Building Nixie from cannibalized EasyTouch

[CodeSlinger69]

Hey everybody. I've been limping along with an Easytouch 4P circa 2008 since I bought my house in October 2022. I found this project early on and was able to wire in a RS485 bridge, run njsPC on a Linux VM on my home computer, and control my very simple pool system from modern devices (such as phones and iPads). This was a great improvement over Pentair's horrible beige remote controller box.

But I've always had my thoughts on a Nixie, as the Easytouch is getting a bit old, I worry about its longevity, and I would eventually like to add some things like automatic acid dosing. Pentair's chem solutions are stupid expensive for what they do.

What has held me back is the cost of building a Nixie. I've been reading the "DIY Standalone Nixie Pool Controller" guide front to back several times, and reading all these threads too, but I always got stuck as I worked through the cost of all the pieces. And btw, those costs in that wiki page are way out of date - things are much more expensive now due to all the pandemic actions and resulting inflation/supply chain issues.

Being the cheap bastard that I am, I then explored the idea of cannibalizing the Easytouch for parts and only buying those pieces that were missing. So I took the Easytouch apart to figure out the make and model of each of the parts, and mapped my plans against those parts. And surprise! I don't really have to buy many new bits.

I'm writing this thread for two reasons:

1. In case any other cheapskates come along after me and have an old Pentair they can cannibalize, this might help.
2. Checking my thinking with all you experts so I don't do something stupid. The wiki and this discussion forum is excellent, but I don't think anyone has actually taken my approach before.

For now, I'll detail my (simple) pool equipment setup that is relevant to this project:

• One body (pool)
• One pump (Intelliflow VS)
• One actuated valve (solar to roof, no heater needed as I live in Phoenix)
• One SWCG (IntelliChlor IC20)
• One pool light
• Two 10k Ohm sensors (water, air)
• One water feature with a manual valve, adding an actuator and automation is a phase 2 activity

Next post will talk about needed parts, mapping to cannibalized Pentair parts, and build plans.

[CodeSlinger69]

Here are the list of parts that I've determined that I need, and how they map to cannibalizable Pentair parts:

Box
Reuse the Easytouch box. There is plenty of room in there to put a RPi stack, and I don't even need to take out the Easytouch control board/display yet. Until I get it the Nixie working, I'll leave the Easytouch control board in place. Once everything is working, I can add DIN rails, remove the Easytouch board & display, and generally clean things up.

24V power
There is an Ensign brand transformer in the Easytouch box that provides 12VAC, 18VAC, and 24VAC outputs. This is a custom transformer that Ensign builds for Pentair to power the Easytouch CPU and circuit board. As its a custom piece, specs are hard to come by other than the label on the inside of the Easytouch box. Since the Sequent automation hat can take either 24VAC or 24VDC power, I'll use the 24VAC line from here to power the RPi stack.

10k sensors
Reuse existing Pentair sensors.

Raspberry Pi Stack
Fortunately, I have a spare RPi 3B already lying around, so cost = $0. I do need to buy the Building Automation Hat at $95, and the 8 Relay Hat for $45.

Relays
My Easytouch has 4 of the Omron G7L-2A-BUBJ 25 Amp relays in the box right now. Only two are being used currently: One to provide power simultaneously to the Intelliflow and the IntelliChlor, and one to switch the pool light.

Bottom line is that my out of pocket cost is $140 + shipping. Not bad when compared to the cost of a new Pentair system.

One of the big benefits of this approach is how simple the build is. Other than configuring the RPi & njsPC software its a matter of wiring the following to Sequent Building Automation Hat / Relay Hat. Most of the wires are already there, and just need to be moved:

• 24VAC from the Ensign transformer
• Pump/IC20 relay trigger
• Pool light relay trigger
• RS485 communications for pump and IC20
• Water temp sensor
• Air temp sensor
• Solar valve relay trigger

And I also need to wire one of the spare Omron relays for the solar valve, as the Pentair board is currently doing this duty directly.

All the rest of the wiring is already in place, such as:

• 220V power from house panel to breakers (currently breakers for pump/IC20, pool light, and Ensign transformer)
• Breakers to Omron relays
• Omron relay to Pump
• Omron relay to the special 220V/39V transformer for the IC20

Am I missing anything obvious? Or is it really this easy? Maybe not so easy, since it took me 6 months of thinking/planning, but another set of eyes is always appreciated.

[rstrouse]

The omron relay coils are driven by 24vdc. You will need a rectifier to switch it to 24vdc. Also intelliflo is intended to not be on a switched circuit. It should be powered all the time. The first relay you should hook that up to the filter in njsPC.

The valves are powered with 24vac. Easy peasy but you do need a 24vdc rectifier.

[rock-crusher]

Being the cheap bastard that I am…

In case any other cheapskates come along…

To funny, I laughed my ass off reading that. I do the same thing utilizing what I have then do some refining later after everything is working as intended.

Reuse the Easytouch box.

I too think your idea will work well. My concern though is the metal enclosure might interfere with the PI receiving a good wifi signal. I experimented a bit with this and found the nonmetallic enclosures seem to allow for a better signal, but I'm sure there are ways around that.

