[OBSOLETE]Intermatic PE653 Pool Control System

Devices & Integrations Community Created Device Types
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667

My schedule issue seemed to have sort itself out. I did some work on the pool on a Saturday. Sunday it never turned itself on. I ran it manually Sunday night. Monday it didn’t turn on, but I checked it shortly after when it should come on and it did not so I manually started it.

Tuesday it started itself. And has worked itself through the following Sunday.

I also did a trick. For running Chlorine Pump, I rewired it so channel 4 and 5 are in series. So switch 4 has a schedule on it and Switch 5 is the “enable schedule” switch.

So I can override the schedule from SmartThings but I don’t need to depend on SmartThings for the schedule.

Super simple.

Two issues though. If I get a power failure, the switch 5 being on does not restore state.

There is no safety check that the pump is running. I guess I could add 2nd schedule to pump that starts only when Chlorine starts (in case I left it off for some reason). Not sure if there are hooks for dependencies in the PE963.

I also have safety shutoff scheduled for midnight on all channels except channel 5.

668

Ah-Ha. I did manage a perfect safety.

Turns out you can setup some dependencies. The best match was a “CLEANER”.

So basically I treat my Chlorine Pump as a Cleaner now with a Pump Safety enabled.

I had to swap things around a bit though.

I have a 2 Speed Pump on Load 1/Load 2. The Pump Safety for the Cleaner is Hard Programmed to be Load 1.
Normally Load 1 is “Pump Hi”, I want “Pump Lo” though. I don’t want too much back pressure against the Chlorine Stenner Pump but I do want things circulating. So I had to swap Load 1 and Load 2. The Display for “Pump Hi/Lo” on the PE953 is now backwards though.

I had to move the Stenner Pump from Load 4 to Load 3 (because that’s also Hard Programmed).
So I swapped it to now be Load 3 (Stenner Chlorine Pump) and Load 4 (Light).

I still have Load 5 in series with the Stenner Chlorine Pump (now Load 3).

It works perfect. If you Click Button 3 (Stenner Chlorine Pump), it starts the cir pump on Low and then Started the Stenner.
If the Cir Pump was on, it leaves it on when you (or schedule) shuts Stenner Chlorine Pump off, if the Cir Pump was off when you started Stenner it turns Cir Pump off (when Stenner is done).
If the Cir Pump was on High it switches to low while Stenner runs and then returns to Cir Pump to high.

I put the Schedule in for Load 3 (Chlorine) and basically button 5 acts as an “Enabled/Disable Chlorine Schedule”

In the process of this change I completely lost my schedule. Which included shutting off the breakers.

I assume it’s because if you make a “PE653 Config” change it voids your schedule. The config change was that I enabled Cleaner with Safety.

I retested with the Breaker Off after re-entering the schedule and it stuck fine. I hope that’s what it was.

669

Thanks to the hospitality of @CAL7 , I believe I have a fix for those users having trouble setting the temperature. It seems there are actually TWO variants of firmware v3.4. They work exactly the opposite on how to set the “thermostat”, so no single implementation will work on both. Exacerbating the issue is that Intermatic did not bother to change the version number so I can’t even use that to tailor behavior. I am testing a method that “learns” the appropriate behavior by trying both ways. I hope to have a new version in the next few days. More to come…

1 Like
670

I’d like to take a poll here to validate my firmware theory: please check your PE953 remote firmware screen and indicate which of these two (or other) version you have, AND whether or not you are able to set the temperature using the DTH:
(1) My versión:

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(2). CAL7 versión:
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671

Mine is 3.9, I think CAL and I are having similar issue. Is there a way I can test to see if It is the same issue as CAL?

672

I recently switched from a Hayward 2 Speed Pump to a Variable Speed Pentair IntelliFlo VF.

Really nice pump.

I was configuring the “Mode” buttons and

on M3: Set VSP Speed to: Is Stuck on 5. Can’t change.
on M4: Circuit 1 action: Is tuck on 0. Can’t change

Is that a bug?

Also I can’t figure out if it’s possible to add a Schedule using PE953 for the Variable Speed Pump. It only allows scheduling of circuits.

