Pentair Intellichem Controllers

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JPMorgan

JPMorgan

Gold Supporter
May 22, 2018
847
Elmhurst, IL
Pool Size
60000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
We just had two new Intellichem controllers installed on our indoor and outdoor pools. Anyone know where I can get a good tutorial on how to use these controllers on a day to day basis? In particular, I am looking for information on the ORP and how this relates to chlorine and what to do if my ORP starts dropping.... or ORP is within range, but FC is low. I know that ORP fluctuates based on a variety of factors, so how do I raise the chlorine in the pool if ORP is at 700-750, but the chlorine is only at 2-3 and CYA ia at 40-50? I'm guessing the first thing to do is to make sure all other chemicals are at the appropriate level and not just move the ORP set point to a higher level. Just looking for a good overall tutorial for the non-professional and in particular how to keep chlorine in the right range for the level of CYA in the pool.
 
Thanks for that information. A couple of things that might work in our favor.... all the equipment is indoors, the pools are not used heavily most days, we installed a liquid chlorine feeder along with the new controller, and one of the pools is an indoor pool. I needed a way to automate the outdoor pool, as I have been manually feeding the sanitizer for the past 2 years and didn't want to continue that. Too late now, but is there a better controller I should have considered? I wanted WiFi capability which allows me to monitor the pool remotely and the Intellichem controllers provided that.
 
mknauss said:
None seem to work well for outdoor pools.
Click to expand...
I just hope it's less work than manual monitoring and dosing of the outdoor pool. That task wasn't bad when I owned my own (smaller) pool, but now that I'm helping to maintain a "commercial" pool, it's a bit of a hassle. We'll see...
I'll weigh in after we've had it in service for a while.
 
Yea, I'll be honest on ORP - it's a pain in the @$$.

I added a Hayward Sense and Dispense to my pool. The PH has been great, the ORP with SWG is not. My personal opinion there are two reasons for this:

1. ORP fluctuates drastically from AM to PM with the sunlight.
2. The SWG doesn't react fast enough to a true drop in ORP. After having my pool for 8 years now and never having algae (although I did have a bout with CYA reducing bacteria after a pool repair while I was out of town, and the pool not being turned on for a week), the first time I ever had algae was this year with the ORP Sensor + SWG

I've switched to running my cell at 35-40ish% whenever my pump is running (which is basically 24 hours since its variable speed), and I've gotten much better results. Now with that said, I don't think ORP is completely useless. We do have a little beach front property that we escape to from time to time and now I use it as a gauge on if I need to adjust my cell output up or down. Which Hayward doesn't make easy to do, because if the SWG isn't controlled by ORP it doesn't show it in their app, but fortunately my home automation platform has the ability to still read the sensor and it can create some nice graphs of it over time. So when I'm out of town I'll chart out the 24 hour high of the ORP value, and if it starts to trend downwards I'll increase the output on my salt cell or turn on super-chlorinate for 24 hours. The product as it is designed is definitely not set it and forget it.

Maybe I could automate that in the future with the automation platform since It can do some pretty basic derivative and AUC calculations, so I likely could do something like if the AUC of the last 7 days is decreasing, or maybe if the derivative of the linear regression line of the 24 hour high is negative either increase the output by x% as long as its between the range 30-50% or super chlorinate and then notify me via text message of the change. Or if the change is really drastic notify me that it needs manual intervention (I.e. call a neighbor and have them pour some liquid in). This would probably be more accurate than the on/off method Hayward uses, and would be beneficial when I'm not around to do my daily testing and adjustments.
 
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