My Easytouch has 4 of the Omron G7L-2A-BUBJ 25 Amp relays in the box right now. Only two are being used currently: One to provide power simultaneously to the Intelliflow and the IntelliChlor, and one to switch the pool light.

Just as rstrouse stated, your Intelliflow VS should not be wired to the load side of the Omron relay, only the IntelliChlor should be. Usually what happens is the Intelliflow is just tapped from the line side of the Omron so both are connected/protected and controlled by the same circuit breaker.

And I also need to wire one of the spare Omron relays for the solar valve, as the Pentair board is currently doing this duty directly.

You shouldn’t need the spare Omron relay for the solar automated valve as it wouldn’t work for that purpose anyway. You would use your relay hat with the SPDT no/nc contacts. This will act just as your old Pentair board when configured as such.

[johnny2678]

1. In case any other cheapskates come along after me and have an old Pentair they can cannibalize, this might help.

Well... I feel seen 😂

Your setup is very similar to mine. I've been happily running my 4P and njsPC for years and I already have the Pi stack in a separate enclosure, but small quirks (scheduling, heat setpoints, etc) have always made me wonder about converting to 100% nixie. I'll need to read your post about 20 more times and then I'm sure I'll have some questions. Also I usually tackle any pool projects in the FL winter where I have a little more wiggle room if I miss something up. We are swimming every day during the summer.

Thanks for posting. Please keep the updates, (and pics!) coming

[CodeSlinger69]

Thank you for the review and input! This became slightly more complicated than I originally hoped. Let me explain why.

It starts with the Omron relays. The Omron G7L specs state that the relay has a "Wide-range AC-activated coil..." However, my relay clearly has a 24VDC activated coil as rstrouse suggested (pic below). So either Omron makes two different relays with the same model number with different coil styles, or I'm losing my mind. To confirm, I probed the coil with my multimeter and confirmed that when the Pentair system is holding these relays open, there is 28VDC on the coil. That fact surprised me too - these seem to be normally-closed relays, and I was expecting normally-open. There must be a rectifier on the Easytouch board that I can't see without completely disassembling it.

So one more piece I need to buy. The Meanwell NDR-120-24 is $33 on Amazon right now, so I'm up to $173 out of pocket so far if you're keeping track. And since I'm now buying an AC to DC transformer, I might as well power the RPi stack with the 24VDC instead of the 24VAC as I previously planned.

In terms of the 24V source of AC power, I was going to use the Ensign transformer as I stated above. While I was probing around the relay coils, I probed the 6 (!) outputs from this transformer as well, and I'm not happy. FYI, the striped outputs are on 3A breakers, the non-striped outputs are not breaker protected, as can be seen on the door label below. One other joy of Pentair: The board says the blue wires are 10VAC outputs (pic below), the label on the door says the blue wires are 12VAC outputs - which to believe?

These measures were stable regardless of varying loads that I put on the OCP:

• 24VAC (Red) = 17.0V
• 24VAC (Red/White striped) = 7.4V
• 18VAC (Orange) = 11V
• 18VAC (Orange/White striped) = 10.7V
• 10VAC (Blue) = 7.2V
• 10VAC (Blue/White striped) = 7.2V

So is the 24VAC Red wire output at an actual measured 17V good enough to drive the valve actuator? It must be, since it is working today. For now I'll hold off on buying a transformer with 24VAC output, and test this Red 24VAC wire first. Also as rock-crusher noted, I'll just use one of the relays on the Sequent Relay Hat to switch this 24VAC circuit to the valve actuator.

Your other comments:
"intelliflo is intended to not be on a switched circuit. It should be powered all the time."
These comments made me double-check the wiring, and you are right, the Intelliflow gets constant 240VAC power from the load side of the Omron relay. Only the IC20 is switched by the relay. Thanks for correcting me on this. Pics of the box/wiring in my next post.

"The first relay you should hook that up to the filter in njsPC."
I intend to keep Omron Relay 1 connected to the Intellichlor transformer, and have that relay's coil controlled by a relay on the Sequent Relay Hat. Are you suggesting that relay 1 on the Relay Hat is assigned to "filter" in njsPC? From the wiki article, it was my understanding that since I have a VS pump that is controlled by RS485 , that I don't need a relay for this pump.

"the metal enclosure might interfere with the PI receiving a good wifi signal"
Yes, and it doesn't help that my equipment pad is pretty far from my house. I currently have an Elfin EW11 in the OCP right now. It has a removeable antenna and so I ran a 25' extension up a nearby fence, which allows the EW11 to see the wifi in my house. I'll do the same with the RPi - it doesn't have an antenna port for the built in wifi, but I do have a USB wifi adapter for the RPi. It has a removable antenna, so I'll just reuse my existing 25' run for this adapter/antenna.

[CodeSlinger69]

Here's how I'll structure my next posts on this thread. Kind of a project plan, I guess. I'll include pics at every step of course.

Step 0: Document the salvageable parts in my current Easytouch 4P OCP.

