What did you do to your pool today?

[Dirk]

You were lucky to not get seriously hurt. My older bro is an electrician and he yelled at me once when I faced timed him to help with something and I said I cut the breaker when he asked me did I shut off the power. He said did I use my tester to test to be sure. I had not and he told me anything mechanical can fail and you always test even though you cut the breaker. That's why they tend to use fuses in commercial/industrial applications.

I always stick one of these in a socket just before I shut off its breaker. For light switches I rely on the light itself. But testing more thoroughly is pretty good advice.

To uphold my geeky rep, check this: in both of the two houses I've lived in, I took the time and the considerable effort to create an Adobe Illustrator drawing of every single electrical device in my home, then meticulously determined which breaker feeds it. I never rely on this alone to shut down power to what I might be working on, I still test, too, but over the years this has been an effort that has paid for itself. Better than running back and forth from plug to breaker panel, or yelling out the window at someone working the other end for you, clicking through breaker after breaker until the right one is found.

Here's a snap shot of one corner of my house. I devised a key of symbols and colors that tells me what each device is, its breaker, its amps, its relationship to a GFI circuit, etc. The red stands for the circuit breaker for my 24-7 home automation computer, as in: DON'T SHUT ME OFF UNTIL YOU SHUTDOWN THE COMPUTER!


And of course I plotted all the breakers that run my pool and yard, like the blue ones floating off to the right.

This also gave me a good sense of just how lazy and cheap the electrician was!!

Geek on!

 

[midlifecrisis]

Here's a snap shot of one corner of my house. I devised a key of symbols and colors that tells me what each device is, its breaker, its amps, its relationship to a GFI circuit, etc. The red stands for the circuit breaker for my 24-7 home automation computer, as in: DON'T SHUT ME OFF UNTIL YOU SHUTDOWN THE COMPUTER!

And I thought the UPS in my media cabinet (where my Pi is as well) was a bit on the geeky side. Please take me geek card.

 

[midlifecrisis]

Finally got my replacement Dolphin Sigma and mounted the power supply in a weather proof clear container on the wall to keep the cord off my patio and less traffic area into the pool. Happy wife. I've slowly moved from constantly tinkering to actually taking time to actually enjoy my pool. All while spending less time testing and worrying. Thanks TFP.

 

[DrewLG]

I always stick one of these in a socket just before I shut off its breaker. For light switches I rely on the light itself. But testing more thoroughly is pretty good advice.

There's also this style, which won't really tell you whether your sockets are wired correctly. But it'll warn you if the socket is hot, and it has the benefit of also working on bare or insulated wires, screw terminals. old hot-chassis radios, etc. Plus it's small enough to be stored inside an Easytouch cabinet:

Fluke 1AC-A1-II VoltAlert Non-Contact Voltage Tester

 

[Mdragger88]

PSA - always use any tester on a known live circuit first before assuming it’s working when it tells you the one you think you turned off is dead.

 

[Dirk]

PSA - always use any tester on a known live circuit first before assuming it’s working when it tells you the one you think you turned off is dead.

That's kinda what I do. I plug in that tester gizmo, check the lights, then flip the breaker and confirm the lights went off. Because it doesn't use batteries, and I'm not even touching it or moving it, and it has more than one light, when those lights go off it's a pretty good confirmation.

 

[Woodstock1234]

Day 2 of my SLAM cause I decided to open in July

 

[Turbo1Ton]

Just got back from a weeks vacation, last night. Went out this morning, took a sample, and checked pH and FC. FC was good @9ppm, pH was way high. Thought maybe my IntellipH ran out of acid while I was gone. Go check the level, it is good. Look at the controller and it is stuck in the menu mode for some reason. Reboot the Intellicenter with the reboot button. No dice. Kill control power for about 30 seconds, turn back on, and viola! IntellipH controller is back to normal.

Added 11oz of acid to bring pH back to 7.8.

--Jeff

 

[Dirk]

Just got back from a weeks vacation, last night. Went out this morning, took a sample, and checked pH and FC. FC was good @9ppm, pH was way high. Thought maybe my IntellipH ran out of acid while I was gone. Go check the level, it is good. Look at the controller and it is stuck in the menu mode for some reason. Reboot the Intellicenter with the reboot button. No dice. Kill control power for about 30 seconds, turn back on, and viola! IntellipH controller is back to normal.

