IntelliChlor IC20 - Cell Light off more than on

[CanuckPool]

Hi everyone, I am a newbie pool owner here in Canada, and just had the IC20 installed... its an all Pentair system Filter/Pump/Heater/Lights etc. My pool chlorine level seems to be on the low side all the time. I have tested it with the Taylor test kit and it seems to be around 1.0 - 1.2 ish. Moderate bathers, south facing, been partially sunny. The pool was opened about a week ago and it was manually shocked to start it off and IC20 set at 100% for 24 hours. I had the pool water tested today and here were the results.

FC .20
TC .30
Combined Chlorine .1
pH 8.00
Hardness 130 ppm
Alk 200.0 ppm
CYA 5 ppm

So I put in Aqua pH minus to lower the pH and Alk, Aqua CAL to raise the hardness and AQUA Stab to raise the CYA. Remember, this is a brand new vinyl pool (16x34) so its not like I have had these readings for weeks.

Ok, so now that you have the background, here is my question. I set the IC20 to superchlorinate for 24 hours 100%. Apparently it goes on for 59 minutes and rests for 1 minute (cell light is on when producing chlorine). The cell light comes on when I set it, but if I check on it 5-10 minutes later the cell light is off, it eventually comes on again but not for long, maybe 2 minutes and then it goes off again for another 90 seconds. It seems the longer you leave it, when you check on it, the cell light is off more than it is on. I am wondering if this could be the cause of low chlorine. Does anyone else have this unit? All the other lights on the unit read fine (Salk ok, cell life ok, flow ok)

thoughts???

[Ballz2TheWallz]

My IC40's cell light is never on:confused:

[CanuckPool]

did you do a chlorine test? is it producing chlorine?

[mshumack]

You are correct that the cell light should be on when the cell is producing chlorine. I suggest you get your water balanced first by adding bleach to increase Chlorine (aim for 5ppm), adjusting the PH (you need to lower to 7.4 - 7.6 with Muratic Acid), and increasing the CYA to 60 - 80ppm by adding stabilizer. I think your problem is mostly due to low CYA. I don't remember if your ALK or CAl was in the correct range or not.
FYI, I use the IC40 on a 20,000 gal pool with CYA around 70 and output set around 40% (8 hours pump run time). My chlorine output increased when I upped the CYA (from 40) and I was able to reduce the IC40 setting from 60% to 40% to maintain 5ppm CL.
Good Luck

[CanuckPool]

Thanks, I checked the Chlorine this morning and it has gone up to about 2.0 and read 3.0 at the return back to the pool. The pH is at 7.0-7.1 down from the 8.0. I put in stabilizer and it seems to be producing more chlorine since the .2 readings I had from the pool store. It has been on boost mode and I will check the chlorine in the am and adjust the unit from there. Hopefully I can have it running at about 60%. my pool is about 14,000 gallons.

[mshumack]

In my opinion it is better to add liquid bleach to get the CL where you want it (and when/if you shock) then maintain that level with the SWG. This way you won't wear out the SWG cell prematurely by running it in "boost" or "shock" mode.