The blower motor and lights operate on 120V electricity and use the same type of relay to operate (see picture). It is turned on by switching a heavy duty double pole relay which switches both lines of the 240V. My system has a single 240V, 2HP electric motor. All of the devices connected to my controller fall into four categories: motors and lights, valve actuators, heater, thermistors. They require different voltages, some are AC and some are DC, etc. They are very helpful in understanding the controller as well as fixing any issues that might arise.Įach controlled device has its own method of operating. It will be helpful to understand the basics of reading a schematic because I provide two, one that describes the whole device and another that describes the power supplies. This project requires some knowledge of electronics because you will assemble and solder various components together to build the controller. With that knowledge, you could easily build a controller for a brand new system rather than replace the controller for an existing system like mine. Rather than provide just a step by step listing of how I built this controller, I will also explain how the various controlled devices work. The Raspberry Pi is inside my house and the Arduino is outside by the pool equipment they communicate over a USB cable. The Arduino also reads the temperature sensors. An Arduino Nano has the low level logic to turn on and off a set of relays which in turn control various motors and valves. The Raspberry Pi has the high level logic to do things like determine whether to turn on the heater based on a temperature setting and the current water temperature and ensure that only valid combinations of devices can be operated at the same time. This pool controller uses Node Red on a Raspberry Pi to provide a web interface for controlling the various devices and displaying the temperatures. I built this replacement for about $75 (using some parts I already had - buying all new will run about $100). The Compool model I had is obsolete and replacing it with a new controller and associated parts would cost around $800. I built this to replace an old Compool pool controller which broke. It also measures the water and air temperatures. I am grateful to have someone who I can trust in the swimming pool business who does outstanding work.In this Instructable I will describe how to build a pool and spa controller that controls a pump motor, multiple electric valve actuators, lights, a cleaner, air blower, and heater. He even removed a few automatic valve actuators and converted them to manual without charge. I can trust he will do the right thing and he always does. He's friendly, kind and most of all very competent with any swimming pool issue. I can always rely on Mike if I have a swimming pool issue. He even repainted all of the plumbing pipes so it looks new. He had to redo some plumbing to adjust to the new heater. Mike made a recommendation on a model and just finished installing it. Mike was going to take a look at the heater to see what was wrong but I decided to just replace it as it was about 21 years old and continued to breakdown. He had also done other equipment maintenance over the years. He had installed a variable speed pump a few years ago and did an excellent job. It was time to replace it so I didn't hesitate to contact Mike. Our pool heater hadn't been working for the past two years.
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