Pentair VS+SVRS -> VSF modification ideas

Jump to latest Follow Reply
O

Olle

0
Aug 28, 2018
28
Orlando FL
Hi there,
Background: We bought an SVRS pump back in 2018, it never worked. The Main reason is the pump site elevation over the pool is higher than SVRS vacuum trigger can tolerate. The pool store (Pinch a Penny on Semoran Blvd, never again buying from them btw) refused to take it back after they had installed it and Pentair didn't take it back on warranty because there is nothing wrong with the pump itself. Had to remove this SVRS and install a different pump on that pool.

Idea: Modify the pump to VS or upgrade to VSF.
Looking at pentair parts catalogue https://www.pentair.com/content/dam...acement-parts/2020-parts/pool-pumps-parts.pdf , it seems like the drive (=VFD or inverter) is the only difference between the three models. The keypad is surprisingly enough the same for all three. I therefore assume that the SVRS logic is programmed into the drive itself.
The VS and VSF drives are unfortunately $700 so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense financially to replace the drive. Therefore I took the drive apart to see if I could bypass the SVRS logic and program an Arduino or raspberry-Pi based driver directly for the inverter bridges,
A nice side effect would be we could then integrate the pool pump with a really nice home automation interface.
Problem is the drive circuit board is mounted upside down with its hot components glued down into the heat sink you can't see its components let alone reach them without breaking stuff.
Does the forum have any ideas? Any way to jailbreak the driver software?
 
Last edited:
Hey guys,
I don't really know how these fancy safety vacuum release things work, but instead of trying to directly drive the inverter with a makeshift setup I'd probably focus on how to trick the thing into thinking there's no suction problem... then again I've never seen one - wouldn't there have to be a vacuum sensor somewhere??

I do think that the "brains" are on the keypad though... you mentioned doing a hack with an arduino, so you'll be amused to see that there's an atmel chip on the keypad board (i think it's an atmega 169p). Tfp user DrBill determined that these pump drives are Danfoss lcp 102 - but there's probably pentair firmware on them.

Do be careful if you try to de-pot one of these... they have giant caps that store 240v! DrBill was able to nuke the expoxy/potting material with some liquid nitrogen, but that seems like a lot of work to me.

Here are some links to other threads that discuss/show the controller a bit more... I posted some internal photos of one of the keypads where you can see the atmega and rs485 chips:

Pentair Intelliflo 011018 _ Water inside the display

I have a 2015 Pentair Intelliflo VS variable speed pump 011018 in which water got inside the poorly designed display. The pump is still running but on the last programmed low speed only. The display is blank and I can't run or program the pump to any other higher speed. A fix would be to...
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

Clock on Pentair Intelliflow

Installed a Pentair Intelliflow VS pump on our pool in Sept 2017, seemed to work great. Winterized the pool, ended up not opening the pool in 2018 due to health issues. Pool is open now, two issues: - Clock on pump controller will not remember time when we have a power outage, and we have power...
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

Hope that helps!
Tom
 
ajw22 said:
@ogdento this up your alley?
Click to expand...
ogdento said:
Hey guys,
I don't really know how these fancy safety vacuum release things work, but instead of trying to directly drive the inverter with a makeshift setup I'd probably focus on how to trick the thing into thinking there's no suction problem... then again I've never seen one - wouldn't there have to be a vacuum sensor somewhere??

I do think that the "brains" are on the keypad though... you mentioned doing a hack with an arduino, so you'll be amused to see that there's an atmel chip on the keypad board (i think it's an atmega 169p). Tfp user DrBill determined that these pump drives are Danfoss lcp 102 - but there's probably pentair firmware on them.

Do be careful if you try to de-pot one of these... they have giant caps that store 240v! DrBill was able to nuke the expoxy/potting material with some liquid nitrogen, but that seems like a lot of work to me.