Step 1: Build the RPi stack, configure the njsPC, dashPanel, and REM software.

Step 2: Wire in the Meanwell NDR-120-24 transformer in the OCP box. Move the RPi stack to the OCP box, provide power to the RPi stack from the Meanwell, and boot it up.

Step 3: Move 10k Ohm air and water temperature sensors to RPi and test.

Step 4: Connect Intelliflow Pump RS485 communications to the RPi & test.

Step 5: Connect Intellichlor RS485 communications to the RPi. Move Intellichlor relay control to RPi. Test.

Step 6: Move pool light relay control to RPi and test.

Step 7: Setup pump speeds and schedules.

Step 8: Move solar valve actuator control to RPi & test.

Step 9: Observations and Future Plans.

[CodeSlinger69]

Step 0: Document the salvageable parts in my current Easytouch 4P OCP.

The pic below shows my 2008 Easytouch 4P in all its glory. Beauty, eh?

The 120/240 VAC high power distribution in the middle is a big cost and time saver. I'll feed the Meanwell AC-DC transformer from the top right breaker, which is currently feeding the Ensign transformer on the top right. Other than that, I'm not touching any of the breakers or the red wires that feed off of them.

The IC20 transformer middle right stays and will continue to power the IC20 due to its particular 240V/39V configuration.

The Omron relays middle left will stay. There's a row of 3 more above the one you can see; the top left is for the IC20 transformer, the top-middle is for the pool light, and the other two are unused. Only change I need to make is to power their coils from the Sequent Relay Hat.

The 120VAC-24/18/12VAC transformer in the top right will stay, but only if I can make use of the 24VAC rail. As I mentioned in my post above, its 17V actual on that rail, so it may not work out. If I need to replace it with a better transformer, it will be removed at the end of the project along with the rest of the Easytouch board and wiring in that top compartment.

It might be a bit until I get to Step 1. The Building Automation Hat is on its way, but not in my hands yet. Everything else is ready to go though!

[rock-crusher]

Hi CodeSlinger69,
At a glance, I see there is no GFCI breaker for your Intelliflow VS. I’m guessing your original installation (circa 2008) just squeaked by the mandatory NEC code requirement.

Also, not sure which pump you have but most (that I’m aware of) VS/VSF are of the 3HP, 230V, 16A variety. That said, the 2pole 15A breaker along with the 14 gauge wire would be under sized. Just double check what you have there to make sure.

The GFCI requirement is your call, but to be compliant with today’s code it must be GFCI.

The 17vac on the secondary of your transformer seems weak to me. I would expect to see somewhere between 22v to 26v or something close to that.

[CodeSlinger69]

Hi CodeSlinger69, At a glance, I see there is no GFCI breaker for your Intelliflow VS. I’m guessing your original installation (circa 2008) just squeaked by the mandatory NEC code requirement.
The GFCI requirement is your call, but to be compliant with today’s code it must be GFCI.

Correct. The pump and Intellichlor are on a standard non-GFCI 2 pole 15A breaker. I was not aware of the code requirement for this, thanks for pointing it out. But damn those GFCI breakers are expensive. I'll have to think this over. I'll probably do it eventually, but not in this first phase. Here's one for $103: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Siemens-15-Amp-Double-Pole-Type-QPF2-GFCI-Circuit-Breaker-US2-QF215AP/206999563

Also, not sure which pump you have but most (that I’m aware of) VS/VSF are of the 3HP, 230V, 16A variety. That said, the 2pole 15A breaker along with the 14 gauge wire would be under sized. Just double check what you have there to make sure.

I have the "Intelliflo Pump 4X160 VS-3050 Variable Speed 011013". Per the label on the pump it is 3HP, 230V, 16A as you noted. The original installers used 12AWG wire throughout the system, so fortunately good there. Strange that the pump label calls for 8AWG wiring - that would be a 55A circuit at 120V! My entire pool subpanel is on a 60A circuit from the main panel. Geesh.

The 17vac on the secondary of your transformer seems weak to me. I would expect to see somewhere between 22v to 26v or something close to that.

Yes, seems weak to me too. It's going to be fun experimenting with that Pentair/Ensign transformer and seeing if it works or not. Fortunately, I only need 24VAC for the one valve actuator that I have. And since it controls my solar heat, and since I live in Phoenix, and since it's 110 deg F in the shade right now, I don't need extra heating for the pool at this moment. If I do end up needing to buy a 24VAC transformer for this one valve I'll do it later in the summer/early fall.

[rock-crusher]

Strange that the pump label calls for 8AWG wiring

That 8AWG is for bonding purposes. If you notice, you will see a solid 8 gauge bare wire emerging somewhere out of the earth at your equipment pad, or at least I hope you do. This wire is for bonding all your pool equipment together, the pool light wet-niche housing, the rebar in the pools gunite shell and any other permanently installed metal fixtures within 5’ horizontally of the inside walls of the pool.

This is called equipotential bonding and must not be overlooked.

