Repair and Reinforce Pentair IC40 Cable

Rats! This was the second time a rodent got to the cabling of my pool equipment, and hopefully the last.

The first time one severed a control wire for a flow diverter, it cost me a service call because I assumed the diverter had failed. The tech who arrived was stumped as well until he traced the wiring back toward the panel and found it chewed in two.

But this time, one went after all the insulation on the thick cable for the chlorine generator cell. Those things are expensive! $1,400! And there is no way to replace a cable as the unit is sealed shut. I came up with an inexpensive plan to repair it and prevent the rats from getting at it again.

The above photo shows just 3 inches of damage. Not seen is a four-foot gash where a rat chewed off the outer insulation and exposed copper from the inner insulated wires. Fortunately, the wires were undamaged—only some thin edges were exposed. To fix that, I coated them in layers of liquid electrical tape.

Next, I got a roll of Liquid-Tight conduit and cut a length to cover the cable. But first, I had to separate it completely from the unit because the other end has a large moulded connector that cannot fit through the conduit.

To do the surgery, I had to open up about 5 inches of cable to cut the inner wires in a staggered pattern about an inch apart. With the cable now severed from the salt cell unit, I could pull it into the new conduit using a metal fish tape. I also sleeved heat shrink over the wires and shoved it into the conduit, leaving just enough that I could slide back out later.

With the cut wires exposed, I slipped smaller heat shrink over the ends, tucking them away so as not to prematurely shrink them with the soldering iron. I wanted to avoid bulky, overlapping, long splices to ensure the repair could slide freely in the outer Liquid-Tight jacket. I decided to fasten the wires with a modified linesman splice: each wire is bent into a hook, the hooks interlock, then each free end is wrapped once around the other conductor toward its own insulation, making a reasonably strong mechanical joint with good conductivity.

I then soldered them, slid the little heat shrink pieces over all four of them, and shot them with the heat gun.

I pulled out the larger heat shrink tubing that I hid down in the conduit, covering the entire patched area, and then applied the final heat application to shrink it all up.

Snugging up the conduit to the unit, the job was done. The big test was connecting it back to the panel to see if it lit up with all the proper lights. Fortunately, it was fine. Whew!

There's a lot of thinking and planning involved in a project like this. So many steps you have to do in the right order so you don't make a mistake that is a pain to recover from—like forgetting to get heat shrink in place before soldering. I actually used two different sized heat shrink on either side of the first test join, since I wasn't sure just how thick it would be. Then I could find the right sized one to slip over and use that for the other three. This all seems wise now, but I learned from mistakes in other projects.

Since the unit is disconnected during cooler months, I descaled it with a muriatic acid and water mixture to get it ready when the pool temperature gets into the 60s F again. The generator will not work at all when the temperature is too cold. Between December and March I swap it out with it with a dummy bypass extension. It's regular yearly maintenance.

Now with this hardened conduit and half a dozen snappy rat traps tucked around the equipment, I have a little extra protection. The things you have to do when living right on the edge of a giant wilderness reserve.