I may run the pump 24x7 at low RPM and may not really need a schedule, but some folks like to run a boost speed for part of the day for skimmers etc.

Also I expect to be able to map buttons on PE653 to a couple speeds, but they can only control circuits apparently. Seems really dumb.

673

I managed to change the value I wanted on M3: through the IDE and it worked.

But for some reason SmartThings thinks those 2 variables are not variables now.

I even tried changing a label on M3: Set VSP in code and republishing. I saw my label change but those 2 variables are still locked in the UI on the phone.

Can I reset everything somehow without Re-Pairing the device. It’s really clumsy/tedious to start over.
Would Replace work? Can I remap to a copy of the Code using new Handler?

674

I have a variable speed pump configured, but the VSPx buttons just hang saying “TurningOn” and don’t change the speed. If I switch from the Pool Controller screen to the Things screen and back, it shows as Off again (but with no change in speed). The same thing happens if I use the Speed x button on the Things screen. All the speeds work when controlled by the 953. I’m using the latest version of the DTH, just copied yesterday.

675

Just FYI in case anyone runs into breaker tripping. Swapping out the Murray breaker with Siemens (which looked 100% the same as they are now the same company) seems to have solved false GFCI tripping. When my wife picked it up for me at Electrical supply he knew exactly what the issue was and said this will solve it.

I figured out how to add a schedule to the PE953 (it was right in the manual) for variable speed pump. It’s a bit odd that there are two schedules. One for circuits and another for Pentair variable speed pump. It’s like there are two controller interfaces as soon as RS485 sees the pump.

So only down side to this setup is no manual button on the pump interface or PE653 at the pump can turn pump on or off. Only phone or PE953 (remote) can. A rather serious design flaw. If I didn’t have SmartThings setup (which is not officially supported) you’d be limited to PE953, what if the batteries died, you can’t turn pump off or on.

No reason circuit buttons couldn’t be repurposed on PE653 when RS485 is active. In fact, now that I think about it, a SmartThings script could do it. Hint hint. Assuming it sees the event quickly enough and isn’t polling at some slow rate.

676

I think I’ve managed to make the SW1 and SW2 Switches on the PE653 Control VSP1 and VSP2 via a SmartApp.

Code is here. https://github.com/mswlogo/SmartThingsPublic/blob/master/smartapps/mswlogo/master-slave-switch.src/master-slave-switch.groovy

I am currently not home and running remote so I have not tested it on PE653 just yet. But remotely it seems to be working. And I’m 99% sure it will work. I had tested I will receive the events from the buttons on PE653.

I’ve written a few smart apps and tweaked a couple device handlers before. I couldn’t seem to add this functionality to the PE653 Device handler. I think I understand why now. In that the device handler is an interface to that device. When you close the app it’s not “running”. SmartApps run in the background.

One tricky part is, if SW1 is on and you hit SW2 I wanted SW1 to turn off (like a 2 speed pump would). I put code in to handle that but it’s not 100% consistent. Will work on that more. A side effect of that code is that it might not turn off. When on one switch is on and you hit that one switch that is on.

If it fails to turn off, try turning on and off again.

I might try doing another version that uses the MultiChannel PE653 device (rather than the separate switches).

Once set up, there is nothing on SmartThings to do.

I also set SmartThings up to Text me when my Chlorine Stenner Pump starts and stops (no code needed).

Note that all 9 “switches” are exposed individually in SmartThings as part of the install process. Circuit Switch 1-5 and Speed 1-4.

You need to choose those switches when configuring.

This is what mine looks like.

677

Referring back to post 664, could I get replies from all of you that have a working PE953 remote please? I have only heard from @JDogg016, @CAL7 and @magicshot so far. This feedback is important to create a more robust device handler. Thanks to all. I’m almost there…

678

KeithR,

Here is the screenshot, I also posted on Hubitat so they can see there too.

![image|445x500](upload://5XToBAGYKnWum5u0zi3Gd9z6sRs.jpeg)
679

Ok I got it working with the MultiChannel PE653 device. So you only have to configure the one device.

This is a Different SmartApp (not an update to the prior one).