[CodeSlinger69]

Interesting, thank you. I was aware of common grounding of course, but the term equipotential bonding is new. So I did some reading:

Equipotential bonding (EPB) is the process of electrically connecting metalwork and conductive parts, both exposed and extraneous, such that the voltage is the same throughout these various parts. EPB is used to reduce the risk of equipment damage and personal injury. Equipotential bonding is sometimes simply referred to as bonding.

Because if you have a voltage differential between parts, that's where a person's body can become the conduit to equalize those voltages. And that would be bad.

And the Pentair pump just says "bonding" of course, but now that makes sense. There is indeed a hefty bare copper wire coming off the pump shell and disappearing into the ground. Whether or not there is a 5 foot rod down there, and if the rest of the pool pieces (as in your diagram) are connected I can't be sure. My pool equipment does seem to be a fairly professional install however, so I'll trust it's good. It would be a lot of work to dig it all up to visually check :-P

[CodeSlinger69]

Step 1: Build the RPi stack, configure the njsPC, dashPanel, and REM software.

Observations: I know this is in the wiki article, but the RPi stack must be built in this order: RPi, then Building Automation Hat, then Relay Hat. If you switch the order of the two hats, then they won't fit together properly. This is a physical limitation, not a system limitation. Ask me how I know :(

The Building Automation Hat has space for a CR2450 coin shaped battery. This battery is not included when you buy the hat, and is not needed for what we are doing here. The only thing the battery will do is keep the internal clock on the Hat correct if there is a power failure. njsPC or even Raspian can be configured to set the time on reboot, so I chose to leave the battery slot unfilled.

Powering the stack is done on the Building Automation Hat. There is a thread here that talks about the changes to v4.1 of this Hat, and I'll reiterate here, as that is the one I received in June 2023. The Hat has "24 VAC" printed next to the power input, but the Sequent website says "24VAC or DC Power Supply". So, 24 VDC will still work with v4.1 of this Hat.
However, the rest of the activity in this step 1 was all done with the RPi stack inside my house powered by a regular wall adapter using the USB power plug on the RPi. I have not yet powered up the RPi with 24V on the Building Automation Hat, as its not needed yet for this first basic configuration.

The two hats have some optional software that can be installed. This software is mostly helpful is to test the Hats and make sure they are working correctly. See here:
8 Relay Hat
Building Automation Hat

The Building Automation Hat is a computer with its own CPU, and has its own firmware to run it. This firmware should be updated to the most recent version before doing anything else. See here:
Firmware

Configured njsPC to use REM, following this wiki article.

Configured the basic MEGABAS and RS485 settings following this wiki article.

Configured REM with the Sequent Relay Hat following this wiki article. This was a bit of work, as REM did not automatically detect the Relay Hat, so I had to do a i2cdetect -y 1, convert the reported hex address 0x27 in my head to decimal 39, and add it manually. Since I received v5.3 of this Hat when I bought it in June 2023, I then wondered which controller to select, and based on some other discussions here, I chose "Sequent 8 IND (5.0)". I think this is right, but we'll see when I get to the point where I am physically wiring up relays.

Step 1 complete.

[FlaMike]

Good to know, thanks! I have no problem being patient, especially when everything is in "development" on my workbench.

I tried the suggestions in the pm2 posts you provided without success.

I now suspect the variant of Raspian I am running may be part of the problem. In this post #781 your compatriot says that Raspian 64 bit has issues. For better or worse (worse, I suspect) that's what I'm running. Looks like it's time for a fresh flash with the 32 bit version of Raspian. Hoping that will resolve my pm2 issues.

[FlaMike]

I just installed 32 bit Raspian followed by, npm, the 3 poolController packages, & pm2. I am still getting the TypeError: One of the pids is invalid error as above. Really not sure where to go from here. Any & all suggestions are most appreciated!

[FlaMike]

Success at long last with pm2!!! For the benefit of others, this is what I had to do.

First, the path names in the ecosystem.config.js must match your home directory. If you've changed the name of your pi, you must update the ecosystem.config.js to match your home directory in all of the "cwd" lines. In my case, the home directory was "michael" for my login name. So in each of the three "cwd" lines, make sure your absolute directory names match your home directory. In my case, I replaced 'pi' with 'michael'. You must do this before starting pm2, lest you wind up with the mess I had.
e.g., "cwd": "/home/michael/relayEquipmentManager",

I had not done the above--I used the mode file verbatim. Hence I had the pid errors noted above.

If you mess up like I did, do the following in each of the 3 program directories (nodejs-poolController, nodejs-poolController-dashPanel, and relayEquipmentManager):

1. remove the node-modules directory
2. remove the package-lock.json file
3. run npm install

From your home directory:
    uninstall pm2 by doing the following:
      pm2 unstartup
      pm2 kill
      npm remove pm2 -g
      rm -rf ~/.pm2

 You can then reinstall pm2, but make sure the ecosystem.config.js is correctly pointing to your home directory first!!!!   And  now you should be good to go forward.

[tagyoureit]

Nice, I added this to the wiki

[FlaMike]

Hope it saves others from having to go through the same learning experience!

