I began to have problems maintaining steady chlorine levels with my one-year old pool. After doing a bit of investigation, I found that every morning, the salt level on the Aquarite's display panel was reading 800 ppm - too low for the SWG to work. Some hours later, the average would get high enough for the SWG to start working, but half the day's running time was already gone, and the chlorine level was steadily dropping over time. I knew my salt level was good, as I had to add salt after Irma's rain diluted everything last month. I was able to find a lot of message threads on this board that addressed the SWG issue (thanks!)
The root cause turned out to be a flow switch that failed closed. Not good! My SWG was sitting there all night with an activated cell, perhaps with no water in it.... I replaced the flow switch, solving the immediate problem, but didn't like that the SWG was powered up 24/7, waiting for the same thing to happen again.
The solution, seen here before, was to install a current-sensing relay that would make sure that the motor was running before the SWG would get power. There are some threads that talk about this, but I really wanted to try to get something that could fit inside the Aquarite's enclosure, and there's not a lot of room....
What I found was this: Current Sensing Relay
The relay is small enough to fit in the Aquarite enclosure, uses 240v (important because there's no neutral wire anywhere to be seen) and Amazon had one in stock. I had to get one with a 2-25 sec delay range because that's what they had in stock, but any delay would do.
Now, I'm not comfortable with leaving one hot side powered up to the SWG all of the time, so I added a 240v DPST power relay that was small enough to fit in the enclosure just above the CSR. The single-pole relay on the CSR switches one feed of the 240v relay coil (the other side is hot all of the time) which then completes the power circuit to the SWG. It's also small enough that it'll fit just above the CSR in the enclosure. Yay!!
The power wire to the Tristar VS pump runs through my Aquarite box (how convenient!) and it was easy to pass that wire through the relay's sensing coil (no looping was necessary). The wiring was pretty straightforward. I bought a few feet of stranded 12gauge wire at HD, along with the necessary female insulated terminals. The CSR senses the current in the pump wire and then closes its relay, which powers up the power relay, sending 240v to the Aquarite controller.
Easy as pie. Cost me about $120 and a few hours of my time.
The CSR and the power relay are to the left of the circuit board, behind all of the wires.
The delay on the CSR is turned down to min, so two seconds after the pump spins up, the relay closes and power flows to the SWG. It shuts the power off after the pump ends its daily eight-hour run. Here in South Florida, this pump runs all year.
Thanks TFP for the help and ideas. I've learned so much from reading here.
The root cause turned out to be a flow switch that failed closed. Not good! My SWG was sitting there all night with an activated cell, perhaps with no water in it.... I replaced the flow switch, solving the immediate problem, but didn't like that the SWG was powered up 24/7, waiting for the same thing to happen again.
The solution, seen here before, was to install a current-sensing relay that would make sure that the motor was running before the SWG would get power. There are some threads that talk about this, but I really wanted to try to get something that could fit inside the Aquarite's enclosure, and there's not a lot of room....
What I found was this: Current Sensing Relay
The relay is small enough to fit in the Aquarite enclosure, uses 240v (important because there's no neutral wire anywhere to be seen) and Amazon had one in stock. I had to get one with a 2-25 sec delay range because that's what they had in stock, but any delay would do.
Now, I'm not comfortable with leaving one hot side powered up to the SWG all of the time, so I added a 240v DPST power relay that was small enough to fit in the enclosure just above the CSR. The single-pole relay on the CSR switches one feed of the 240v relay coil (the other side is hot all of the time) which then completes the power circuit to the SWG. It's also small enough that it'll fit just above the CSR in the enclosure. Yay!!
The power wire to the Tristar VS pump runs through my Aquarite box (how convenient!) and it was easy to pass that wire through the relay's sensing coil (no looping was necessary). The wiring was pretty straightforward. I bought a few feet of stranded 12gauge wire at HD, along with the necessary female insulated terminals. The CSR senses the current in the pump wire and then closes its relay, which powers up the power relay, sending 240v to the Aquarite controller.
Easy as pie. Cost me about $120 and a few hours of my time.
The CSR and the power relay are to the left of the circuit board, behind all of the wires.
The delay on the CSR is turned down to min, so two seconds after the pump spins up, the relay closes and power flows to the SWG. It shuts the power off after the pump ends its daily eight-hour run. Here in South Florida, this pump runs all year.
Thanks TFP for the help and ideas. I've learned so much from reading here.