The website still has 2.01 released last May. Even if it were to release today, you won't see it in a distributor until January/Feb as there is stock all over. Install it now and upgrade the firmware later.

RG - I've beome terribly dissapointed with Pentair's support both locally and at their tech support office. I was informed by a most helpful member of this forum (;-) that a VF and ET will work as the VF will revert back to a VS and give you 4 speeds. I can live with that knowing I am not realizing, in the short term, the full benefit of the VF. However, I am investing in this technology for the longrun so when the firmware becomes available, I will then be able to realize the VF's full benefit.

Now, here's where I have some beef. Deeker and productmanager are quick to come on here and slam someone that they beleive is saboting their product. Yet I've asked on several threads about this and Deeker wont respond. Okay, I dont think they are monitoring the site by the minute, but the posts have been up on the differnt threads for a week.

Deeker states that it will be 3-4 weeks. WAKE UP PENTAIR - you're cutting off your own feet not making VF and ET compatible. If the ET isnt compatible, then people will buy VS's not Intellitouch's.

The second thing that bothers me is that I talked personally to the local Pentair rep - a Pentair employee - and he told me that as long as the board was 2.0 or later (in the ET), then the VF would talk to the ET. According to the Pentair phone support and Deeker's post, this is incorrect. How can a local REP not know this?

My third beef is with the Pentair tech support. Do you want more than 1 answer to the same quetion? Then call Penatair tech support 2 times, get 2 differnt people, and ask the same question. In general, I got some good info and the folks are generally nice, but when it comes to detailed technical questions, they all have differnt answers.

For example, I talked to Ben and he confirmed that the VF will revert to a VS when connected to an ET. However, the tech supervisor Gerry told me otherwise. Then again today, I talked with Mark who told me what Ben told me and he told me he was absolutely certian of it. WTF.

I'm paying several thouand dollars for this equipment and I'd like to think the people who are making it and supporting it now what they are doing.

THe last thing that chaps my a$$ is that I am the one that has to spell all this out to my PB. They show up with a I'd like to get some input. I think it is warranted.

off soapbox

Or they should just not tell you about this capability until it is actually in the distribution stream.

Pentair's phone support is better than any other major manufacturer.

I hear you. From a field perspective, the tech support is weak. We know more than they do in most cases unless you get to a few key people. Not sure why but it is true. As far as sales reps go, the same applies. The same for warranty stations. Our local warranty rep thinks he is the Pentair guru. Yes, he knows a lot but his installs on the VF prove he knows little. Yet, Pentair shovels him most of the work. It makes one want to smack somebody. Our local guy has the worst reputation among homeowners AND service companies.

After a couple of years of installing VF's, most guys in our area have abandoned it for any job with automation. It just has too many issues with integration and he call backs are terribly high. I should be only for stand alone.

I really see no benefit to your VF desire on an EasyTouch. You can apply a specific speed to 4 items and save a ton of energy. If anything, you should be holding out for the SVRS VS as it will give you more bang for your buck. I can certainly tell you those are in the order pipeline and are ready to go soon.

Good to hear some input from someone in the field RG. My main rationale for the VF is that I will know my GPM and can make a more acurate estimation as to how long I need to run my pump for a given turnover as opposed to just setting RPMs and guessing at how much water I am turning over.

Another factor is that this is what I was sold as an upgrade for $500 on the contract. Given that I now know the pump cost difference from a standard 1 speed to a VS to a VF, I cant imagine that if I offered to drop to a VS, they would throw me any money back, so I may as well get the VF.

They installed my ET yesterday, plastered today and are out tomorrow to acid wash and install the rest of the equipment. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out with the ET and VF since I seem to know more than they do about their incompatability. I have a feeling I'll be just running the VF without it connected to the ET for a few days until they get everything figured out....which is fine. The pool company guys are all super cool and as long as it all works out in the end, it's all good. But that still doesn't excuse PENTAIR'S BLUNDERS ON THIS WHOLE THING.....DISSAPOINTING......

I'll post a thread next week with pool build pics INCLUDING PICS OF PENTAIR'S INCOMPATABLE EQUIPMENT. After just killing a few beers and checking out how eveyhting looks (minus H20), poolwise, I couldnt be more pleased....

I would not blame Pentair for the "incompatible" equipment. What part of the blame are you not giving your pool company for not knowing a VF does not go with an Easytouch???