Thanks for your patience, help, & suggestions along the way. Guess I'll stick with 32 bit installation. I think I've completed step 1 in this thread. Time to order a (bigger than anticipated) box, some DIN rail terminal blocks, a bridge rectifier, & some minor other parts & get out to the pad!

[CodeSlinger69]

Step 2: Wire in the Meanwell NDR-120-24 transformer in the OCP box. Move the RPi stack to the OCP box, provide power to the RPi stack from the Meanwell, and boot it up.

Well, I encountered my first physical challenge with my plans: The EasyTouch box is not deep enough for the Meanwell 24VDC transformer - the transformer is 1/4" too deep. If I remove the DIN mounting bracket from the back of the transformer, then it fits exactly, and I can close the door. So my plans to use the Easytouch box to contain everything is probably not going to work. I think I'll probably keep the Easytouch box and use it for high power distribution (i.e. the mini breaker panel, the Omron relays, the IC20 transformer, and a new 24VAC transformer if I need one), and then some point later, I'll add a new box to the right of it that will hold the low voltage stuff, the RPi, and so on, kind of like this:

Second challenge was determining the positive and negative 24V power pins on the Building Automation Hat, as they don't seem to be documented anywhere, that I could find at least. Through some careful observation, the negative pin is the one that's closest to the edge of the board. After I figured this out, I noticed that our developers also identified the negative pin in this picture: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/47839015/128580883-e3927ef3-5321-494b-ad2b-f77d22a6f19a.png

But after all that, the RPI stack and the Meanwell 24VDC transformer is in the Easytouch box, and the RPi is booted up and connected to my home's WiFi.

Step 2 complete!

[FlaMike]

Working away on my conversion, I also wanted to reconfirm the 24v DC connections to the MegaBas Hat. I received V4.2 of the board. It looks like the difference from 4.1 is they replaced the jumpers throughout the board with DIP switches. Nice! Nothing to lose or drop at the pad/under your workbench etc. if you're adding or changing jumpers!

As @CodeSlinger69 observed, there are no +/- markings for DC power connections. The manual is unchanged from 4.1 as of this posting & states "If a DC power source is used, polarity is not important."

Really?? I wanted to check with Sequent before potentially blowing the board. So I sent customer service a note. They replied quickly (thank you!) and the response is quoted verbatim below. Bottom line: you can power the board with either 24V AC or DC and the board doesn't care if it's AC or DC & which terminals are used for positive & negative if you use DC. Wow! Per the wiki, I'm going with DC & ready to move ahead. I thought others may want to know.

"The Building Automation HAT works with AC or DC. It has a bridge on the input which directs the positive power to the step down converter.
The only draw back if you use DC instead of AC is that you cannot turn off the triac outputs. Once you turn them on, they stay on until you unplug the load."

[CodeSlinger69]

Step 3: Move 10k Ohm air and water temperature sensors to RPi and test.

I changed the order of my steps a bit, as after some consideration, the temperature sensors seemed the easiest thing to tackle first. All I had to do was move 2 wires for each of my two 10k temp sensors from the EasyTouch board to the 10k inputs on the Building Automation Hat.

Configuring REM took a bit of deciphering, the reading of lots of wiki pages, and trial and error.

1st: Configure the two inputs on the I2C bus tab in REM as so: wiki

2nd: Add temp probes on generic devices tab: wiki

3rd: Back to the I2C tab to set up the data feed from the MEGABAS input to the Generic temp probe: wiki

And victory! We now see actual temperatures being reported in REM!

Now, this is where the wiki ends in terms of hand-holding, and it's a bit of trial and error from here on. But I'll document how I figured it out. In REM, there is a "Feeds" tab for each Generic Device that was setup in the 2nd step above. REM needs to be told here to send its data over to njsPC, then it will show up in dashPanel. Here's the REM config:

And then we get temperature goodness in dashPanel.

So basically, the process to get data from the RPi stack into njsPC is as follows:

• Configure the port on the hardware
• Send data from that port to a "generic" device
• Send data from that generic device to njsPC.

I assume this will need to be done for every wire coming into the RPi stack.

P.S. This is complex and convoluted to a first timer, but after walking through it, I understand the complexity. It allows for quite the varying configurations depending on individual needs, and is quite the opposite from Pentair's solutions which force you into their model. An analogy is Android vs. IOS: If you pick Apple, you can only do what Apple says you can do; if you pick Android, you have much more flexibility. With that flexibility comes responsibility to learn and understand, of course. But if we wanted the easy path, we'd pay the easy tax to Pentair or Apple and be done with it. We're hackers, and so we like the flexibility. Well done @rstrouse and @tagyoureit!

Step 3 complete.

[tagyoureit]

The steps for the feed are documented/hidden here: https://github.com/rstrouse/relayEquipmentManager/wiki/Temperature-Sensors#step-6-invite-others-to-the-party

[CodeSlinger69]

Step 4: Connect Intelliflow Pump RS485 communications to the RPi & test.

To isolate just the pump, I disconnected the yellow and green wires for the pump from the RS485 block on the Easytouch board, and connected them to the RS485 port on the Building Automation Hat. I'll wire up the whole bus together with all devices in the next step.

