MiniChlor and TechniChlor, How to DECIDE

Nov 17 11 under Chlorine Generators | Leave a comment

We get asked all the time what the difference is between our MiniChlor and TechniChlor spa saltwater systems. The MiniChlor is more like other chlorine generators on the market and lacks the advanced features of temperature compensation and boost mode.
MiniChlor: Our most economical saltwater system and is the model that is most like our competition.

  • List price $219
  • 6 Power Levels
  • Makes 15 grams of Chlorine per day (Spas to 600 gallons)
  • Operates on a 3 hour cycle for consistant chlorine production and water safety
  • Recommend to shock the water after each use, does not have a chlorine boost mode
  • Salt level indicator
  • If you lower the water temperature you will most likely need to adjust the power level.

ColorChlor and TechniChlor: Adds the following features which are also not included with any other saltwater system

  • List price TechniChlor ($279) and ColorChlor ($309)
  • 10 Power Levels
  • Makes 32 grams of Chlorine per day (Spas to 1000 gallons)
  • Operates on a 3 hour cycle for consistant chlorine production and water safety
  • Recommend to shock the water every 2 weeks or after using the spa 10 times.
  • Boost mode, after using the spa will go into a mode where it makes more shlorine for up to 18 hours to replentish the chlorine used.
  • Temperature compensation allows the chlorinator to make less chlorine as the water temperature drops. If you go on vacation and lower the temperature you will not need to also lower the power level on the chlorinator.
  • Salt level indicator
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Pool and Spa Energy Management

Nov 1 11 under Chemical Controllers, PoolWarden, Technology | Leave a comment

There  are a few ways pool and spa owners can save money on energy of which
two are turning the circulation pump off when the pool or spa isn’t
being used (or at least lowering the speed) and lowering the
temperature of the water when the pool or spa isn’t being used.

Lowering the temperature during the keep out hours can easily save as much as
$200 per month or more. To do this you need a temperature controller
that is set up for the days of the week type of control with the
ability to set the time to lower the temperature at night and the
time to set it back in the morning. It will need to be set back at
least an hour before the opening hour to make sure the temperature is
back to normal. A side benefit of lowering the temperature at night
is that will reduce  usage of the pool or spa  during during those
hours. Imagine sneaking into a spa late at night long after it is
closed only to find the water is 90°F instead of 104°F.

Most commercial pools and spas keep the circulation pump running 24 hours
per day. Most of these pumps are oversized and turn over the water
more than needed but that is the way it is. A variable speed pump can
save a lot of money as you can lower the speed to get the desired
turnover rate which could be every 6 hours. A better approach is to
let the pump run at full speed when the pool or spa is open, and then
lower the speed when it is closed. To do this right would require the
ability to be able to set the open and closed times for each day of
the week.

There are controllers for heaters and even some heaters have it built in
the ability to have two temperature setpoints to realize the savings
in lowering the temperature during the pool or spa closed hours. The
same also goes for the variable speed pumps.

The PoolWarden is a water chemistry controller, meaning that it measures
pH and ORP and controls relays that can feed corrective chemicals to
keep the water chemistry in balance. The PoolWarden also has energy
management built in allowing for control of up to three of any
combination of heaters and variable speed pumps. There are two time
profiles (supporting if you have a pool and spa with different
operating hours) that include a morning time and evening time for
each day of the week. When the time is between these two times the
heater or pump will be running normal, when not between these two
times the heater will be at a lower temperature  and the pump will be
at a lower speed.

A PoolWarden that controls two pools including sensors and flow cells
goes for about $2000. If you save $200 per month lowering the
temperature of the heaters at night that would pay for adding water
chemistry control in a short 10 months, not even counting what can be
saved by using the right amount of chlorine and acid/base. The
PoolWarden also tracks relay on time, you can actually see the hours
that the equipment is in the lower energy usage mode and easily
calculate the savings.

