Questions/Suggestions for Floor Cleaner, Skimmer, SWG and Pump Speeds

[tucsontico]

Been thinking about how I'm running my pump, SWG, floor cleaners and skimmer. If you note my sig, I have an EasyTouch panel and QuickTouch 4 remote (as well as an Autelis WiFi controller). Currently I have only two programs (circuits?) set up, a low speed (1600rpm) for the skimmer and a high speed (2300 rpm) for the floor cleaner. I run the SWG through the floor cleaner and thus, run the cleaner twice per day about 2-3 hours each cycle to get an appropriate amount of Cl generated (holding 5 ppm Cl). I also run the skimmer program once between the floor cleaner cycles about 2-3 hours per day. Am I doing this wrong? Should I be running the SWG with my skimmer cycle and increasing it to 4-6 hrs/day and drop the floor cleaner to once per day about 2 hours?

I believe I know how to make this swap. I simply flip the switch on the back of my diverter actuator to power the SWG when the skimmer is running versus when the floor cleaner is running. Am I correct?

Should I have more circuits set up to allow for multiple speeds for either the skimmer or floor cleaner? Thinking that I can reduce my electricity use by a bunch if I'm not running the pump at 2300 rpm (800 watts!) for 4-6 hours/day.

Any opinions and reasoning would be greatly appreciated. Only been doing it this way for 6+ years!

 

[Pprior]

Reading through this as I've have some similar questions, then I got to your concern about running "800!" watts for 4-6 hours a day. My pump is running almost 2500 watts for 9 hours a day and my pool is less than 1/2 your size, so don't feel too bad!

 

[tucsontico]

In reality my electricity use for the pool is about $1/day. I estimated this based on the Tucson Electric Power (TEP) average cost of $ .09/kWH. Not bad at all. However, I think I may be unnecessarily stressing the floor cleaner and the pump by running it at those speeds for so long.

 

[Newdude]

Rpms/flow don't matter for the SWG once they are enough to activate the flow switch and turn the unit on. If it is on, it will produce the same FC regardless. So if you can swap around your programs and use the 1600 RPM schedule more, then yeah you'd bank some KW for sure, Some units need more than that to activate the flow switch, due to pump size/plumbing length/ head loss /other equipment/ etc, while many of us only need 1200 rpms for it to work. You'd have to experiment to see how low you could go. And then of course, keep experimenting to find the right amount of filter time needed with the altered schedule.

Or just do what myself and many other lazy people do, turn it on low RPMs and walk away. Adjust the SWG runtime (%) once a week if needed. More often than not you will have a hair too much FC in the target range which is still safe as can be and many times better than being a hair too low. Your filtering will be spectacular as a side result.