A side note, as I got stuck on this step. If you are like me, njsPC automagically detected all of your equipment when you connected it to your OCP by way of the RS485 bus. Nixie doesn't work this way, but expects you to configure everything yourself. I was staring at the Comms tab for hours wondering why there were no packets flowing over the bus, and it was because I had not manually entered my pump into the Pumps tab. Once I did that, communications started flowing. Nixie requires a full-DIY mindset shift - it won't automatically do anything for you and requires you to set up everything yourself the way you want it.

So after that epiphany (with the help of @rstrouse here), this step is complete.

Here are the relevant configurations:

And here are the pics demonstrating victory:

[CodeSlinger69]

Step 5: Connect Intellichlor RS485 communications to the RPi. Move Intellichlor relay control to RPi. Test.

After I got the pump communicating in step 4, I joined all the RS485 wires together using the molex block that was orignally attached to my Easytouch board. For me there were only three yellow and three green wires to join:

1. To the pump
2. To the Building Automation Hat
3. To the IC20 "surge board".

Here is the surge board. It is small, and from its name, I assume it blocks power surges in one or both directions. If you want to LOL, look at the price to replace this thing: link. $300 for a half-dozen electronic components! The famous Pentair tax I guess. You'll notice that my board is older than the one in that link and is missing a few resistors and diodes.

I was considering removing this board out of the power path, because after all, if you didn't have an OCP, but bought the IntelliChlor separately, it wouldn't come with one, right? Wrong. The Pentair 520556 is a "Intellichlor Power Center" that is required to power the SWCG. For $500 you get a 240/39V transformer, and a cut down version of that surge board that doesn't include RS485 connections (from what I can tell), and a metal box. Sigh. Nice scam/business if you can get it.

I didn't need to do any relay work, because my pump and IC20 are on the same relay/circuit breaker. This is per Pentair instructions, guidance here, and code (I think). The relay was already moved over to RPi control in step 4 when I realized that I needed a "Pool" circuit in njsPC in order to test things. And since I did NOT remove the surge board from the power path, there was no power wiring to do; since I am cannibalizing my EasyTouch, it was already all wired up.

So then I needed to add the IC20 to njsPC. Here I made a mistake and had to ask for help. This is the proper way, don't choose "External", do choose "Nixie":

And then it shows up in dashPanel, and I can set Output levels and so on. Output level changes are reflected on the IC20 within a second or two. The inability to set output levels when njsPC was connected to my OCP was one of the things that finally pushed me over the edge to move to Nixie. I assumed that my OCP was just dying, but there are others with this issue.

Regardless, step 5 complete.

[FlaMike]

Hey @CodeSlinger69 I'm doing an ET4 conversion based largely on your experience & have everything going except the Intellichlor. I also have a VSF pump & it's working as expected using 485, of course. However, I'm stuck at the moment.

My salt cell is running & I'm sending both the pump and chloinator 485 through the same pair of wires to Nixie via the surge board (pump 485 connects to the surge board via one block, chlorinator does the same via its wiring harness, & another block on the surge board connects to Nixie).

When I try to add a chemical controller for the salt cell, I pick Nixie as the chlorinator as you show above. Then what? The only options for chem controller are IntelliChem and REM Chem--neither seems correct. The only exit option I have is Cancel. And the Chem Doser seems to be for acid pumps or liquid chlorine. Neither is appropos.

Can you please tell me how to add Intellichlor? Am I missing some REM setup or something elsewhere in the DashPanel?

Thanks so much for your inspiration & help!!!!

[CodeSlinger69]

Step 6: Move pool light relay control to RPi and test.

This one was easy. When I did the pump/IC20 relay in step 4, I did the pool like relay at the same time. After I removed the wires that connected the relay coils to the Easytouch board, it was a matter of hooking up three new wires for each relay:

1. +24VDC from the Meanwell to the COM port of one of the Sequent relays
2. NO port of one of the Sequent relays to the Omron coil (either screw, doesn't matter)
3. The other Omron coil screw to -24VDC on the Meanwell.

Add it to REM and njsPC and Bob's your uncle.

Step 6 done.

[CodeSlinger69]

Step 7: Setup pump speeds and schedules.

Here's how I was running things when njsPC was connected to the Easytouch the OCP:

• Pump speed 1600 on the regular pool circuit, just to keep water circulating and enough flow through the IC20 to make chlorine.
• Pump speed 2000 for enough suction to run my floor vacuum.
• Pump speed 2600 when I want to move water up to the roof for solar heating.

I'll show the cleaning/vacuum setup in this step, and talk about the solar speed at the same time I configure the solar valve.

This is a three step setup in Nixie:

1. Define a Feature (not an Aux-Circuit!)
   

2. Set the pump speed for that feature
   

3. Put it in the schedule.
   

All done, and working as before.

In case you are wondering about my weird pool schedule, I'm on an electric plan with my utility that saves me money if I don't use power between 3-6pm M-F. So I schedule everything to shutdown for those 15 hours per week.