By Scott Lenney

ControlOMatic

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MHPower Power Supply has been dropped

Aug 30 11 under Technology, Troubleshooting | Leave a comment

As many of you are aware the 110/220 power supply that we have been using for almost a year has been dropped. We will be documenting the problems that we have had with them in the near future. To date of the 500 power supplies we purchased from TDCPower that were made by MHPower about 10% have failed at 30% load, 110 VAC and 80 degrees outside temperature. It turns out that our dealers cut off the 110 VAC plug to wire the power supply into a 110 VAC circuit (which is a very standard thing to do), according to MHPower that damaged the power supply, I am sure you agree what a stupid thing for MHPower to say. We also have failed units with the 110 plug still on which MHPower indicates the temperature was too high causing them to fail, which makes you wonder if you can run their power supply at 20% load in the winter – just doesn’t make sense unless you are not fessing up to your responsability. We have sense switched to a power supply by Mean Well with 0 failures to date.

We purchased our power cables for all of our chlorine generators from TDCpower, www.tdcpower.com. Many of our dealers ask why does the red wire in the power cable go to ground and the black wire go to +5 which is opposite what it should be and has created many problems for us including destroying a few production units before we caught the problem. The nice folks over at TDCPower offered to fix the 1700 cables (about 700 pounds) if we paid to have them shipped back to China, to us that is a joke of which dealing with TDCPower has beome many jokes. Of the last order of 1700 cables that were wired wrong, 7 were wired correct (can you believe that). So, we had to actually test each one and TDCPower was not willing to compensate us in any way for this extra work. For the mistake of the wire color swap they offered 150 cables which we agreed to even though that will not even come close to covering our costs for dealing with this mess. It has been over 5 months and no cables yet.

— Will be adding more soon on our dealings with TDCPower and MHPower.

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Solar Panel Spa Chlorine Generator

Aug 27 11 under Alternative Sanitizer, Chlorine Generators, Technology, Water Care | Leave a comment

We have been asked why we don’t make a
solar powered chlorinator and there are some very good reasons which
may not be obvious as it sounds like a good idea.

1. Energy savings: about $12 per year,
that is all it takes for a spa chlorine generator to provide around
the clock protection for your spa. They use about 8 watts when making
chlorine and a watt when in standby mode.

2. Solar chlorinators do not make
chlorine at night. In the winter the chlorine will be at the highest
from 1 to 2PM and in the summer from 2 to 6. If you use the spa more
than an hour out of this range either way there will be no chlorine.
A spa with the water over 100f will consume the chlorine within an
hour so it needs to be continuously added.

3. Tracking: A solar chlorinator will
not have a sun tracking panel and will make the most chlorine for a
very short time. A spa consumes chlorine and if not regularly shocked
and phosphates removed the solar chlorinator will most likely not be
able to ever make enough chlorine to be measured.

4. Weather: On cloudy days there will
be no chlorine made. On multiple cloudy days the lack of chlorine
may lead to terrible water quality and smell.

The bottom line is there are many
conditions where you will need to manually add chlorine to be safe.
There is a couple hour window at the hottest time of the day where
the water may be safe when using a solar chlorinator, but that will
most likely be the time you definitely don’t want to use the spa.

If the solar chlorinator has copper and
silver ions that isn’t a replacement for the sanitizer and the above
still holds.

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Spa Equipment and Corrision, is SALT OK or not

Jul 28 11 under Chlorine Generators, Troubleshooting, Water Care | Leave a comment

Pool and Spa equipment and metal corrosion problems are usually caused by water balance issues. Water is known as the universal solvent and under the right conditions will slowly dissolve just about anything. If the pH,alkalinity and/or hardness are low, your heater and any other metal parts will be slowly destroyed. Spas using chlorine or bromine tablets experience heater corrosion for this very reason, because the pH and alkalinity drop to an unacceptably low level which causes the water to be “corrosive”. Chlorine generators will not cause the pH and alkalinity to drop to low levels but if the hardness levels are too low, the water will dissolve metals or whatever it can to achieve correct saturation. Everyone knows the effect of putting a penny in a glass of soda and how it will dissolve the penny. This is due to the water being corrosive because of the low pH and alkalinity caused by the carbon dioxide which creates carbonic acid and this happens rather quickly. Try putting a penny in a container of distilled water for 2 or 3 months. You will notice the penny slowly dissolve because the water is trying to saturate itself with minerals.

