My Instinct Was Wrong? Right!

This is the latest addition to our PS/3 arsenal of diversions. I’m not really sure why though. My wife and I are in our mid 50s, and this game is obviously intended for a younger audience. But then again, we’re big fans of Disney movies and Hallmark Christmas movies, so maybe this is for us – does age really matter here?

During the obligatory family gathering for Christmas, the grandkids were keen to give it a go, so we fired it up and they loved it! After the festivities when everyone had gone to their respective homes and the house got quiet, we started playing.

Wow, this is a nifty idea – the idea of storing each characters stats inside that character – this is either going to be a big change in the way video games are marketed or a major flop. The portal uses the typical Bluetooth technology to communicate with the console, and then NFC technology to access the info on the characters.

The gameplay is easy, it’s corny, but it’s clean – no sexual innuendos or graphic language – definitely aimed at the younger generation. If you want to sign up for the Activision newsletter for this game, you need your “parent’s email address” – sheesh, mine have been dead since the 60s, lol.

Some parts of the game are poorly done like the KAOS character – oh man, talk about bad dialog and voice acting. And the “floating head” graphics have no semblance of syncing to the bad voice acting. EDIT (1/5/2012): After further game play, I have to add the “Flynn” character to the “bad dialog” category as well – way bad – Boom!

Within the game there are special areas that can only be accessed by a character with that “elemental power”. There are 8 different “elemental powers”. There are currently 32 characters – 4 each for the 8 different elemental categories. The game comes with 3 characters, so you are immediately 5 characters short if you want to cover all the elemental categories.

And so it begins …

The only real problem here is that Activision got the game’s name all wrong. The name should be changed from “Spyro’s Adventure” to “Grandma’s Adventure”. The real adventure here is trying to find the additional characters needed.

After one night and a partial afternoon of playing, grandma decides we need more characters. Oh my, ok, so off we go – there is a GameStop not too far away – nope they are out of everything except the starter packs.

Well, that was silly, we need to go to a bigger store that has more inventory – there’s a Best Buy close to here, so here we come – nope, same story.

Ok, this is getting worrisome. Wait, there’s an EB Games over in that shopping center – wow, now it’s a GameStop – who knew – same story there. This GameStop actually had 4 of the same individual character – Boomer – but he’s a “tech elemental” and we already have one of those.

Screw it, we’ll just go home and order them online. We need to pick up something for dinner and decide on Mexican food from Rosa’s Cafe so we head that way.

Wait – there’s Walmart – but I hate Walmart – but the quest of scoring more characters grabs hold and off we trek into the bowels of Wally world – I mean surely they have some right? nope, same answer there.

Of course, in the shopping center next to Walmart is another GameStop – same story there.

And lastly, in the shopping center behind Rosa’s Cafe there’s a Target. Ohhhhhhhh noooooooo Mr Bill!!! Same story there. WTF? Depression setting in now.

I take back my previous statement about this possibly being a major flop – it certainly doesn’t appear that way.

It almost feels like the retailers don’t believe – when I asked one GameStop employee if they had any of the characters, 3 packs, or Adventure Packs, she actually said “No, we got slammed on those.” I said “Looks like it’s a bigger hit than expected.” Her reply was, “Yeah, I know, I don’t get it.”

Amazon.com shows some, but the prices are outrageous. Typical price on the individual characters is $7.99 at most places, $9.99 at Toys-R-Us. The 3 character packs are typically $19.99 but $24.99 at Toys-R-Us. Toys-R-Us supposedly has a limited edition legendary character pack that is exclusive to Toys-R-Us – I need to do more research.

We’ve since read about people buying the 3 packs and selling the more popular characters for 4 to 5 times their cost – I saw a single character listed on Amazon.com for $100.00 – doh. Needless to say, these folks are not getting any of our money. I can see a whole secondary market forming (if it already hasn’t) where you can buy, sell, trade characters at various levels of upgrades.

I think Activision has a hit here. It seems like they are stuck with the 8 elemental categories, but they could always introduce more than 4 characters per element. They can always add more “Adventure Packs” – new areas of the game with added abilities.

The currently available adventure packs are “Darklight Crypt” and “Pirate Seas”. I’d like to see some holiday themed adventures like a Halloween theme and a Winter Wonderland/Christmas theme. The possibilities are endless.

