No power to heater or pump

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doncaruana

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Aug 25, 2011
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Northville, Mi
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Salt Water Generator
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Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
So I'm trying to bring my system back up, go to the easy touch panel and throw the breakers inside. Things seem to be okay and I put it in service mode. Hit the pump button - nothing. Look at the panel on the pump - no lights. Look at the panel on the heater - no lights. Pop the inside cover off and put my meter on the wires going to the pump. As soon as I hit the pump button, I go to 240v.

What in the world could the guys that closed it have done? I've opened it myself before - never had any issues. Any suggestions on what to look for/at?
 
I am confused.

"Pop the inside cover off " of what?

"put my meter on the wires going to the pump " from where? At the CB?

So you have 240V at the pump CB? Do you have 240V at the pump connection?

The Intelliflo pump needs the data cable from the pump to the ET to get the command to turn on. Check it.

Post pics of your equipment and open ET load center wiring.
 
I checked inside the easy touch box for voltage. I turned it back on and the pump came on for a minute but I had the easy touch in service mode. Easy touch wouldn't activate pump but when I went to the pump and pressed one of the mode buttons it came on. Then when I cycled through back at easy touch to auto mode again, pump is dead with no power again. So it sounds like it possibly could be the easy touch not sending signal or the line possibly? Still nothing at the heater. Starting to think it's the easy touch. :(
 
The heater power should not be switched by a relay on the ET.

It sounds to me like some low voltage cables like the firemans switch and pump data cable came loose.

@Jimrahbe knows the ET quirks better then I do.
 
Don,

Your IntelliFlo pump should not be connected to any relays.. It should have constant AC power from a Circuit breaker inside you EasyTouch.

When being controlled by the EasyTouch the pump's display should say "Display Not Active".. The Display should never be off unless the pump is not getting power. In the Service mode the pump's display should show the normal standalone pump display, and let you control the pump, from the pump.

Take a couple of pics of your set up, inside the EasyTouch and show us how it is wired.

If the display is blank, the first place to check is at the L1 and L2 connection, where the power enters the pump. Measure between L1 and L2, never measure L1 to ground and L2 to ground.

If you go to the Service mode and then back to Auto, it can take several minutes for the pump to come back on line.

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
I did a little more work here...

I disconnected the serial cable from the pump and voila! Power came on the panel. I was able to operate it manually from there. I can't remember at the moment if I needed the pump to be "on" at the ET panel or not. Seems like when it wasn't on at the panel, there was no power to the pump itself (which is what I metered also, getting 240v across 2 and 4 once I turned the pump "on" at the ET panel). But I could be wrong. For sure though, plugging the serial cable back in killed the power to the pump and the pump control panel went right out.

My ET panel is below. Terminals 1 and 3 are the leads from the 240 breaker which is for the pump and heater. 2 and 4 go to the pump and heater with the white and red wires running to the pump and the black wires on those terminals going to the heater (which remained dead through all this). The serial cable for the heater is a lot harder to get to so I never disconnected it.

All that being said, seems like the serial connection is killing the pump. And I'm thinking that it's also killing the heater (is this likely)? I find it unlikely that both serial cables suddenly went bad at the same time and they go in two different directions. So I'm kind of thinking it might be the motherboard on the easy touch?

Does any of this make sense? :) And do you need more pictures? And, as ALWAYS, thanks for the help!!

ET_Panel_labelled.jpg
 
Both the pump and heater should get constant power. Both sets of wires on 2 & 4 should be wire nutted to a pigtail wire and connected to 1 & 3.

Code requires pumps to be on a dedicated CB and not shared with the heater.

You have the space and should drop in another 240V CB to connect the heater to. You can also change your MasterTemp to 120V and then install a 120V CB.

Is your MasterTemp connected using the fireman’s switch or RS-485 data cable?

Flip the top panel down and show us the low voltage connections.
 
Don,

To add to your worries, I suspect that your SWCG's lights are on even when the pump is not running.. This is because your SWCG's power supply is not wired to the pump/filter relay.. This has the possibility of allowing the cell to explode if the flow switch fails.. It is mandatory that the SWCG transformer be wired to the Pump/Filter relay. (We can come back to this.. :mrgreen: )

The serial cable should not cause the pump's display to shut off, no matter how the pump gets its power, so something is wrong.. We need to see where the cable from the pump connects into the Main board on the EasyTouch..

Look inside the connector on the pump and the cable end and see if you see anything obvious.

What I would do first, is remove the wires on the pump filter relay pins 2 and 4... Reconnect just the two wires going to the pump to pins 1 and 3.. Basically, doing this takes the relay out of the circuit and send constant AC power to the pump. For now, leave the heater wires disconnected.

Make sure the serial cable is not connected to the pump. At this point, the pump should be in the standalone mode and you should be able to run the pump.. Connect the cable to the pump and tell us what happens.

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
Jimrahbe said:
To add to your worries, I suspect that your SWCG's lights are on even when the pump is not running.. This is because your SWCG's power supply is not wired to the pump/filter relay.. This has the possibility of allowing the cell to explode if the flow switch fails.. It is mandatory that the SWCG transformer be wired to the Pump/Filter relay.
Click to expand...
You are correct - the lights are on when the pump's not running (been this way since I had it installed in 2011). But I was looking at the manual and of course it says it should be wired to the pump relay just like you said.