Most chlorine generators these days operate on salt levels of 2-3,000 ppm which is considered fresh water. Not enough to cause corrosion like sea water which is about 35,000 ppm of salt. Many pools and spas treated with liquid chlorine have salt levels higher than that especially in drought years in California when draining a pool is highly discouraged. Occasionally, one of these pools would experience galvanic corrosion due to the water being more conductive from the higher salt concentration and low level electrical currents in the water caused by improper grounding of nearby power supplies. The pool would become the ground for these stray currents and cause corrosion. You can read about galvanic corrosion here. All of the major equipment manufacturers make chlorine generators and most of them work on a 2-3,000 ppm salt concentration. If the salt was the cause of equipment damage, the manufacturers would discontinue the products due to warranty expense. Both Hot Springs and Arctic Spas offer chlorine generators as an option on their new tubs for over a year now.

If you want to use a chlorine generator the best thing to do is make sure your water has enough hardness and you have proper grounding of your equipment. If you are unsure about any of this there are sacrificial anodes you can get installed on your system.

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System 3 Pool Controller

May 18 11 under Chemical Controllers, PoolWarden | Leave a comment

When it comes to the system 3, there is the old system 3 from the US Filter/Strantrol and the System 3i from Seimens/Strantrol.

Strantrol has changed hands twice since the original ” Stranco” company. Either way the system 3 is marketed as a scaled down, economy controller. Pricing is around 3k which is less then the systems 4,5,6&7 – which go from 4k to north of 10k.

Strantrol has always done a good job marketing bells and whistles such as HRR or high resolution redox which is a fancy name for ORP. The big difference is serviceability and price. Strantrol has made it difficult for owners to service their own equipment with service codes.

If you want fancy window dressing and the highest price buy a Strantrol, if you want the best value, buy a PoolWarden from ControlOMatic.

I have serviced many different brands and the Strantrol looks great hanging on the wall but like any other controller in the end just monitors and adjusts chlorine, pH and sometimes temperature.

Most controllers on the market do a decent job of managing chemistry provided they are set up correctly. This is where most people have problems. I have seen many perfectly good controllers abandoned or ripped off the wall and replaced with something else because they weren’t maintained or set up correctly.

I could never figure out why pool controllers never came down in cost like other electronic devices except for the high marketing costs. Trade shows and ads in aquatic magazines are expensive and the cost is spread among a small number of units compared to TV’s and computers. The PoolWarden currently has no marketing costs so we can offer the latest technology and quality components while keeping prices down.

 By Lance Fitzsimmons

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Specialty Salts

May 11 11 under Alternative Sanitizer, Chlorine Generators, Technology, Troubleshooting | Leave a comment

When using special mineral enriched salts the simple 1.5 pounds per 100 gallons of water doesn’t quite hold to achieve 2000 ppm. The following table is for 100 gallons.

Salt Type Pounds Cups 400 Gallon Spa lbs:cups
Dead Sea Salt 2.5 5.0 10:20
Himalayan Salt 1.8 2.9 7.2:11.6
Morton Pool Salt 1.4 2.3 5.6:9.2

This data was taken by simply adding 1.2 oz of each salt to 5 gallons of water and measuring the salt level using an electronic measurement and the AquaCheck NACL test strip and taking the average (they were close in all cases).  For a salt chlorine generator to work properly the right amount of NACL is required. Morton pool salt is just NACL, where Dead Sea Salt and Himalayan Salt have minerals and other compounds. To achieve the correct salt level for the ColorChlor, TechniChlor and MiniChlor to work properly add the appropriate salt per the table.

