SolaxxSaltron 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.

Seems to chlorinate well so far. I have only had it installed for a few days

Needless to say this has to be one of the cheapest salt water conversion for bigger size pool. Other in-line units would properly set you back a good $1000 to start. I have only ran this for one day, so not much to update other than it's working. I added 400 lbs of salt (Morton pool salt from Walmart for $6) for 16K gallons. Dean Chao reviews' added 480lbs for a 25K gallon pool. Using the pool calculator.com website, I added about 3000 ppm of salt, while Dean Chao added about 2200 ppm of salt. Both system report the salt level is normal. So I am assuming the unit's optimal range is between 2000-3000 ppm of salt depending on your feel and taste of the salt water.I screwed this onto a 2x4 block of wood, so I can remove it when we are using the pool so the little kids wouldn't trip on it. It's a little inconvenient in that manner, but it's not like we swim everyday.Cost: 250 + 60 (salt) + $50 (outdoor outlet) = $350 for conversion.After several swims and testings. I have noticed the amount of salt I put in tasted a little salty. So maybe, someone might aim for less than 3000ppm with the pool salt. In addition, we have had a heatwave of close to 100 degrees for two weeks now and it seems to be killing the chlorine build up. The first day or two of running the unit, it brought the free chlorine level to 1.52 from .7 running at 20 hours a day. After several swim and testing it recently, the free chlorine level is at .75 and total chlorine is at 1.0. Either too much heat/sunlight or the unit isn't performing fast enough to bring the chlorine level higher. It seems to be maintaining that level though. I changed the time to run 24 hours for now, at least for the summer.---AFTER 2 SUMMERS AND 1 WARRANTY REPAIR follow up---Last winter I sent in my cell in for repairs because after three months; the cell keep getting a white residue build up every week. You have to buy the Muriatic acid, dilute and soak the cell in there to clean it off. I had to clean the cell constantly every week. After about a month or two of cleaning in the solution, this black residue started forming and that is when I figured it had malfunctioned.I sent it in for repairs and I couldn't just send in the cell by itself; they want me to send in the entire system. It probably cost 20+ dollars for shipping. On top of that, I had to pay for the return shipping for the repairs. I think that was another 30 dollars. The whole warranty process took about two months and I had to email them asking about by repairs.This summer (2013),it's the same thing over again. It works great for the first month. Here comes the white residue, constant cleaning then comes the black residue.Not sure if others experience this but that is what happened to two of the cells.I put it in the shed and called it a lost.