Still might be glitchy getting the “Radio Button” behavior (exclusive SW1 or SW2)
I welcome suggestion on how to fix that.

680

KeithR, First, thank you very much for your hard work on the DTH. I have a PE953 and would love to help if I can. I know I’m running firmware 3.4 What other info do you need? Also, if I am having an issue on an android with the temp showing up, can you let me know what you need from the log?

Thanks.

681

Just take a picture of the first configuration screen on your remote after you enter configuration by pressing the two keys at the same time. It shows a series of versions in the upper right, but some versions of V34 also show additional version info near the bottom like in the same I got from @CAL7. These images confirm that there is also a V34.14.

As for temperature, wait till I post the new version and see if it fixes your issue. If not we’ll go from there.

682

I’ve added Scheduling to my SmartApp for the PE653.

You can have up to 3 Schedules that can Turn Circuit On, Off or On/Off for Any Circuit or Speed.
You can optionally Receive SMS Messages for each Schedule.

You can now Sync all 4 Circuit Buttons with all Speeds (optional on each one and optional SMS).

However, the PE653 Device Handler (for me) is not stable/reliable.
I don’t know if it’s subtle bug in the Device Handler, SmartThings or not strong enough Signal out to the PE653.

The Buttons DO work on the PE653 to control speed. When it does fail it’s not this SmartApp because I always get the SMS Message which is paired with the call to the DTH (that works most of the time but not all the time).

Here is some example behavior that I see.

With my Smart App REMOVED.

If I Toggle VSP2 On and Off (slowly) It will wedge pretty quickly, on the 2nd or 3rd cycle.
It will get Stuck “Turning On” or “Turning Off”.
But if I toggle between VSP1 and VSP2 back and forth it will succeed a whole bunch of times.

Oh and when it’s wedged, if I choose a Different Speed, it will unwedge it (but it might leave the wedged button in an odd state).

I will try moving the SmartThings Hub out to the Pool Shed and see if that changes anything.

Oh and the whole reason I did the Smart App Schedule was the built in Scheduling with the PE953 is completely unreliable. I just never know if it’s gonna work and often the schedule is just gone for no apparent reason.

But now this Scheduling via SmartApp is not reliable either.
If I start my Chlorine Pump it HAS to Stop or I’ll end up dumping my whole tank of Chlorine into the Pool.

Using DTH Manually has been great and it’s feedback is always accurate. If using Manually and something fails you just do it again until you get confirmed feedback. That’s quite a bit harder to do in the SmartApp (which I tried to do).


683

This is very surprising to me. I’ve had instances where messing with the programming would wipe the schedules, but I have never seen a failure of the schedules to fire.

684

I’m starting to Wonder now if it’s SmartThings “connection” messing things up.

I had used a generic “SmartApp” from the canned ones you can use (no custom code). One that can send a SMS Message when a switch is set to a state. That was working perfect. I had set that on the chlorine pump circuit (3). If I clicked circuit 3 I’d get a message. But it appears (by coincidence?) as soon as I set that the schedule on circuit 3 it stopped working.

I (by coincidence) removed that SMS monitor today while debugging my SmartApp. And it so happened to work today.

There is no question it’s sensitive to losing the schedule. I’ll go in there and it’s gone. But this last round wasn’t that. It was still there but didn’t fire.

It takes so damn long to debug because I won’t have any confidence unless it runs for weeks without a glitch.

Also when I got home to test further. Everything has worked perfectly. I wonder if it works better when my phone is on the same WiFi. Versus work or Cellular.

More testing…

685

I moved my SmartThings closer to PE653, I “remoted” the PE653 Antenna closer to SmartThings Hub, I removed my Aeotec Repeater (keep things simple).

It’s running better but still not 100%. But it was already running better since I got home. It does not appear to be local WIFI related because I put myself on Cellular data and it was also running better than this afternoon (with no changes). It feels like if “SmartThings” itself is running just a little slow then the DTH starts to degrade (not just slow but just not reliable).

Also updated SmartApp to allow SMS “Trace” of Any Circuit or Speed change (on GitHub).

686

Let me know if you need anything else

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