The Ghost in the Machine is Back......

[PoolGate]

Sigh.... My Aqualink system is already turning stuff on without me. Found my heater on this morning. Fortunately, the gas is still off. Short of replacing my main board, I am not sure what else I can do. Frustrating as heck. I did briefly have this connected as an Alexa skill but that skill is disabled.

 

[SecoSteve]

Sounds like your season is off to a rocky start. Sorry about that. First your cell error, swamp, and now this. Hope it clears up!

How did your Cyclone do clearing out your lines last fall?

 

[PoolGate]

Sounds like your season is off to a rocky start. Sorry about that. First your cell error, swamp, and now this. Hope it clears up!

How did your Cyclone do clearing out your lines last fall?

It was fantastic. I will close myself every year now.

After running my robot and cleaning it a dozen times for a day and a half, the pool is almost clear. Still has a little haziness but I expect that to clear by the weekend. And I did get some good news this morning, I went ahead and did a heater test and it went perfectly. Fired right up with one click. I ran it for 30 minutes. So there's that.

 

[SecoSteve]

Nice. You are at "Hotel Haze" phase of your SLAM. I am a little concerned now about my water. I peeked under the cover a couple weeks ago and it was clear. Might have to open sooner than I usually do(May 1).

 

[1poolman1]

Sigh.... My Aqualink system is already turning stuff on without me. Found my heater on this morning. Fortunately, the gas is still off. Short of replacing my main board, I am not sure what else I can do. Frustrating as heck. I did briefly have this connected as an Alexa skill but that skill is disabled.

Do you have a spa-side button? If so, disconnect it in the panel. It is a 6-conductor plug, usually brown. They can cause the issues you are having. If the problem stops, you're good.

 

[PoolGate]

Do you have a spa-side button? If so, disconnect it in the panel. It is a 6-conductor plug, usually brown. They can cause the issues you are having. If the problem stops, you're good.

No spa-side. No hard-wired controllers at all.

 

[1poolman1]

No spa-side. No hard-wired controllers at all.

Do a review of all the programs in the system. Many times, when trying to troubleshoot, overlapping programs are inadvertently set. That, too, would cause what you are seeing.

 

[PoolGate]

Do a review of all the programs in the system. Many times, when trying to troubleshoot, overlapping programs are inadvertently set. That, too, would cause what you are seeing.

I have done that many times. Nothing is out of the ordinary. And nothing programmatic calls or has ever called for heat (or the light) with the exception of Alexa and the skill is and has been totally disabled. The two things I find turned on randomly are the lights and the heater. There is no rhyme or reason to it. I have even had my heater turn on and the temp increased. Nothing makes sense about this.

 

[wireform]

Nice. You are at "Hotel Haze" phase of your SLAM. I am a little concerned now about my water. I peeked under the cover a couple weeks ago and it was clear. Might have to open sooner than I usually do(May 1).

Here on TFP the calendar date for pool opening is not a date you pick in your mind but rather the water temperature getting close to the 60 degree mark. Works much better then the calendar.

 

[PoolGate]

Here on TFP the calendar date for pool opening is not a date you pick in your mind but rather the water temperature getting close to the 60 degree mark. Works much better then the calendar.

Yes and this is what I did. I open when it gets to around 60. I opened to the above mess and it was below 60. Right now sitting at 58. It bounced to 63 once. Not sure why the algae flourished at such a low temp. I will start adding chlorine over winter from now on.

 

[1poolman1]

I have done that many times. Nothing is out of the ordinary. And nothing programmatic calls or has ever called for heat (or the light) with the exception of Alexa and the skill is and has been totally disabled. The two things I find turned on randomly are the lights and the heater. There is no rhyme or reason to it. I have even had my heater turn on and the temp increased. Nothing makes sense about this.

Might try to disconnect any of the red RS-485 connectors on the left upper side of the board so that there are no inputs. If the problem persists, its in the board, if not its an input issue.

 

[PoolGate]

Might try to disconnect any of the red RS-485 connectors on the left upper side of the board so that there are no inputs. If the problem persists, its in the board, if not its an input issue.

That will disable the entire system. No pump, no SWG, no Heater, etc, etc. The ghost is random. I can go a week with nothing then wake up to the heater being on.

 

[SecoSteve]

That will disable the entire system. No pump, no SWG, no Heater, etc, etc. The ghost is random. I can go a week with nothing then wake up to the heater being on.

Can we rule out the "ghost" being an actual person messing with your system? A kid or disgruntled neighbor?

 

[PoolGate]

Can we rule out the "ghost" being an actual person messing with your system? A kid or disgruntled neighbor?

Yes 100%. It is not happening at the panel and I am the only one with access to the interface.

 

[PoolGate]

Heater and light both turned themselves on last night. I turned them off and just now the heater turned itself on again. So annoying. I keep the gas turned off unless I want to use it now however.

 

[ajw22]

I have put cameras continuously recording on equipment that is intermittently glitching to capture exactly when it happens and the environment around it.

 

[PoolGate]

Yeah I guess I could do that. I already have a camera on it.

 

[PoolGate]

So just looked at the pool and the light was on and every single thing else was off. This is really getting annoying. I might kill Aqualink's internet connection just to see if it will stop.

 

[jesse-99]

This is weird. Only either time I had this happen is in a car long ago where the relays got water corroded and would intermittently turn on the car's headlights or other things for no reason at all. All because the relays were corroded with water. I'm assuming your pool lights and heater might be attached to a relay or relays. So you might want to first start by inspecting or replacing the relays of ANY device that seems to randomly come on by itself. It might not even be the Aqualink control board initiating it. The relays could be do this by themselves. At least it's an easy check/fix and inexpensive.

 

[WGpoolnewb]

I've found my RS8 likes to flip into "covered" mode randomly. I've had the main board replaced once, but I just caught it doing it again recently. Took me a while to figure out what was happening, as my SWCG output level would get set to 0%. Happened once when we were out of town for two weeks, you can imagine what we returned to. Now I set it to 51%, and I know it's done it when I see that level.

And if it wasn't obvious, I don't have a cover or wiring for cover switches installed.