[CodeSlinger69]

Step 8: Move solar valve actuator control to RPi & test.

This step was definitely the most complicated, so I'm glad I saved it for last. Like other steps, this step also required a shift in thinking, and some assistance from @rstrouse here. Since you are reading this thread, you may be like me and are transitioning from an OCP to Nixie. In the OCP paradigm, there is a big "Solar" button that shows up on dashPanel - tapping this button simply rotates the valve appropriately to turn the solar system on or off. In Nixie, solar heating is NOT controlled manually in this way; it is better to automate solar heating based on temperature comparison algorithms.

First the hardware:

Adapter for valve actuator plug
The valve actuator has a 3-pin JST-XH female connector on the end of its wire, and that was plugged into the Easytouch board. Rather than disassembling that connector, I bought a male connector/pigtail. I did this only because I don't like disassembling things that might be useful later, and to reassemble this connector would likely require a crimping tool that I don't have.

With the adapter in place, I wired up the valve to a relay on the Sequent Hat and tested it. Turns out that I had the NO/NC ports on the relay reversed, so I swapped them. I then confirmed that it was working by tapping the relay in REM, and watched the valve rotate accordingly.

24VAC power
If you recall my initial ramblings at the top of this thread, I wondered if I could cannibalize the existing Pentair/Ensign transformer for this, and just tap into the 24VAC rail that comes off of it. I previously had measured the voltage of the three rails on this transformer and was disappointed in the results. However, it turns out that your friendly idiot author of this thread was measuring the voltage wrong. It took me a while to realize that the 6 output wires from the transformer are grouped into 3 pairs. The red & red/wht wires make up a pair that defines the positive and negative 24V output. Similarly 18V for ora & ora/wht, and 12V for the blu & blu/wht. Measuring (correctly this time) with my multimeter, one on the red wire, and one on the red/wht wire, I measured a solid 28.3VAC on that rail. Nice! Success in cannibalizing this part. I used some wire taps:

Solar temperature sensor
Because Nixie will automate solar heating/cooling, a solar temperature sensor is not optional; Nixie has to know the solar heating temp to do the calculations and decide whether it makes sense to engage the solar heat circuit or not. There is a workaround to use the Air Temp Probe that is detailed in the thread linked above, but that's sub-optimal. My biggest challenges I was facing with adding a solar temperature sensor were 1) climbing on the roof, 2) running 200 feet of wire from the roof to the pool equipment pad, 3) and burying that wire next to the solar pipes that run to the roof. This is a massive amount of work.

So I had an insight that works for me. My pool equipment is surrounded by a 3 foot high wall, and covered by shade cloth to keep the sun off the equipment. The top of that wall gets almost as hot as the top of my roof, so why not just mount the solar temp sensor there? So that's what I did, I bought a 5 pack of cheap sensors, and ran the wire the 3 feet from the top of my wall to the input on the Building Automation Hat. Maybe not the perfect measure of solar temp, but certainly good enough for this purpose. And it was 99.99% easier than mounting something on the roof.

Software configuration:

Add the valve and temp sensor to REM
The solar temp sensor is setup the same way as the air and water temp sensors that I documented in step 3. Here's the valve relay setup:

Add Solar Heater to njsPC

Add Solar Valve to njsPC

Configure heating/cooling set points
A note on the temperature deltas that can be seen on the Heater setup page. The effect of the delta value is to prevent the solar circuit from turning on if there is not enough solar heat "buffer" to be effective, because solar heating is slow, and eventually the sun will set. I left these at default for now, as quite a bit of testing is going to be needed to see if changing them helps or hurts anything.

I then thought about what I wanted to happen, and it is seasonal:

• In the early/late season, run the solar system during the day to add heat to the pool if the pool temp is less than 82 deg F; set Heat Point to 82
• In the middle of the season, run the solar system at night to remove heat from the pool if the pool temp is greater than 78 deg F; set Cool Point to 78

The problem is that you can't do both of these at once unfortunately, as dashPanel forces you to have a Cool Point that is greater than the Heat Point. So I'll need to move these manually as the seasons change. A wishlist item might be to have a setting that directs the solar circuit to be in either heat mode or cool mode; right now it does both all the time.

So for now, I've set it up like this. Note that you have to tap on the red box area to bring up the page to set these values:

Notes

Note 1: Longitude and latitude need to be entered in Settings/General/Personal Information in order to determine sunset/sunrise and to allow the nocturnal cooling algorithm to work.

Note 2: There may appear to be bug in the algorithm that decides whether to engage nocturnal cooling. If you need this to work while waiting for the developers to adopt this into the code base (or not), the change is easy. In the file nodejs-poolController/controller/boards/SystemBoard.ts, change line 4274 from
state.temps.solar > body.temp + (hstate.isOn ? heater.stopTempDelta : heater.startTempDelta)) {
to
state.temps.solar < cfgBody.coolSetpoint + (hstate.isOn ? heater.stopTempDelta : heater.startTempDelta)) {

It will recompile with the fix when you "npm start" or "pm2 restart njsPC", or whatever you typically use.