Here are some links to other threads that discuss/show the controller a bit more... I posted some internal photos of one of the keypads where you can see the atmega and rs485 chips:

Pentair Intelliflo 011018 _ Water inside the display

I have a 2015 Pentair Intelliflo VS variable speed pump 011018 in which water got inside the poorly designed display. The pump is still running but on the last programmed low speed only. The display is blank and I can't run or program the pump to any other higher speed. A fix would be to...
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

Clock on Pentair Intelliflow

Installed a Pentair Intelliflow VS pump on our pool in Sept 2017, seemed to work great. Winterized the pool, ended up not opening the pool in 2018 due to health issues. Pool is open now, two issues: - Clock on pump controller will not remember time when we have a power outage, and we have power...
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

Hope that helps!
Tom
Click to expand...
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the tips.
I was hoping the brains was in the keypad but since the parts catalogue says all pumps have same keypad but different drives, I am afraid the logic that separates VS, VSF and SVRS from each other is in their drive units.
 
hey james that's interesting about the power usage! i'm guessing the current sensor (or sensing circuitry) is on the inverter board... that could be something to fiddle with.

re-doing the firmware will be very difficult unless you can reverse engineer the keypad and inverter boards... my gut says it's not going to be worth the effort.

i think the inverter board communicates with the keypad via a serial link... get a scope, a logic analyzer, or maybe even a bus-pirate on there to listen to the serial line and see if you can see and figure out what it's doing. then you can throw an arduino in the middle!
 
Re-writing the firmware would probably be the easiest thing to - but how do we GET the firmware?

I initially dismissed the idea of trying to extract the firmware from the vfd keypad because I assume they've locked it on the micro (so you can't read it), but I haven't tested that theory. I also took another look at the photos from the board I opened up and there's a 1-mbit (128k) SPI eeprom just below the Atmel chip... seems a bit over sized to use just for settings and such, so i find myself wondering what's on it...
 
Interesting find with the eprom! just so we are on the same page: they keypads are the same for all intelliflo pumps. (see parts catalogue) but the inverters are different. I believe the reason you see different menus on on different models is because either the inverter serves up a menu to the keypad or it hooks into the keypad to generate a menu for that model (svrs for example). So our hypothetical firmware mod needs to happen in the inverter. Agreed?
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Could you post a link to the catalog you're looking at? I see two drive part numbers in mine... 353251 for VS pumps and 351021 for VS+SVRS pumps, but it doesn't show the keypad part number (I posted a picture of a 357527Z replacement keypad in the "water in the display" link I sent earlier).

I assumed the keypads all used the same hardware but had different firmware programmed on the keypad itself - which must be wrong if there's only one keypad part number!

I wouldn't have thought there'd be firmware on the inverter board since it's potted (with no access to in-circuit programming pins), and an inverter is going to be a pretty noisy high voltage device - but it certainly sounds like that might be the case! Or maybe they use resistors or something on the inverter board to determine the type? I wish Dr Bill had posted photos of the one he de-potted!!

**older keypads - like the one I posted photos of - use a different cable to interface with the inverter board, and the key labels are reordered, but you can make a new keypad work with some old drive units... which again supports the idea that the keypads are universal. A few different users fit a 357527Z onto an older pump in this post (go to the end):

Can a Pentair Keypad Assembly Kit 357527Z be used on the 011018 Intelliflo pump?

My pool is green with algae as my Pentair Intelliflo pump (011018) can't be adjusted after succumbing to the poorly designed weatherproofing of its keypad. I had it covered with a portable housing but that cover must have been left off once or twice by my pool service or me. The pump runs but...
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
Hi again, first the bad news. The used drive I bought on ebay didn't work, even though the decription said it worked when taken off pump (I realize now that I should have asked -did it work last time it was taken off a pump? :) ). It took 20 min to even start and once it did the display read "over voltage".
Good news: I subsequently bough a brand new VSF drive and it works beautifully! My SVRS is hereby converted into a VSF! I could not be happier.
 
Olle,

Just to be clear.. You just replaced the old VS SVRS and installed the new VSF and it worked?

No extra wires, no jumpers, no nothing... Just remove the old and installed the new.. ????

How about the old and new part numbers.. I'd like to do this, but want to make sure we are talking apples to apples.

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
Jimrahbe said:
Olle,

Just to be clear.. You just replaced the old VS SVRS and installed the new VSF and it worked?

No extra wires, no jumpers, no nothing... Just remove the old and installed the new.. ????

How about the old and new part numbers.. I'd like to do this, but want to make sure we are talking apples to apples.

Thanks,

Jim R.
Click to expand...
Hi Jim,
Correct, just a simple swap. removed SVRS drive # 356910Z and replaced with VSF drive #356880Z. Even kept my old keypad. Be sure to check pentair's parts catalog https://www.pentair.com/content/dam...acement-parts/2020-parts/pool-pumps-parts.pdf so that you use a compatible motor, drive and keypad combo as they have changed over the years. Contrary to what many believe, the logic is in the drive, not the keypad, so you kan keep your old keypad when you convert the pump.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jimrahbe

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply