my (good) experience with the PoolPilot

I have added a PoolPilot to my pool a few months ago.
This is a report on my experience.

First of all, I opted for a SWG mainly because I am not very
good at doing regular manual maintenance, I don't enjoy it,
and I prefer to spend time otherwise. However, I would have
considered the SWG even if I didn't mind the labor, because
of the simpler chemistry involved. With all other
chlorinating methods, you don't just add chlorine to the
pool. With bleach you add salt, with dichlors or trichlors
you add cyanuric acid, etc. so you need to keep worrying
about rebalancing your water.

Installation was relatively straightforward and I think it's
a pretty safe DIY project for most people that can glue PVC
and do simple electrical work.

Tuning the system was a little trickier, at least for me. I
was expecting the PoolPilot to generate a lot more chlorine
faster, and was concerned when it didn't, particularly since
I had knowingly oversized the system. I bought a DLG-220
with the SC-48 cell for a pool that's only a little over
10,000 gal. I did it because I wanted the option of running
the pump only a few hours/day.

After a few days of use, however, I measured the chlorine to
a whopping 5ppm. Time to turn it down! I am still
adjusting it, but I had a little setback because a check
valve in the loop broke (from old age) and a loose part
would intermittently obstruct the valve outlet, so the daily
flow was pretty random. In any case, with an output level
of about 20% or 30% at 90F I have no trouble keeping the FC
at 2-3ppm. This is an indoor pool and in the past 1-2ppm
seemed enough, so I'll lower it a little more.

During the initial tuning I had a lot of help from the
well-known Sean at Autopilot. He even sent me a new control
unit because some of the numbers from the old one were a bit
suspicious (by that time the system seemed to work fine, but
I replaced the unit anyhow). I don't think Autopilot has a
lot of support people, and sometimes Sean is traveling and
it takes a few days before he gets a chance to respond, but
it's safe to say that they won't ignore you until your
system fully works.

I concur with other owners of SWGs who claim SWGs are great.
The water stays sparkling clear with essentially no
maintenance. I keep the salt level at 3,000ppm and it can
definitely be tasted, but barely, and it's pretty
inconspicuous.

Curiously, I expected the pH to raise, but it never did.
It's been hovering at 7.6 and I never had to add any acid so
far. The water is buffered with Borax. I don't know why my
pH is not going up. (I don't really know why it should go
up either.) But surely I am not complaining!

Luigi