At this point, Nixie is as functional as my Easytouch was before I started all this. Future improvements will be detailed in my next post.

[CodeSlinger69]

Step 9: Observations and Future Plans

Nixie requires several paradigm shifts as compared to how an OCP operates. This is a good thing and kudos to @tagyoureit and @rstrouse for their work on this. However many of these paradigm shifts are not completely documented in the wiki, and I had to ask for clarification several times. This is normal with something this complex, and hopefully I've done my part by sharing my journey in this thread.

Many pieces of the Pentair Easytouch were salvageable. As a bonus, if ever needed, I can remove the Nixie bits and revert the OCP back to its original functionality. Here's the list of things I reused:

• Easytouch enclosure, saving $180 for a new Altelix 14x12x8 Vented
• 24VAC power from the Ensign transformer, saving $59 for a new Functional Devices TR75VA005
• Pentair water and air temp sensors, saving $58 for new ones
• High current relays, saving $98 for two new ones
• 120V/240V power distribution including mini circuit breaker panel, 4 breakers, 60Amp wiring run from the main panel, wiring from the breakers to the relays & transformers. It's hard to figure the cost of all this might have been, but I can tell you that the cost of just the large gauge copper wire from my main panel to the pool pad is about $1000.
• Intellichlor power path, including the 240v/39V transformer and surge board; these two pieces are a ridiculous $500 on their own.

Setting aside the last two, that's a total of $395.

I did have to buy a few new parts. You're experience may very depending on what you have laying around in your electronics box, but here's my final tally to achieve parity with the EasyTouch. Arizona sales tax is included in these numbers:

• 24 VDC Transformer - $36.36
• Building Automation Hat for RPi - $103.74
• 8 Relay Hat for RPi - $49.14
• 10k sensor for solar, pack of 5 - $10.91
• 3 wire JST-XH connectors, pack of 20 - $9.38

Total out of pocket: $209.53

And I did find a few (potential) bugs as I worked through setting things up to work for me. You can track them here if they affect you:

• Evaluating schedules on specfic days
• Engaging nocturnal cooling on the solar circuit

Future plans in priority order. I'll certainly come back to this thread and post updates as I complete these. But these are not as much of a rush as the initial build:

• New enclosure for Nixie equipment, DIN rails, DIN mount for the RPi, terminal blocks (clean up my messy, temporary wiring)
• Fan for new enclosure triggered by RPi CPU temp. My RPi is in the OCP box right now, which is shaded from the sun. But it's still hot outside in the Phoenix summer, and I've seen my RPi get up to 84 dec C when working, and sits around 74 dec C when idle. Moving the RPi into a new box away from the big transformers, and adding a fan or two should help with that a lot.
• Add chemistry sensors
• Add automatic acid dosing (this was my major reason for taking on this project in the first place)
• Upgrade pump/IC20 circuit breaker from standard to GFCI
• Add valve actuator for water feature
• Evaluate need for flyback diodes per rstrouse's comments in the Nixie wiki article

And here's the state of the pool controller right now. Messier than before, but I did get to remove the Easytouch control board/display.

Now, off to find a cheap enclosure for future plan number 1. The Atelix boxes are on sale, so I might just splurge.

[FlaMike]

Interesting box option. I'm heading down the same path--converting an ET to Nixie based on this thread's inspiration. Close to the Gulf of Mexico, so rust is a concern for anything outside. Any thoughts on venting the cheap Amazon box? I'd rather not fry my Pi :-)

[FlaMike]

Perhaps something like this one???
https://www.amazon.com/Namunanee-Electrical-Junction-Resistant-Enclosure/dp/B0C285HVFQ/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=vented+large+junction+box&s=hi&sr=1-6

[FlaMike]

This might be better because it's deeper:
https://www.amazon.com/Namunanee-Electrical-Junction-Resistant-Enclosure/dp/B0C4YK2MWZ/ref=sr_1_8?keywords=vented+large+junction+box&s=hi&sr=1-8

[johnny2678]

I have my flow cell in the Amazon box so no need for venting, but you can add a side vent to the box that I ordered.

Then use a 120mm case fan to vent out of one of these

[FlaMike]

Thanks for the suggestions. Looks like a good option.

[FlaMike]

Hmmm... Not sure wassup with GitHub. Great suggestion to run things on their own to see if the Problem is in omw or elsewhere! Thanks.

…

On Thu, Dec 7, 2023, 4:26 PM tagyoureit ***@***.***> wrote: I'm not changing anything on the wiki, but even if I was the updates should be instantaneous. Before you blow away everything, you should try to start up each application outside of PM2. You can open a unique SSH shell for each one just to try this. If they all work outside of PM2, then you know where to start. If they have issues running by themselves than you have a different direction to go. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#801 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJ3NIBDZUR7IKQETG3A2GOLYII7ARAVCNFSM6AAAAAAZU4IK52VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43SRDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHM3TOOJUGM2TO> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: <tagyoureit/nodejs-poolController/repo-discussions/801/comments/7794357@ github.com>