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Why should you use chemical automation on a swimming pool?

Mar 25 11 under Chemical Controllers, Water Care | Leave a comment

Chemical automation for swimming pools and spas has often been compared to the thermostat that controls your heating and cooling system which is somewhat accurate but falls short of the full story.

The comparison accurately depicts the savings that can be realized in chemicals used to treat the swimming pool or the energy savings in heating or cooling which can easily be 30% but there is much more. A  chemical controller will also save on wear and tear on all the wetted surfaces by keeping the water balanced so it will not be corrosive or scale forming.

Water is often referred to as the universal solvent and under the right conditions will dissolve almost anything over time. In a swimming pool, this means etching plaster surfaces, corrosion of copper heat exchangers and other metals. Water that is out of balance will also cause calcium to precipitate out of solution and onto surfaces which can plate metal fixtures, deposit on the pool surface making it rough and even coat heating elements and heat exchangers making them less efficient at heat transfer, thus using more energy.

Swimming pool chemical controllers will continually keep the water balanced and properly sanitized which makes the pool and spa much more appealing. Think how many people turn away from facilities that have cloudy or dull water, or eye and lung irritation due to the high levels of chloramines that are produced when a pool or spa treated manually will produce when they experience a bather load. This costs money also.

Having been involved as a witness for a couple of lawsuits regarding swimming pool chemistry, the facilities with data recorders incorporated into the chemical automation system are good unbiased witnesses to the quality of the water and thus provide another layer of protection which ultimately saves money.

As you can see the comparison of a pool chemical controller to a thermostat does not do the chemical controller justice. There is much more money to be saved and gained with the use of a chemical controller than a thermostat yet there is not a facility in existence that would dream of not having a thermostat on the pool or spa heater let alone to control its heating and cooling systems. Just think of the millions of dollars that could be saved annually if all pools were utilizing chemical automation to keep their water balanced and properly sanitized.

Lance Fitzsimmons

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Ecolab Aqua Balance Pool and Spa Program

Mar 23 11 under Chemical Controllers, PoolWarden, Technology, Water Care | Leave a comment

Having helped develop the remotely monitored Aqua Balance Pool and Spa Program that Ecolab offers to hospitality customers, I can rightfully say that I know a little about it. First, I’ll say that offering automated ORP/pH control systems to the world over the last 20 years has been a good thing as it has brought the awareness of this technology to the forefront of this industry. This has had a huge impact on making pools and spas much safer to swim in.

It is a known fact that ORP/pH controllers can be very effective in not only producing excellent water quality and efficiency, they also are very effective at preventing the spread of waterborne bacteria and viruses. I believe that Ecolab with their Aqua Balance Pool and Spa Program has done more than any other company to promote this technology and therefore providing much safer aquatic facilities to the public.

This technology has been around since the mid 1970′s but was very expensive, little known and typically found only in larger pools and aquatic complexes. Even by the 1990′s, the vast majority of people in the pool and spa business wanted nothing to do with this technology even though it benefits the operator as well as the swimmer. Now that people are much more aware of ORP/pH controllers and the swimming pool industry has been forced to adopt this technology or risk becoming obsolete, it has helped the industry take a big step forward.

Now back to the Ecolab Aqua Balance Pool and Spa Program. This program is still a viable way for facilities to obtain this technology at a low up front cost but is not the most economical means over time. Until recently, ORP/pH controllers have been out of reach for some owners but now thanks to ControlOMatic, the cost of high quality, automated chemical controllers has become economically feasible with a very quick return on investment for any facility. ControlOMatic can also provide installation, training and support for any facility looking to become self sufficient and save a substantial amount of money on their swimming pool and spa operation. We have over 20 years of experience in chemical automation including design, manufacturing, installation and service.

by Lance Fitzsimmons

Notes from ControlOMatic. Lance worked for Service First Pools and Spas in 1993 and on and was the first customer for Acu-Trol. After installing quite a few AK1000′s for Service First Lance was hired by EcoLab to work the Los Angeles area to help develop the pool and spa market. Lance was able to introduce to EcoLab the technology that Acu-Trol had with multi-pool control systems with data monitoring.

