Pentair IC40 Red Low Salt Light on... Salt Not Low. HELP

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The transformer AC voltage output into the surge card is nominal.

The DC voltage output from the surge card is low and points that as the problem.
 
Jimrahbe said:
T,

I'd want to know what the voltage is with the cell connected...

I test from the back side the connector, with the white connector, connected to the surge card.

Surge cards are not that expensive and if this were my pool, I'd try a new one and see what happens.

Thanks,

Jim R.
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Jim, with the cell connected I probed the back side of the white connector and get 24.8 VDC. I am betting it is the card. I see the pentair number on the card is 521593. Sound right?
 
T,

There are two basic styles.. The ones that are for external power centers and the ones (like yours) that are for Internal power centers... As long as they are made for the internal power centers, then any of them would work.

P/N 521593 would work great..

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
Just ordered the card. Found one on Amazon with good ratings for $79. Should be here Wed. Thank you both for your inputs. I will let you know the results once I have it installed.

On a separate note , this is the first time I have gotten into the control panel. Learned a lot from this. Also I like that Pentair has the schematic inside of the panel door. I’m an old F-16 Air Force avionics guy that is fairly tech savvy and prefer working on my own stuff rather than having to call someone. I live in a rural area and it’s an automatic $100 addi to any service call. I appreciate both of you for the inputs and assistance.
 
Jimrahbe said:
T,

I'd want to know what the voltage is with the cell connected...

I test from the back side the connector, with the white connector, connected to the surge card.

Surge cards are not that expensive and if this were my pool, I'd try a new one and see what happens.

Thanks,

Jim R.
Click to expand...
Jim

I ordered a new surg card, found one on Amazon that had high reviews for ~$80. It will be here on Wed. I'll post an update on my findings after I get it installed.
 
Jim and AJW

Gentlemen we have a fix. I replaced the surge card and immediately checked the output voltage with the cell connected and got 36VDC. In the time it took to check the voltage the cell timed in (less than 2 min before it was close to 5 min) all green lights and I am producing chorine. Also when I got the old card out I noticed some discoloration on the red wire that connected to the fuse. Hard to see it but if you look at the picture you can see the discoloration where I circled it in blue.

Thank you both so much for your help!

Question: should I open a new thread in the forum to tell other what was found?
 

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mknauss said:
Keep everything in this thread.
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sounds good. This had many people stumped. I saw in the original post the fix by the pool guy was to install an external cell power center. Cant help but wonder if the $80 card would have been a fix for him as well. When I spoke to Pentair they said it could not be the power supply; they said if the cell comes on then the power is good. We can see that is not accurate.
 
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Tprymek said:
they said if the cell comes on then the power is good. We can see that is not accurate.
Click to expand...

We believed that also but were open to new ideas. We all learned something from your adventure.

We learn lots of stuff from members that the manufacturers support does not get and they refuse to participate here. Sort of tells you how much they really want to support their products.
 
Well I may have spoke too soon. Yesterday (Friday) while everything was working I shut everything off. Installed the Apex 60, turned everything on and it still says low salt and the cell will not generate. Reinstalled the Pentair IC40 and it now shows low salt. Decided to take a break and leave it alone for a day. Today (Saturday) I turned in on and I’ll be Dang the IC40 times in, I have a green cell light, all other lights are green and I am making chlorine. Checked the voltage again with the cell plugged in and working and it is 29 VDC output at the new surge card. At this point I am thinking one of two scenarios are occurring. 1. I got a bad Apex60 that was new in the box and the old IC40 is being intermittent or 2. The transformer that powers the cell generator surge card is being intermittent. I will say that changing the surge card did improve the DC output voltage to the cell. The old one only had 24VDC regardless of having the cell connected or disconnected. The new one has 36VDC without the cell connected and 29VDC with it connected and working. At this point I will wait to see if the old cell stops working and if it does I will take new voltage checks and see what I get. I am also send the Apex60 back to the store so they can test it. I’ll post updates as I learn more. Here is proof the cell is working at least for now.
 

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Tprymek said:
The new one has 36VDC without the cell connected and 29VDC with it connected and working.
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Those are the voltages I would expect.

Transformers rarely go bad and even less so fail intermittently. But then you have had weird problems so who knows.
 
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ajw22 said:
Those are the voltages I would expect.

Transformers rarely go bad and even less so fail intermittently. But then you have had weird problems so who knows.
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My thoughts as well. So I purposely shut down and restarted the system three times and everything is working. Can’t troubleshoot what isn’t broken so I’ll just wait but in the meantime the Apex is getting returned as it has never worked. Appreciate all of your inputs.
 
Final fix - it appears I had two issues that were running us in circles. The original Pentair IC40 was intermittent but also the new Apex60 was bad and coincidentally was also giving a low salt indication. I am also confident that the original surge card that had low output voltage didn't help. I received the replacement Apex 60 and it has been working fine for over a week now with no issues. Thanks to @Jimrahbe and @ajw22 for all the help!
 
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Tprymek said:
Thanks to @Jimrahbe and @ajw22 for all the help!
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