Pentair IC40 salt reading way high

[spal24]

All week my reading was at 3850 and my pool store tested it at 3800. Today a guy updated my master temp to communicate with our intellicenter and now the salt reading is 6300. I had the water retested and it still tests 3800. Any ideas why this would be happening? I will have to take the salt cell off and inspect but was just reinstalled for second season 3-4 weeks ago. I checked all the connections in the intellicenter and there is nothing loose in there.

Any suggestions would be helpful as my original pool installer is not an automation specialist and the guy today was a tech he found to work on it for him.

 

[Jimrahbe]

24,

I don't see any relationship between your heater and the salt cell's salinity reading.

The cell only tests for salt every 12 hours, so I would reboot the cell and see what happens. Just go into the Service mode for a couple of minutes and then back to AUTO.

Did you just add some salt to the pool?

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[spal24]

the last time salt was added was roughly a week ago. The filter was running 24/7 as we were dealing with phosphate issue when we opened. I am going to try a different pool store tomorrow to see if by chance the first place was off. I have restarted and powered everything down several times so not really sure. Thanks you for the suggestions. I am also going to pull the salt cell just to see if there is anything going on with it. It was clean as whistle at the start of the year and I had it unplugged until we got rid of the phosphates.

 

[spal24]

I got water tested at a different local place and it tested at 3700. I disconnected the intelliclor ic40 and checked it for any debris and the plates are clear and clean. I just turned it back on after disconnecting everything and it is reading 6500. UGH...

 

[Jimrahbe]

24,

Inside the flow switch assembly, is a thermistor, which the cell uses to measure the water temp. The thermistor is most likely bad. The flow switch is an easy DIY repair.

If you are going to replace the flow switch anyway, you can just cut the white wire and see if the cell reads closer to normal. When you cut the white wire you force the cell to use a fixed resistor inside the cell. If you cut any wires make sure you cut in the middle and not close to the cell itself.

Here is a hack where you can install an external thermistor.. I'm just showing this to give you an idea how it all connects.

Temp probe hack.jpg

• Jimrahbe
• Jun 11, 2020

Thanks,

Jim R.