Pool Chemical Automation - Why Is It NOT More Common?
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- From www.swimmingpo... learn about swimming pool automation systems and why automatic adjustment of your swimming pool chemistry is not really an option yet even though the technology does exist to allow you to do this. Calibration issues with automation equipment combined with an increase in manual checks and intervention for calibration of equipment, double testing water chemistry, maintaining chlorine and acid tanks, stenner pumps and hoses...in total it would take less time to just manually adjust the pH and sanitizer (chlorine) in your pool by hand than it does to double check a full automation installation.
I work for a major amusement park company. We have a lot of pools between the water park, water rides, ponds and resort pools. There is a water quality division that is responsible for the water chemistry, lifeguards that are also responsible for the cleanliness of the pool itself and we the plumbers are responsible for maintaining the equipment. I will tell you that YES we are working on the automated systems all of the time. The automated systems are good for constant monitoring of the pools but water quality is doing checks on the automated equiplent ant pool chemistry every two hours.
Amateur pool geek here living in France. I'd like to be able to rely on a pH or chlorine sensor that is a) accurate, and b) stays accurate for a season. Unfortunately I can't find any information on the net that gives any serious evaluation of the quality and reliability of these sensors. Currently I use a pH dosing pump that reads .4 under the pH that I test myself with a spectrometer ( it reads 6.9 when the other test indicates 7.3. So I have had to calibrate it to compensate. I've done all the proper things to calibrate the sensor, but it is just off and I am not ready to buy a new sensor if I can't find one that is reliable. This supports Steve's point about the need for human eyes to check the systems are working accurately.
Hi. Recently got my pool redone and have been learning about pool water chemistry. I come from a water treatment background in the hvac industry so it wasn't too much of learning curve. I ended up installing a walchem intuition with pH/ORP with some iwaki pumps for the chlorine and acid. You are definitely right about trading one form of maintenance for another, but I don't mind. I do have a question though regarding the feed. Since I've got the pump relays interlocked with the flow switch it won't pump if there's no flow. However, there is a delay once the pump turns off for the night (two to three pumps). Would you recommend putting a check valve at the outlet of my boiler? The idea is so that no chlorone/acid sit in the heat exchanger. FYI acid and chlorine are both diluted 5:1 with water. Thank you for reading this far
I would definitely add a check valve
Full pool automation is akin to Full Self Driving in automobiles - the basic technology exists but the Artificial Intelligence necessary behind it lags far behind. One day we will achieve both but for now I’d settle for just liquid chlorine and acid to be automated continuously.
How about the Hayward sense and dispense? I just got a pool that has a muriatic acid dispenser to figure out how to use for summer 2023. I will still need to double check the probes and dispensing. Not fool proof yet.
Yes this is the type of system I am talking about. You still need to manually test chemistry, check calibration of the probes, fill acid tanks etc. so it is not maintenance free at all, and potentially more work than just pouring in chlorine and acid manually once or twice per week. The technology just is not there for a fully hands off approach to pool chemistry yet.
I am a Home Automation nerd. I like messing with ESP32 devices, Zigby, Z-wave, etc. I just moved into a house with a pool for the first time ever and this coming season will be my first season maintaining a pool.
All that is to say I'm a newbie to pools that doesn't know anything. But what if you had a redundant system for checking the safety of the water?
Like an Arduino project that uses an arm+servo to get a sample of pool water. Then a test is run on that sample of water. If the water is confirmed "not dangerous", wouldn't that take away most liability? I know the backup system could always fail too. But it could send a message to call for human interaction.
Just a thought from a wannabe-engineer who doesn't know anything.
The system would need continual calibration. And if it fails to warn of dangerous water conditions and someone dies, or just loses all 4 limbs, who would be at fault. Grave illness from poorly managed water is sadly not as rare as pool and spa owners think it to be, and measuring and calibration of automatic water testing equipment is not reliable enough yet. This is why you don't see more water chemistry automation / measurement systems. Too much liability to manufacture and too much technical challenge for the average person to successfully implement.
The best system is a mineral ionization system.
I do not endorse adding silver and copper to pools. There is merit to them being algicide and a natural bacteriacide but at the concentrations they exist in your water the time scale to effectiveness is measured in hours, days or weeks. That makes them ineffective against swimmer to swimmer transmission, which is the reason minerals, much like most other alternative pool water care options, are not suitable as a stand alone solution to water sanitizing.
@Swimmingpoolsteve From the people of both privately operated swimming pools and public pools that I've spoken to & know who use copper/ silver mineral ionization systems they're extremely happy. They tell me that the water feels just like a clean freshwater lake or river. Occasionally they'll shock it with a hit of chlorine. I've spoken to public YMCA pools people who've installed copper/ silver systems and it's been a tremendous experience of improving water quality. Correct, they don't just use the copper/ silver system completely alone. Since it's use at the YMCA the savings has been well worth it.
Personally I absolutely hate anything auto. From chemistry to auto fills. It’s great for a setting whereby the pool is tested daily, or multiple times. But with private pools, where maintenance is weekly, god no. I’ll trust my math. If something fails 5 mins after you leave, it’s got a whole week for the failure to reek havoc.
Sometimes even the auto ph adjusters, under vacuum, can allow a very small amount through, which over a week or 2 will be enough to throw ph out. Auto fill is fine if you have a manual stopcock and use it as a plumbed in “hose pipe”, but when it doesn’t, and the pool has a overflow, anyone using the pool will inevitably put water out the overflow and the auto fill kick in to top it back up. And let’s not go into if you have an unknown leak.
Redundant systems are a thing you know
I am unsure what point you are making here. Are you saying install two chemical automation delivery systems for a pool and consider the second one a backup? In any case, there is no true automation without manual oversight, testing and calibrations regardless of how much redundancy ypu have built into the system.