Added 11oz of acid to bring pH back to 7.8.

--Jeff

Hmm, well that's disappointing to hear an IpH go offline for no apparent reason. Glad you resolved it easily enough. It makes sense that rebooting the IntelliCenter had no effect on the IpH. They don't really communicate with each other at all. Cycling the power rebooted the IpH, which is the only way it can be rebooted.

It was an unfortunate decision by Pentair to leave out IpH/EasyTouch/IntelliCenter communication and control. That's a glaring hole in my pool automation systems. Remote reporting and control of my IpH could have easily been included. My theory is that Pentair wanted to save that exclusively for their IntelliChem product, so that an intelllipH/IntelliChlor setup would not dilute IntelliChem sales.

Please keep me/us posted if this ever happens again.

 

[Turbo1Ton]

Hmm, well that's disappointing to hear an IpH go offline for no apparent reason. Glad you resolved it easily enough. It makes sense that rebooting the IntelliCenter had no effect on the IpH. They don't really communicate with each other at all. Cycling the power rebooted the IpH, which is the only way it can be rebooted.

Rebooting the IntelliCenter does cycle the power to the IntellipH. Just must not have powered it off long enough to let the caps bleed down, or whatever was causing it to be stuck in the menu mode.

I just rebooted again to confirm this. Display goes blank and goes through the initial checks, showing FW version and that it is checking the IC40.

--Jeff

 

[Ahultin]

@Turbo1Ton is your swg not powered thru the filter pump relay? If so , did shutting off and restarting the filter pump not restart the iph?

Also did you check the ic firmware, I know pentair started rolling out the auto update to 2.017, maybe that caused your issue.

 

[Turbo1Ton]

@Turbo1Ton is your swg not powered thru the filter pump relay? If so , did shutting off and restarting the filter pump not restart the iph?

Also did you check the ic firmware, I know pentair started rolling out the auto update to 2.017, maybe that caused your issue.

It is powered through the relay. Shutting off the pump probably would have done the same thing. I just hit the reset button first. When that failed, my next thought was the control power.

FW is 1.064. I did check that because I thought the same thing. Sorry for leaving that out of the previous description.

--Jeff

 

[Dirk]

Rebooting the IntelliCenter does cycle the power to the IntellipH. Just must not have powered it off long enough to let the caps bleed down, or whatever was causing it to be stuck in the menu mode.

I just rebooted again to confirm this. Display goes blank and goes through the initial checks, showing FW version and that it is checking the IC40.

--Jeff

Ah, my bad. I shouldn't have assumed the reboot button on the IntelliCenter is the same as on my EasyTouch. Come to think of it, I've only used it once and wasn't paying attention if that shutdown running relays or not. All moot. Don't mind me!

Odd that it took two tries. Can't remember where I learned this, but have made a habit of it since. Whenever I reboot anything, or cycle power for some reason, I count to 30 before reenergizing.

 

[Homebrewale]

Removed a bunch of leaves from the pool from the storm at hit here. I used the net to scoop some of them and the robot took 3 cycles to get everything. Add two bags of sand to the sand filter.

One thing I didn't do is add any muriatic acid. I had not added any this season. I must be extremely lucky.

I also found out the volume of my pool is 19,500 gallons, not 22,000 gallons that I estimated.

 

[Homebrewale]

Here's what I did for my pool today. Can you guess what I'm doing?

 

[BDY]

Washing the deck?

 

[Newdude]

Iron test ?

 

[kellyfair]

Making world’s largest cappuccino?

 

[Dirk]

Uh, that's not your pool, pal, you're working on your septic system! Your pool is the other concrete thingie full of water.

 

[Homebrewale]

I changed one word. I said for my pool, instead of to my pool. I created two mosquito dunks to help lower the mosquito population around my pool. Mosquito dunks work by attracting mosquitos to standing water to lay their eggs. The "dunk" is a donut of BTI bacteria that kills the larvae.