Pump wiring question...

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pgershon

Gold Supporter
Jul 15, 2012
604
East Hampton NY
Pool Size
30
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
I have a Jandy controlled pool system that has been up and running for 20 years. We upgraded to an Intelliflo pump about 8 years ago and all worked well until recently. The intelliflo pump is causing electrical "noise" which interferes with my power line electronics in the rest of the house. In speaking with others, it was suggested that I install the Intelliflo on its own Pentair GFCI breaker. I looked at my box and I suspect we are not wired as we should be.

My panel has room for 8 single pole breakers, or 4 dual pole breakers (I have 3 dual pole breakers and 2 single pole). Right now Breaker 1 (30 amp dual pole) controls the Intelliflo pool pump, the salt water chlorinator, and my spa pump (Heyward 1.5 HP). Breaker 2 (30 amp dual pole) controls the two Spa Jet pumps (both Heyward 2.0 HP). Beaker 3 (30 amp dual pole) controls the spa air blower. Breakers 4 and 5 control the pool and spa lights.

I do not see how I can add another breaker. But the advice I have is to get the spa pump off the same breaker as the pool pump. Any ideas? Can I put the spa pump with the spa jet pumps or the air blower?
 
P,

I like the idea of moving the spa pump off the same breaker as the IntelliFlo.. I doubt that a new "special" Pentair GFCI breaker is going to help.. The Pentair breaker is used when the normal GFCI breaker is false tripping because of the electrical noise.. it will not prevent any noise from getting into your power lines for the house..

I suggest that you use Breaker #3 for both the spa blower and the spa pump...

How do you know that you are getting electrical noise on your house power line??? What started you down this path??

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
My house uses Insteon to control light switches and also for the HVAC control and a few relays (fan motors, garage doors etc). In the last year or two, we developed interference on the lines which corrupts the Insteon and causes many commands to be unread by their intended devices. I have isolated the interference to the pool pump. When pool pump is not running, all the Insteon issues go away. As soon as it goes on, the issues return. I have tried a few X-10 filters on the pump (the XPF 20 Amp and the XPNR) and it did not help. The pump did not used to generate the noise, but it certainly does now.
 
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I have not tried it yet, but I have one sitting beside me - I had some installation questions. It looks to me like the X-10 Pro PZZ01 and the Leviton 6254 are one in the same (I bought the Leviton). It looks like I need to purchase 15 amp breakers to dedicate to the PZZ01/6254. I was going to place them at the pool house box, as opposed to the pump box. Doe sthat make sense?
 
I'm not an expert on this but I recall that when we switched to large VS motors for industrial plants they had to install noise filters. Also many surge protectors seem to have a secondary benefit of reducing noise. Most people don't need this since the noise isn't enough to cause a problem. However with your home control system there is clearly a problem. I'll check with a good friend of mine that's also a circuit design specialist. Maybe @JamesW may be able to help also. Are you certain your ground connections and bonding are in tact?

Chris
 
pgershon said:
I have not tried it yet, but I have one sitting beside me - I had some installation questions. It looks to me like the X-10 Pro PZZ01 and the Leviton 6254 are one in the same (I bought the Leviton). It looks like I need to purchase 15 amp breakers to dedicate to the PZZ01/6254. I was going to place them at the pool house box, as opposed to the pump box. Does that make sense?
Click to expand...
It does if you want to block everything coming from the pool house. I was recommending just putting it on the pump breaker itself so that if you installed any insteon devices in the pool house they would still network with the rest of your devices.
 
I want to block everything from the Jandy box (which has 5 breakers in it - 3 double pole and 2 singles). I want the pool house to sned signal to the rest of the house, but not receive anything from its 70amp breaker that feeds the Jandy box. Biggest problem I have putting PZZ01 in Jandy box is there is no room for more breakers. Can I connect the two leads to the GFCI breaker that the Intelliflo pump uses> I would be doubling up on the breaker, but maybe that is OK for this? I would run the neutral that feeds the Jandy box through the center of the PZZ01. Does that make sense?
 
You can use a double pole breaker in the panel or two single pole breakers that are on opposite phases and run the panel neutral through the PZZ01.

Look at the breakers, some allow double conductors. There'll be a graphic on the breaker showing two conductors. See the two wire looking graphics beside the letters Cu, that means that it can accept 2 conductors.

P.S. The tiny SWD on the bottom right means that it's switch duty.

square-d-single-pole-breakers-hom120cp-64_1000.jpg
 
I installed PZZ01 yesterday. I put it in pool house breaker box because there was no room in the other - I could not access the neutral line (it is very short, coming into Jandy box going directly to the neutral bar - no room to run through PZZ01). Ran neutral wire that comes from pool house box to Jandy box through the PZZ01 and connected the line 1 and lien 2 terminals to the poles of the 70 amp breaker that feed Jandy box (and a jumper from 2 to 3). Results not good:

Still get complete interference when the Inteliflo pump runs. But when pump is off, I have diminished communications to the pool house equipment (outside light responds 75% of the time, fan does not respond period). One thing I noticed is that when switch buttons are pressed, my 2412u picks up all the signals and my log sees the devices. But when I try to send a command to the devices (even just a status check), there are communication errors. It's like the PZZ01 is eating the signals.

Question - does it matter which way I have the PZZ01 oriented? I am treating the house as the meter and the Jandy side as the breaker panel. I may try reversing but I dont expect it to help. I figured PZZ01's main job was to keep signal meter side signals from the breaker, so I wanted to keep Jandy side signals from house.
 

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Most likely based upon what you have said, your older pump has become more rough in its operation, which cause more electrical noise. Your filter (30:1) does not have enough filter capacity to filter out the increased noise. Buying a replacement pump could help, but huge cost for no guarantee.

But there is also a chance that there is an issue with your incoming power. Lets say that your Insteon stuff can accept X amount of noise and still function. Maybe your incoming power used to have 0.2X amount of noise, and your new pump added 0.6X noise. So your total noise was 0.8, so things still worked.

One scenario I described above is that your pump got old, and now generates X amount of noise. Add that to your incoming noise and you have 1.2X noise, and things dont work.

But the other situation might be that your incoming power increased in noise to 0.8X and your pump didnt get worse (still generates 0.6X noise). This would mean that your total noise would be 1.4X when the pump runs, and Insteon would not work. Worse yet in this scenario, getting a new pump might not fix the issue, this may be a Pole issue. You may need an electrician to help with your noise issue.
 
Bama Rambler said:
The PZZ01 blocks signals from both directions. That's why I recommended putting the PZZ01 on the pump breaker only. That way it blocks any signal from the pump from getting through to anything else.
Click to expand...
How would I put it on pump only? The pump has two line leads but no neutral. Would you connect the leads to the pump's breaker? Then what about the neutral?
 
I tried two XPF-20's (that is where I started). That failed. I suppose the Insteon band is not the same as the X-10 and the small difference was the problem. One suggestion I had from someone was to try the XPF and XPNR in series, with the XPNR closer to the pump. The seemed to be XPNR successful in absorbing the pump's noise - the problem was that it also killed my Insteon signals near by.
 
XPF's were wired as follows: Each pump load was wired to red lead of XPF. Black leads from XPF went to breaker. Neutrals from XPF went to neutral bar. I was actually surprised XPF's failed, but then read of similar experience from another person with same Intelliflo/Insteon issues (he had 4 Intelliflo pumps and only one of them cause interference).
 
I'm not suggesting that you do this, but I'd be tempted to use 2 Insteon plug in filters wired like you did the XPF's. Especially if I had a couple lying around. It would take a little hacking to get them wired.
 

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