Jimrahbe said:
The serial cable should not cause the pump's display to shut off, no matter how the pump gets its power, so something is wrong.. We need to see where the cable from the pump connects into the Main board on the EasyTouch..
Click to expand...
In the pic below, I've labeled the connections for the pump and heater. I actually don't know what the other wires on the terminal with the pump are - I forgot to look.

Jimrahbe said:
Look inside the connector on the pump and the cable end and see if you see anything obvious.
Click to expand...
I'll check that tomorrow.

Jimrahbe said:
What I would do first, is remove the wires on the pump filter relay pins 2 and 4... Reconnect just the two wires going to the pump to pins 1 and 3.. Basically, doing this takes the relay out of the circuit and send constant AC power to the pump. For now, leave the heater wires disconnected.

Make sure the serial cable is not connected to the pump. At this point, the pump should be in the standalone mode and you should be able to run the pump.. Connect the cable to the pump and tell us what happens.
Click to expand...
In other words, duplicate what I did previously (connect cable, pump shuts off), but taking the relay out of the equation. I can try this tomorrow too.

As an aside, I also always noticed that the heater shuts off when the pump does, not on delay like it supposed to, which is expected due to the way that's wired I assume.

I'd go back out there tonight but I'm exhausted! My panel is on a hill and I have bad knees. I feel like Nancy Kerrigan right after Tonya Harding got to her right now!

Thanks a ton!




ET_Control_Board.jpg
 
Don,

I suspect that you have the pump cable swapped with the heater cable.. I say this because the cable coming to the heater connection sure looks like the same type of cable the pump uses.

You have them labeled correctly in the pic above, but I think you have the plugs swapped at the other end. So basically when you connect the heater cable to the pump you short out the com port.. If this is true, then your heater could have never worked... :scratch:

It could just be that you used a similar style cable for you heater control????

It could just be that your main board has a fried com port and when you connect the cable to the pump, it shut off the pump's display..

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
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I hand traced the ones I labeled, so they are going where they're supposed to and the pump and heater are opposite directions from the easy touch, so there's no doubt or confusion. The cable is just the same type - I think I ran the cable because my installers were a clown show and then they finished up the hook up to the heater.

A new board is <$400, so I think I'm going to order one while I continue to hash through with this.

Fwiw, I called pentair and walked through this and they thought it was the board (although the focus was just the pump).

The only weird thing to me though is the heater. The panel never comes on for it, even when the relay is hot. That part worries me...
 
Don,

Before you order a new board I have a couple of options..

First. there should be a cable from J20 on the main board going to the SWCG surge card mounted on the back wall of the EasyTouch. Disconnect it where it plugs into the surge card. This will remove the surge card and the SWCG from the com port.. If the pump still has the same problem then it has to be the main board..

I'll have Tom contact you about your main card. Calling @ogdento

The surge card looks like this and has several com port connections. You just need to disconnect the one going to the main card, J20.

New SWCG PCB.jpg

New SWCG PCB.jpg


About your heater.. I have learned that the best troubleshooters, only try to find one failure at a time.. :mrgreen:

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
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Heater wire is two wires. Pump wire should be four wires.

The heater is not going to turn on until it sees water flow. I would not worry about the heater until you have the pump running.
 
Jimrahbe said:
This will remove the surge card and the SWCG from the com port.. If the pump still has the same problem then it has to be the main board..
Click to expand...
So you're ruling out the SWCG being the root cause since it's on the same com port, right?


Jimrahbe said:
About your heater.. I have learned that the best troubleshooters, only try to find one failure at a time.. :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

ajw22 said:
The heater is not going to turn on until it sees water flow. I would not worry about the heater until you have the pump running.
Click to expand...

I'm sensing you guys are telling me not to worry about the heater right now... :)

With that last point in mind (aka, it's not necessarily TWO components failing)...it's not impossible that the cable has an issue. I may see if I can pull it on both ends and check for continuity on each conductor since I found the pinout below.

Thanks guys!
Don

1588823694936.png[/QUOTE]
 
Don,

As you have posted, the pump only uses the two green and yellow data pins and does not use the outside power pins.

I now really doubt the cable is bad.. I suspect something is wrong with your com bus.. It could be the main card, but it could also be anything else that is connected to the main card. Removing the cable going between J20 and the SWCG card will remove anything else in the circuit.

It can't hurt to check the cable just in case.. Maybe it was eaten by an animal..???


Jim R.
 
Jim,

Yes - we back to woods and have tons of squirrels, so the cable is for sure a possibility. Easy to check too, using a old trick my dad taught me...I'll just one end together and then meter the other side (since the cable is tied down).

Noticed this in the intelliflo manual, which makes me question completely what the heck is going on with my system, while it was working, how was it supposed to work?. Like what is the purpose of that relay?? (no need to answer that at the moment).
IMPORTANT: When connecting the pump to an automation system (IntelliTouch, EasyTouch, SunTouch and IntelliComm), continuous power must be supplied to the pump by connecting it directly to the circuit breaker. When using an automation system, be sure that no other lights or appliances are on the same circuit.

Don
 
One other thing - I have the screenlogic receiver hooked up - should I disconnect that as well as the SWCG for testing? I'm not actually sure where it's connected - I need to check and see if I have the COM port expansion board installed.
 
Don,

I suspect that if you remove the wire coming from the J20 com port at the SWCG card, you will also disconnect ScreenLogic which is probably connected to the SWCG card.

Show us a pic of the back wall of you EasyTouch with the from panel down...

Thanks,

Jim R.
 

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