Pentair Screenlogic - Help with understanding

[forcetrainer]

I'm just finishing up a pool installation, and once the pool company puts in salt and tests the heater this week it's all mine. Being in SE PA I'm going to be covering the pool soon (I think mine is one of the few still open at this point), but I'm trying to get a full understanding of the Screenlogic setup so I'm good to go next year.

I have an EasyTouch 4 (separate issue that they installed that and not a newer Intellicenter, but I won't digress on that point), with the Screenlogic adapter. I've confirmed all my firmware, got the brick connected to the network, and both Screenlogic and Screenlogic configurator are running properly. I tried running Pentair Home with my pump (IntelliFlo/Pro3 VSF), but since that's tied to Screenlogic I can't control it through the Pentair app.

I read through a lot of the older posts around programming the Screenlogic. My company set my pump at 3200 RPM for 12 hours, and when I asked why the answer was, "that's what we do." I brought up that I have a variable speed pump and running it full blast like that all the time seems like a waste, but that just got me a blank stare.

All that being said, I want to make sure I'm understanding how the circuits work. Here's the setup I have now (I just lowered my pump to 2000 RPM):



I have a SWG, booster pump for my cleaner, and a heater. If I'm understanding this properly, I think the following should happen with each circuit:

• Pool - Runs the pump at 2000RPM and should leverage the SWG
• Spa - Don't have one, so won't use.
• Cleaner (Aux 1) - Runs the pump at 3000RPM and will also turn on the booster pump for the cleaner.
• Either Heater - Runs the pump at 3260RPM and will turn on the heater to whatever temp I set.

Assuming my understanding is correct, here\ are my questions:

• I definitely don't want to be running my pump at 3200RPM all the time since it's something like 2400w for that. If I want to run the pump at a low speed for a continuous time, but then bump up it using feature circuits for extra skimming, will the SWG run when feature circuits are used? Or will it only activate if you specifically use the Pool circuit?
• I know this is more personal preference, but any thoughts on how long to run the pump at a higher speed for skimming? I'm sure there's an inflection point where running it faster doesn't matter all that much.
• Any thoughts on the RPMs with the cleaner? There's a booster pump specifically for the cleaner, so I'm guessing the higher RPMs aren't necessary unless I think I'm going to be kicking up a bunch of stuff in the water?

I appreciate all the help up front. It's clear my pool company doesn't care about any of this stuff, so any help here is greatly appreciated!

 

[Jimrahbe]

FT,

You have got it down pretty well..

You can use Feature Circuit and add more speeds, if wanted...

The basic way to do this when you have a SWCG is to run your Pool Circuit as slow as you can and still keep your SWCG's flow switch closed. Then use Feature circuits to increase the speed when wanted.

The other key is that when the pump sees two or more speeds, it will always run the fastest one.

Since it does not make a lot of sense to run the pump, if you are not making chlorine, then it is best to turn your Pool Circuit on for the entire time you want the pump to run, and just "add" additional feature circuits to increase the pump speed..

Here is my speed list..

Set up page 4.JPG

• Jimrahbe
• Apr 19, 2019

I have no heater and can run at a much lower RPM... I run 24/7, mostly at about 1200 RPM, as I like making a little chlorine all the time and skimming all the time.

I have found that my skimmers work just fine at 1200 RPM and I no longer use the Skim high or Skim low to help skimming. I do manually use Skim High, when we use our pool floats, as it causes the water to rotate like a very slow moving toilet flush.

Also.. running 24/7 cost me less than $20 bucks a month and I never have to worry about freeze protection.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[forcetrainer]

Awesome, thanks Jim. It's definitely not the most intuitive interface, but once you understand it it's pretty straight forward. The word "circuit" definitely threw me for a loop.

It would be nice if I had an Intellicenter and I could just setup programs to use different RPMs versus this bizarre circuit concept. But alas, I didn't know enough when signing my contract to say, "hey, can we not install a discontinued product?!?"

 

[Jimrahbe]

FT,

The IntelliCenter uses the same basic programming logic...

Jim R.

 

[forcetrainer]

Gotcha - so I really just need to yell at their software engineers for really bad language choices