Power outages

[rjb1211]

I had a brief (seconds) power outage. The next day I thought my pump was running at high when it should have been on the medium setting, but I racked it up to a senior moment. Later a light did not come on when it was supposed to.

I went into the IntelliCenter settings and the schedules were still there and correct. I then checked the date and time - the date was off by months and the time was also wrong. It was also set to manual instead of internet. I changed it back and all is now good.

Is this normal?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

The automation centers have small button batteries (the kind that are in car remotes, etc) in them to keep the memory powered so that settings are preserved. As long as that battery is working and in place, no system settings should have changed. Could the power outage have caused some kind of glitch ... anything is possible.

Check the battery.

Also, if your load center doesn't have one attached to it, I would highly recommend you invest the $120 or so and install a SquareD whole house surge protector on the load center. It requires two breakers for each leg of power plus it needs a neutral and ground connection in the panel. It is cheap insurance against a power spike or brown-out causing damage to the electronics in the load center or your VERY expensive variable speed pump. Your part of the country gets pretty good lightening storms and so you should protect that equipment. Won't help with a direct strike, but those are rare. Definitely protects against over-voltages and spikes.

Electrical Surge Protection - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[rjb1211]

Thanks. I doubt very much that the battery is a problem. The unit is new this year and the schedules and other settings were not affected. It was just the date and time.

I will look into surge protection. Thanks, I hadn't thought of that.

 

[Rocket J Squirrel]

I doubt very much that the battery is a problem. The unit is new this year and the schedules and other settings were not affected. It was just the date and time.

That points directly to the battery.

Schedules & settings are stored in flash memory. Only the clock is maintained by the battery across outages. Just because the unit is new doesn't mean the battery inside it is new.

 

[rjb1211]

That points directly to the battery.

Schedules & settings are stored in flash memory. Only the clock is maintained by the battery across outages.

I didn't know that. I will check it.

 

[TinFoilHat]

Even new batteries can be bad.

 

[rjb1211]

It appears that the IntelliCenter outdoor panel does not have a button battery. Instead it uses a lithium battery pak.

If it had been setup originally to use the internet for automatic date and time would that setting have been saved in the flash memory?