For more information on the PoolWarden multi-pool controller please visit www.poolwarden.com

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The Evolution of Swimming Pool Chemical Controllers

Feb 17 11 under Chemical Controllers, PoolWarden, Press Release | Leave a comment

My first experience with swimming pool chemical controllers started with an couple of analog Strantrol systems in 1989 that were on public pools using chlorine and one of the original ionization systems made by Tarn Pure.

In 1990, I became familiar with some Chemtrol 210 and 320 systems and was fascinated with the ability to automatically control water chemistry with this relatively simple technology. Although the technology was simple, it did require one to understand how pool chemistry worked and how swimming pools “behaved” especially in the circulation department.

It was relatively easy to get pool managers to see the value in chemical automation but the price was somewhat prohibitive as the cost of a basic system for 1 pool started at about $1,500.00 just for the controller, not accounting for the feed pumps or installation. To get a system that offered more advanced features such as data logging would cost several thousand dollars.

Then in 1994, I saw an ad in Service Industry News for a computerized system capable of handling 2 pools with a modem for about $1,500.00. This was incredible because most of my customers had a pool and a spa and with a customer base in Southern California, the modem feature allowing me to monitor accounts from a computer was very attractive. This unit was the original AK1000 invented by Scott Lenney, the founder of Acu-Trol.

My partner Matt Van Gorden and I quickly saw the value in this system as we could program this system to do all sorts of functions and when hooked up to a phone line would page us when there was a problem with the water chemistry, the temperature wasn’t right or when a spa’s emergency shut off was activated. This allowed us to be much more proactive with our clients and allowed us to address problems before they became evident to our customers. This started a long relationship between us as we became the field developers for this young company.

The one drawback to this system was it’s complexity. Although we could easily operate the system, the average customer couldn’t understand it. As it happened, people began asking for more advanced features such as true PPM control instead of ORP, automatic backwash and other complex operations. These complexities added to the cost and decreased reliability. Even though ORP is a proven and highly effective means to monitor and control water sanitizing, most people don’t understand it and when the free chlorine residual would fluctuate to satisfy the ORP demand, many people thought the system didn’t work.

Even though there are companies that have had varying degrees of success with PPM control, PPM control is expensive and ORP is still the best way to achieve optimal water quality. ORP control is the most cost effective way to automatically monitor and control water chemistry. Once it is understood, it is the method of choice as it is economical and very reliable.

Over the years I have personally serviced controllers made by Acu-Trol, Aquasol, CAT, Chemtrol, Link Automation, Pulse, Roll-A-Chem, Strantrol and Watermatic, both analog and digital. All of these systems will control water chemistry and some are easier to use than others plus there is a wide range of prices. It is noted that even though there has been a sharp decline in the price of electronics over the last decade, swimming pool controllers continue to be priced high due costs associated with product promotion such as trade shows, literature and sales reps spread across a low volume of sales compared to computers.

Now that has changed. Control-O-Matic was started by Scott Lenney to once again add value to the pool industry by offering the PoolWarden, a high quality, easy to use system with optional WIFI communications, keeping prices low by utilizing the power of the internet to promote the system instead of expensive trade shows and mailers. Once again, it is possible to get a system capable of controlling 1 or 2 pools with the ability to communicate via the web at a very attractive price.

ControlOMatic is a manufacturer of Salt Water Chlorine Generators for Spas, hot tubs and above ground pools and high quality chemical automation systems. We are currently building our dealer network. If you would like more information on how you can become a dealer, call us at 530-205-4520 or email daryl@controlomatic.com for information on chlorine generators or lance@controlomatic for information on chemical automation systems.

Contol-O-Matic does not sell the PoolWarden through distribution.

By Lance Fitzsimmons

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