Any person who works with these units knows this. Making that statement is like saying I want my EasyTouch remote to work with my IntelliTouch. It's just not so. Take that logic to any industry. You can't fault anybody but the salesman.

For what its worth, an $80 flowmeter is sufficient on a VS to know exactly what you are getting in terms of gpm. You then program accordingly.

Quoting Repairguy: "If anything, you should be holding out for the SVRS VS as it will give you more bang for your buck. I can certainly tell you those are in the order pipeline and are ready to go soon."

Is this a Pentair product? Can you point me to someplace with info on it? We are going to be building this Spring and I would love to hold out for something new and better if it's worth it. Thanks! Kath

You can find out more about it on the Pentair website under what's new.

But it says it for commercial use. Is there one for residential?

Here is a link that might be useful: What's New

Repairguy,

I have a VS that was installed in January or 2007. What does the SVRS add that isn't already dealt with by pool codes in California. We already have the anti-entrapment main drains.

Just curious. Is there any additional energy savings?

Where to with to start.....?

The VS+SVRS is compliant with the Virgina Graham Baker act. For commercial pools, this is a time bomb that will explode on Dec. 20. We are dealing with a federal law now so the state has no say so but to strengthen it by requiring it on a residential basis. I believe AZ is already there and CA is in the process. Commercially, the IntelliFlos ran up against resistance from the health department as the speeds could not be controlled and required turnover times could not be guaranteed. But, these pumps were not really geared for commercial. Now they are. The speeds are now locked in and arepassowrd protected. The SVRS shut off is not an auto reset. Imagine a pump kicking off upon blockage and then kicking back on during rescue. The VF will do this with it's system block feature.

The new pump is perfectly fine for residential use. It is better now.

As far a drains go, should a residential decree come down from a state, your cover is not compliant. Covers are just now rolling into distribution. They must be certified for material and strength, flow rate, etc. The covers also must have specific wording on them and they have an expiration by law, 5 years. The current anti-entrapment covers are anti-vortex, they are not anti-entrapment. Vortex sucks a body down. Anti-entrapment flows hair away or cuts it through a reverse flow. All models are different.

There are also modifications that need to be made if the drain sump is not compliant. Specifically, the pipe diameter of the suction line. The open space from the top of the pipe to the underside of the cover must be 1.5 times the diameter of the pipe.

hey now - dont you hijack my ET/VF thread with a new intelliflo divergance :-)

RG - you make some good points as always. Basically, it's what I got in my contract and as you probably can understand I am not going to try and downgrade at this point. My displeasure isnt as much at the specific equipment that my PB supplied me with so much as Pentair being short sighted to not make a VF and ET compatible afte rthe VF has beenout for 2+years - presumably 2 of their best sellers in their respective depts. My displeasure is with Deeker coming on multiple times a day to rebute the member Through, but remains dead silent when I ask for an update from a post he made. I hear you on being unhappy with the PB, but that's hard considering their pool construction has been 2nd to none....their equipment knowledge isnt what it should be, but then FL is a few years behind CA and where is Pentair on committing to educating their suppliers - again the Pentair rep himself mis-informed me. Anyway, it should all work out in the end. I just dont like being blown off. I'd rather just have Deeker come on here and tell me it will be 3-4 more weeks, months, whatever than a non response.

pool is filling and equipment got pushed off till Monday...

"There are also modifications that need to be made if the drain sump is not compliant. Specifically, the pipe diameter of the suction line. The open space from the top of the pipe to the underside of the cover must be 1.5 times the diameter of the pipe."

Not only that but the rest of the sump must be 1.0X the pipe diameter as well.

:My displeasure isnt as much at the specific equipment that my PB supplied me with so much as Pentair being short sighted to not make a VF and ET compatible afte rthe VF has beenout for 2+years - presumably 2 of their best sellers in their respective depts:

In my market the vs 3050 outsells the VF 10:1. They ran out of memory in the first revision of the ET, and frankly maybe they figured that most people that would spring for the VF pump would also want the way more sophisticated Intellitouch system. You also can't hook the ET system into home automatic, but you could with the pre-historic 3*** series.

flchad,
Sorry I have not been able to even read the board for a month or so. I do not nor ever have post daily but very sporadically.
Between international travel and some important family issues I just did not have time to check the board. Hopefully you can understand

I checked on an update for releases. The one you are interested in the EZ Touch Rev1 - it is going through a sign off period internally for release. At that point we will make the programming changes. We do have existing inventory we will need to use up and there is a large inventory of existing EZ Touch's at distribution that will have to be worked through the chain. This will be a running change

As far as Pentair blunders - that is your call. The time line I gave a few weeks back is pretty much within what I stated.
The incompatibility of a Pentair system is not true as we never said a EZ will work with an VF pump. We said the exact opposite. We cannot make the EZ compatible with an VF until we have the product.

