Salinity meter imbalance

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bobfloyd

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Oct 16, 2014
45
Australia
Hi,

I have an Onga RP3000SC chlorinator.

The chlorinator, due to it's self cleaning facility, reverses the polarity every 4 hours (on the hard water setting which I have it set to, 6 hourly on the soft water setting).

The output meter reads 100% on the right hand side, but, when it flicks to the left hand side, it reads only about 75%.

It has only started doing this recently and the behaviour is consistent (i.e. always the left hand side reads low).

The cell has been cleaned recently.

I'm not sure if the problem is just with the meter (I have tried tapping it etc) or the chlorinator unit or the cell.

Can't be the salinity of the water I guess, as then it would read the same both sides.

Any thoughts as to what might cause this? Could the salt cell be on it's way out? Pool appears ok - chlorine level ok.

Scott.
 
I suppose the answer is "it depends". Can you lay your hands on a schematic?

The chance of it being an inexpensive fix is probably inversely proportional to your ability to fault find it and describe the exact fault to someone with the skills to finish the diagnosis and repair. A schematic is going to grease that process considerably.

My Monarch ESC doesn't use a bridge rectifier on the cell (it does to power the electronics however). It uses a pair of triacs and center tapped transformer configured as a half wave rectifier and then switches them on at the appropriate time to manage the average cell current *and* cell polarity. An extremely clever result of "cost down" engineering.
 
Helpful in giving some detail and specs for the Chlorinator, but not really for any detailed diagnosis.

Does yours have the center zero cell current meter (marked RP REV on Pg 9)? Do you have a meter you can measure the cell current with to verify it's not the physical meter at fault?

Given the cell voltage & current specs on pg 20 (6.6V 30A for your chlorinator) you'll want a DC clamp meter around one of the cell wires.

Pg 17, 9.6 indicates potential issues with asymetric output being rectifer(s), PCB or transformer, but it's going to require someone with the tools and experience to actually effect a diagnosis. It's almost impossible to diagnose remotely unless you at least have a basic background in electronics, decent meter and willingness to get it to pieces and put up with it being out of service while you go back and forwards photographing, measuring and tracing out circuits on the PCB.

You might be better phoning around the pool stores seeing if they have a number for someone in your city that does repair work.
 
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