Five little lights and no explanation on the panel. Here's what each one is actually telling you on an IC15, IC20, IC40 or IC60 — including the diagnostic hidden behind a three-second button hold that tells you how much life your cell has used up. Verified against Pentair's own installation guide.
This is the light that brings up the phone. The Cell indicator sits in the middle of the panel, and Pentair gives it three states:
That middle state is the one worth acting on, and the wording matters. It isn't a failure warning. It's an inspection request — the unit has decided something is interfering with its blades and has stopped producing until someone looks. A large share of the cells we're called out to replace on that light didn't need replacing at all.
The panel gives you four separate pieces of information. Reading them together tells you far more than any one on its own.
Solid green = producing. Flashing green = inspect the blades, likely calcium, not producing. Dark = off, possibly just resting between cycles.
Green = enough water moving through to make chlorine. Red = insufficient flow, and no chlorine is being produced. A flow problem is a pump or filter problem, not a cell problem.
Green = in range. Flashing green = above 4,500 ppm, which raises corrosion risk. Red = low, below 2,800 ppm and running at reduced efficiency. Below 2,600 ppm the unit stops producing altogether.
Five LEDs acting as a bar graph for how hard the unit is working — 20% through 100%. Blinking lights indicate the finer 2%–10% settings.
One detail that trips people up: give it time. After power-on, the salt LEDs scroll bottom to top for about two minutes while the unit analyses the water. A reading taken before that finishes isn't a reading.
Almost nobody knows this is there, and it answers the question everyone actually wants answered: is my cell near the end?
Press and hold the MORE button for three seconds, until the lights scroll across the unit. One of the five Sanitizer Output LEDs then lights up — and that LED is an odometer of hours already used:
Read that the right way round. It is hours consumed, not life remaining — the 100% LED is the bad news, not the good news. Pentair rates the cell at roughly 10,000 hours, which it puts at about five years of average use.
So a cell showing the 80% LED has around 8,000 hours on it and is genuinely near the end. One showing 20% has barely started, and if that unit is misbehaving, the problem is almost certainly cleaning, salt or flow — not a worn-out cell.
When the Cell light is flashing green, the order matters — and Pentair's own guide is stricter about acid than most owners are.
Start with a garden hose. Cut power, remove the cell, and spray directly into both ends on a jet setting. A lot of calcium buildup has a slushy consistency and comes straight out. If that clears it, you're done — no acid needed.
Only acid wash if the hose doesn't do it. Acid is effective and also cumulative; every wash takes a little of the coating with it. Treat it as the second step, never the first.
Inspect on a schedule, not on a warning. Pentair recommends removing and inspecting the cell every two months where blades show a tendency to scale, and states plainly that high hardness areas may require more frequent cleaning — with a minimum of twice yearly regardless. That's not a generic caution out here. Northwest Houston fill water is exactly the condition that sentence is describing, and it's why local cells foul faster than the manual's baseline assumes. We went through the reasons in why Houston's fill water is hard on salt cells.
If a proper clean doesn't restore it and the hours check shows a young cell, look at salt and flow next rather than reaching for a replacement. If the hours check shows a cell near the end of its rating, our salt cell replacement cost guide covers what comes next.
The panel is a starting point, not a diagnosis. Two situations it handles badly:
The salt light says low and your test says fine. That's its own problem with its own causes, and adding salt is usually the wrong response — see why a cell reports low salt when your salt is in range.
The cell is genuinely failing rather than dirty. Fading output, shorter gaps between cleans and a high hours reading all point the same way — our guide on the signs a salt cell is failing covers that decision, and our salt system repair service covers the fix.
A flashing green Cell light is an inspection request. Pentair's guide states that the cell needs to be inspected and that the blades may have calcium buildup — and that while it's flashing, the unit is not producing chlorine. It isn't a declaration that the cell has failed. Pull the cell, look through the blades, and clean it before assuming you need a new one. A solid green Cell light means it's working normally, and no light at all usually just means it's resting in an off-period of its cycle.
Press and hold the MORE button for about three seconds until the lights scroll across the unit. One of the five Sanitizer Output LEDs will then light, showing accumulated running hours: 20% is 2,000 hours, 40% is 4,000, 60% is 6,000, 80% is 8,000 and 100% is 10,000. Read it as hours used rather than life left — the 100% light is the worn-out end, not a healthy one. Pentair rates the cell at roughly 10,000 hours, about five years of average use.
Pentair recommends around 3,600 ppm for optimum operation. The red low-salt indicator comes on below 2,800 ppm, where the unit keeps producing but at reduced efficiency. Below 2,600 ppm it stops producing chlorine until salt is added. At the other end, a flashing green salt light means you're above 4,500 ppm, which increases the risk of corrosion to equipment and surfaces around the pool. After adding salt, let the pump run about 24 hours before trusting any new reading. These numbers are Pentair's — a Hayward AquaRite runs on a different range and a different reminder system, decoded in our AquaRite Inspect Cell light guide.
A red Flow light means there isn't enough water moving through the unit, and no chlorine is being produced while that's the case. Importantly, this is not a fault with the cell itself — it points upstream to circulation. Common causes are a dirty or clogged filter, a pump that isn't performing, a closed or partly closed valve, or air in the system. Fix the flow and the light clears; replacing the cell achieves nothing.
Pentair recommends removing and inspecting the cell every two months where the blades show a tendency to scale, with a minimum of twice a year, and explicitly notes that high hardness areas may need cleaning more often. Much of northwest Houston is exactly that kind of area, so the two-month interval is a more realistic baseline here than the twice-yearly minimum. Always try a garden hose on the jet setting into both ends of the cell first — acid washing should be the fallback, not the routine.
No. When an IntelliChlor is connected to an IntelliTouch, EasyTouch or SunTouch control system, the Less and More buttons on the unit are disabled and sanitiser output is controlled from the automation instead. That catches people out when they try to change output at the cell and nothing happens. The indicator lights still report status normally — it's only the output adjustment that moves to the control panel.
Tell us the brand, which lights are on, and the hours reading from the MORE-button check — that's usually enough for us to tell you over the phone whether you're looking at a clean, a flow problem or a new cell. Serving Cypress and Greater Houston.