on those timers, so actual start/stop times may be different. In fact, it appears that the clocks on those timers are off from each other by ~45 min, so at least one of the clocks is set to the wrong time. The silver hand is supposed to point to the current time. If you pull the dial out, you can then turn it to set the clock to the current time, and then push the dial back in.

The tabs underneath the dials can override the timer and turn the pump on/off at any time.

I don't know enough to advise on whether that's a good schedule or not, but if you want to adjust it, you simply loosen the set screws for the on/off tabs, slide them around the dial to the desired on/off times, and re-tighten. Be aware that they need to be very tightly secured to keep from getting pushed around, so you may need pliers to loosen/tighten them.

The water fall is likely plumbed to one of those two pumps, but needs both the pump to be running and a valve somewhere to be opened to allow water to flow to it. Do you have any 3 way diverter valves? Pics of your equipment pad/plumbing would assist people in helping you figure how everything operates.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Amy,

What you have is a dual mechanical timer by Intermatic... Here is a link to this type of timer..

https://www.gordonelectricsupply.com/index~text~5607206~path~product~part~5607206~ds~dept~process~search?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIu7mS-6Gu2gIVzkwNCh27xgSwEAYYBiABEgK_wvD_BwE

The electrical power to the pool equipment turns a little motor in each side... The motor turns the yellow "sun dial"... As the dial turns, it hits the on or off "dogs" (the green and copper colored arrows). If you want your pool pump to come on at 6 am, you set the on dog to 6 am.. if you want the pump to go off at 6 pm you set the off dog at 6 pm. Note that you initially have to pull the sundial toward you and rotate it so the that silver pointer points to the correct time of day..

One side controls your pump and the other side controls your pressure side pool cleaner...

This timer would not control your waterfall... you should have a valve that you need to open or close to control the water going to your waterfall...

This time a year I would run the pump 6 hours a day and see how that works...

Thanks for posting,

Jim R.

 

[amesaway]

Awesome, thanks for the info! I'll start a thread in the right forum for waterfalls to ask about that.

As for the schedule, is it generally better to run at night or during the day? I feel like overnight would be better but not sure I'm right.

 

[Richard320]

You've got the most troublefree bombproof timers around. Be glad.

Running day or night is a matter of preference. If you have tiered electrical rates, your decision is probably made for you. One caveat: the water should be circulating about half an hour before testing and again after dosing. So at least some days, it will need to be run during daylight.

As an aside, you can buy extra trippers, and run the pump multiple times a day. Search them

You can probably get by with a lot less filtering than you're programmed for now. I do fine with about 2 hours/day plus some extra when vacuuming. See Pool School - Determine Pump Run Time