We knew we needed to do this improvement to the product and I explained earlier why we had not doe it before. Â we ramn out of memory on the original EZ Touch and this was sacrificed.

Lastly I probably will not come on anymore to post as I was only trying to be helpful. If things do not go your way with immediate answers and missed timelines then I am causing you and possibly others to come unglued and slam me, Pentair new product development, technical service, marketing, etc and that is not good.
The builder you are working with can contact a Pentair rep and let them see how they could possibly reprogram your EZ Touch to work with the VF.
Deek

Deeker,

I can certainly understand and thanks for responding. I know on the energy consumption thread you guys were on it several times a day and it seemed like pasts posts I've searched, you had input on all the Pentair related threads.

I will do as you suggested with the local rep to see when it is available.

Regarding my blunder comment - maybe it was a litle harsh, but the VF has been out for 2 years right? It just makes no sense to have your leading technology product not compatible with all your controllers. That was more the context of that comment. I imagine the EZ is a great seller, so I dont understand why it wouldnt be priority to get them talking. Anyway - the horse is dead.

In terms of your commenting on here - too bad you feel that way becuase I feel exactly the opposite. It would benefit Pentair (and us) greatly to have a rep on this forum to clear up confusion and answer questions (like RG does, but from an official Pentair standpoint). The reason you may possibly feel like I was coming unglued is that I, quite frankly, get frustrated when I am spending a bunch of money (to me) on something and feel like no one really knows what is going on . I have felt like this from the tech support line and my local support. I thought I had found a source to clear things up on here, and then when I wasnt getting a response here either, I just found it more frustrating. Anyway, like I said, the horse is dead - thanks for responding.

"It just makes no sense to have your leading technology product not compatible with all your controllers."

I'm guessing the ET was a bit morre popular than they expected. You can't dumb down a new product like the VF to fit the memory of an ET that was already out.

FWIW, the service segment latched onto the ET and loves it while thoroughly despising the IntelliTouch. Nobody in their right mind would install oner when there is an EasyTouch. Builders love the IT as it generates big money. There really is no reason to install one unless your some tech geek. No offense tech geeks!

The big issue now is that with EasyTouch, there is no reason to buy a VF. VS is the way to go in most cases and especially now with the SVRS as the VF system block feature is more bothersome to owners than it is helpful.

RG - good point that I had not thought about in terms of the VF coming out after the ET. However, it seems ample time has passed that they could have upgraded by now.

Can you give some more details on what you mean about "the VF system block feature is more bothersome to owners than it is helpful".

Flchad-

I think what RG meant was premature pump shutdown with the VF when pressures change in the plumbing circuit.

Communicating variable speed technology like the VF is more sophisticated than non-communicating variable speed technology like the VS. On the VS, you simply tell the pump what speed to run and it runs there. With the VF you tell it what flow to run and then it gets a signal or signals back from the system indicating status. With this feedback, the drive now has to make a decision. Should I keep running, speed up, slow down, display a fault, display a message to the homeowner, etc. When you add the time domain to the signal, it gets even more complicatedÂ.was the change in pressure gradual or sudden or somewhere in between. The drive now has to be programmed to start making these decisions for each of these inputs based on possible system causes.

When the manufacturerÂs philosophy on how to program the drive does not agree with the homeownerÂs or installerÂs philosophy on how the pump should behave in these situations, then the technology starts to be bothersome as RG indicated or as we call it in the HVAC industryÂ.nuisance behavior.

If your setup is simple (ie, no solar heat, in-floor cleaner or valving that changes flow while the pump is running) then you should not have any problems with the VF behaving strangely.

On the new SVRS pump, my guess is Pentair probably decided to shut the pump down immediately when a sudden pressure change is detected and lock it out so that only a manual reset will allow it to be started again. I think this is a requirement of the new anti-entrapment law and Pentair and others in the industry have been doing this by other means not related to communicating technology up until this point

Hope this helps!