Solaxx Saltron Retro - Salt Chlorine Generator for Above Ground Pools - Up to 20,000 Gallons Max - Self Cleaning, Built in Timer - CLG10A Salt Water Chlorinator System

Ok I first converted my pool over to salt in the first half of May 2014. It wasn't a new pool set up. I wouldn't have had as hard of a time as I had if I taken a few extra preventative maintenance steps closing the pool the year before. Because of that the Solaxx took a while to get the adjustment right for my pool and here were my reasons so you don't make the same mistake I did.The biggest reason is I didn't clean my pool well enough before starting it. I had it winterized and put a cover on it at the end of last summer but that wasn't good enough. Before putting the cover on the pool it apparently had more late summer leaves fall in it than I had realized and they must have collected in the stairs. If you have stairs instead of a ladder make sure you remove ALL of the leaves from inside the stairs and the pool before starting this. I am now just going to take my stairs out at the end of this summer so I know I am starting clean next year. The pool would stay cloudy and the chlorine level seemed to struggle to increase. While dealing with that we also had a lot of rain in the late spring that I think also kept the chlorine level low. I know it couldn't have helped.So basically once we went through 4 bags of shock and a 5lb container of chlorinated granules I figured out that we needed to remove and clean the stairs and clean the pool again. Then I put the Solaxx setting on 24 hrs. a day for a week. After that I was able lower the setting and it has been effortless ever since.I have a 24' x 4' round above ground pool. I had to add 14ea. 40lb. bags of Morton salt to get the salt level to the proper operating range. I mounted the Solaxx generator on the pool(super easy set up) and as I said before I ran it at 24hrs a day until the chlorine came up. Once it leveled out at the correct chlorine level I ran it about @10 hours a day. At times I'll adjust it from 8hrs. up to 12hrs. depending on rain or the heat from the sun but mostly at 10hrs. Where I live in N.E. Oklahoma it may be a different set up than yours but I would imagine it would be close. You'll have to just set it to the instructions they send in the box and adjust from there. There are only two buttons to adjust. Hours Up and Hours Down. Simple!I'm on week 8'ish now and I haven't had to clean the electrode yet. I checked it last week and it still looks clean so I'm guessing it'll need to be cleaned once a year. I don't know for sure. Maybe it depends on the usage.Overall it took @3wks. to get mine adjusted in but next year will be quicker now that I know what I'm doing. Since that first 3 wks. I haven't added any salt, chlorine or shock at all. I keep one 3" chlorine tab in the floater just in case but I think I'm not going to need it either for the rest of the summer.On the salt I read that once you add salt you don't have to add any more because it doesn't evaporate like water. You should only have to add salt season to season or possibly within the season only if you have to add a lot water due to evaporation.Some more potentially helpful information. My pool has a metal outer wall and frame. I was told by the pool supply store that they didn't recommend switching to salt water because it will eat the metal within the year. They are the experts and I know what salt does to steel but I have not seen any evidence of that "yet". It is still early though. Had our pool been newer we may not have tried using this because of that reason. Our pool has been in place for many years. We are on our 4th liner. If it will make it 2 more years we have plans on installing an in ground pool instead.I read somewhere that the salt content in a pool is only @10% of what the ocean salt content is. You can taste it in the water but it doesn't burn you eyes, it does seem to be better for our skin and you don't smell any chemicals which is awesome.I definitely recommend this product. It is expensive up front but it should pay for itself fairly quickly.I know my set up may be different than yours but I hope the details of my experience in this review will help you avoid any set up pit falls that I dealt with.

Assembly was simple and it is extremely easy to use. It is very much more economical than the plumbed in systems. Since I have only had it for a month I have no sense of durability or reliability yet.August 8, 2013 Update 3 months later and the unit is working great! I cant believe how much easier this is than our previous fresh water configuration. I would highly recommend any fresh water pool users to consider conversion, and this unit makes it EXTREMELY easy. We have a 20,000 gallon (80,000 litre)pool and with 12 bags of salt and this unit, it has been crystal clear and algae free all summer with no additional salt or anything added. The instructions say to add cyanuric acid (stabilizer) but we have been too lazy to do this and it doesn't seem to have made any difference. The pH and chlorine have stayed balanced all summer with no fuss and zero maintenance. This is a HUGE difference from last year when we were adding chlorine pucks, algaecide and chlorine shock every few days. The water does feel nicer as well. No chlorine odour or residue and fewer chemicals to bathe ourselves in. Great unit! Even if we only get 2 seasons out of it, it has more than paid for itself in saved chemical costs.

Installed this item around labor day 2017. I've been running a Salt Water Generator (SWG) for about 5 years. First unit was an inline with "Copper" that supposedly helped kill algae. All I had was headaches, clumps of blue/green on pool sides and cell scaling... This unit (Saltron) changed it all.Setup: 24' X 48" pool, Hayward Earth Filter and a 3/4HP pump.Right after install I lowered the alkalinity by adding muratic acid. This also lowers the PH which I wasn't overly worried about. The old SWG with the "Copper Ions" raised the PH so much that I would normally have to add about 1-2 quarts of muratic acid per week. Well, this unit took almost three weeks to raise the PH back up to 7.2. Much less impact on PH.Now I'm running the pool on a timer. This was impossible with the previous SWG because it lost settings if the power was turned off or lost during an outage. Currently running the SWG at 5 hours and the pump for 6. On at 6am, off at noon. Back on at 6pm and off at midnight with the timer set at 6 hours. This allows for about 1 hour of pump run time after the Saltron shuts off. Figure the extra hour of circulation would help.Took off 1 star because the cover clip was a little pushed in and wouldn't clip in real well. Easy fix using a heat gun to warm the plastic and bending the clip out a little bit (see pic of clip). Feel this should have been caught during Q.A. at the factory.I've seen some have issues with the way the unit attaches to pool. It didn't fit my pool well either but it would be hard to make a unit that attaches like this to fit everything. They would have to make 40 different attachment methods. I shortened the plastic "Large Blue" bolt a little with a hack saw, re-set the threads with a small file, and was able to clear the underside of the pool rail easily.Currently the unit is running at OVER 4 on chlorine with the above settings (basically 10hrs/day). Pool is clear and the scaling issue has not been seen.I will update this if anything goes differently but right now I'm having trouble finding stuff to do since I'm not having to work on the pool constantly. This thing has really made the pool enjoyable. It runs, pool is clear and levels are equalized.... No complaints (yet)!---Update 1 Oct 2017:. Not one green day this summer! Less than 1/2 gallon of muratic acid needed and the pool was just as clear when I closed it than opening.... Can't give this thing enough credit!