SWCG and winter months

[Sumo1]

My Polaris SWCG book says not to operate it with water temps less than 55 degrees so I just reset the controls so that it doesn't turn on the cell when the pumps turn on.
Hal

[Poolsean]

Each manufacturer's "cold" temperature is going to be different. The fact is, colder water temperatures tend to wear out the cell prematurely. Reducing the output until the low temp protection cut off kicks in, is fine to help your cell life. Turning it off and adding by hand is better. But for the most part, too many homeowners don't do anything. The result is overchlorination, premature cell wear, and pool equipment damage.

While AutoPilot's automatic temperature compensation will automatically adjust the output higher or lower, based upon water temperature changes, manually adjusting a swg without the temp compensation will have similar results (protecting the cell).

Your system is showing the COLD because it's hit the cold temp safety shut off, but as the water temps warm up, it turns back on. The good thing is that much less chlorine is needed with it's too cold out.

[steveinaz]

Thanks for the additonal info Sean.

[river-wear]

So Sean, just to make sure I understand, with the AutoPilot I don't have to shut it off for winter? The unit will do that on its own? Or would it be better to shut it down to prolong the cell life?

One other thing, is it normal to see large swings in output with small changes in water temperature? For example, I set mine to 50% when the water was 81-82 degrees, then when it cooled to 78 the setting went down to 38%. I was getting some algae so I turned it back to 50% and as you'd expect, the setting was up around 70% when it heated back up. Is there a way to adjust this (that is, the unit's sensitivity)?

Thanks!

[Poolsean]

River,

When the temps get to 55 degrees or colder, the output will automatically reduced to 1%, and cannot be increased but can be lowered to 0% (off).
As temps fall, this compensation feature automatically adjusts the output so you don't have to. In cold temp conditions, lowering the output helps save the cell life. You don't have to shut it off and revert to hand feeding chlorine. Cold temps require very little chlorine.

The Automatic Temperature Compensation is not adjustable in sensitivity and is in the software.
As the temps change 5 degrees, it adjusts 25% of the setting.
your pool is a perfect example: At 80 degrees, and 50% setting, when it dropped to 75 degrees, the output dropped 25% of 50% (or 12.5%) to 37.5%.

I would set the output to 60% and monitor it. The temp adjust would have dropped it to 45% instead of 37.5%.

Hope this helps

[river-wear]

Thank you Sean - I'll give that a try.