All in all, we like the game (except for that KAOS character who seems to grate on my nerves every time the “big head” appears – hopefully Activision can “fix” this).

One last note – the “portal of power” is appropriately named – it takes 3 AA batteries – the first set of batteries lasted about 20 hours of game play. Activision really needs to add an AC Adapter option for this part of the game hardware.

UPDATE (1/5/2012): I took the portal apart and have ordered the needed parts to modify this to use a wall wart – will put up another post about that in the coming days.

… in the meantime … our quest continues ….

UPDATE: (1/5/2012) – Well, we finally ended up at about 20 different stores scattered over 2 days time. We now have at least 1 character per element – for 2 elements, we have 2 characters. But we still need more, lol

The retailers are really not taking this seriously – no one has stock on these things even though their respective websites claim they do. The Toys-R-Us web site said one particular store had stock on the Legendary 3 pack – when we got there, they had a good selection of 3 packs, but none were Legendary. The store clerk said he hadn’t had stock on that in over 3 weeks.

So, you can’t believe the web sites at all – if they say they have stock, they don’t – if they say they don’t, they might. We found one Target that showed none available according to the Target.com website, but a quick call revealed they had some stock, so we went there – didn’t find what we wanted, but they did have some despite what the web site claimed.

TIP: A good place to look is Frys Electronics – we found a character for the final missing element there. Of the 20+ stores we visited, Frys Electronics in Arlington, TX had the largest selection of characters we found.

I’ve been dealing with the phenomenon of similar looking characters. I can’t tell you how many times I have entered a “code” only to find I misinterpreted one or more characters because they look similar.

This typically manifests itself when entering unlock codes like

The problem is some characters look alike. The font used is also a factor. But in thinking about this, I realize VIN numbers for automobiles don’t have this problem.

Some common examples are

those are the most obvious, but there are others that are kind of similar, but

Giving weight to the numerals and tossing out any letters that have possible visual similarities, I’ve settled on the following characters that should be allowed for use in codes

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
C D E F G H J K L M N P R S T U V W X Y

I’ve thrown out the letters, A, B, I, O, Q, Z

This post describes my fix for the error code 91 – low salt – I just wish I had taken photos of the plates before cleaning them. I will add those next time I do this. And my apologies for the length of this post – I never have been able to be short and sweet, lol.

We bought one of these Intex Salt Water Generators (SWG) Model 8110 about 2 years ago. Works great! The only real complaint I have is that if the power goes out, this thing loses all it’s settings and has to be reprogrammed.

Why do so many devices that have clocks, need programming, etc not have a 9V battery backup to save that information? Our Cuisinart coffee pot is the same way (no coffee in the morning if the power goes out during the night).

How much do they save by leaving that circuit out? Does that 15 cents (a pick a number guess) worth of additional electronics really make a difference to these companies bottom line? They don’t even have to include the battery – we all got used to the “batteries not included” idea years ago.

I think all product design engineers and the people who market the product should have to use these things for at least a month before they finalize the design – but, I digress, that’s another soapbox.

There are a few sites out there on the internet spreading some misinformation (like eHow) about Code 91 – low salt. They recommend taking the device at it’s word and just add more salt – that rarely cures this issue. And once the real issue is cured, you will likely get the opposite error of too much salt.

The proper thing to do is to test your pool water for salinity – take a sample to your pool dealer, or buy some salinity test strips and do it yourself.

Anyway – this Intex 8110 SWG has worked great and provided us with a crystal clear pool for 2 years. This year we started having issues with the infamous error code 91 – low salt. So, I tested the water – nope, it’s got plenty of salt.

While I’m on the subject – if you have not read the wealth of information at TroubleFreePool.com then you are missing out. They have a very simple and very effective method (the BBB method) of maintaining your pool water chemistry. It’s cheaper, easier, safer, and uses less chemicals than the potentially hazardous chemicals that your pool store says you need.

With the info on that site and the related poolcalculator.com site, it’s very easy to maintain your pool with stuff you buy at the grocery store – muratic acid, baking soda, bleach (of course if you have an Intex SWG, you don’t need bleach except maybe for shocking). They also make a top notch pool chemistry test kit – not real cheap but very thorough and well worth the investment IMO.

DISCLOSURE: I am not affiliated with those sites (other than being a forum member at trouble free pool) – and I get no compensation from them or from you clicking those links etc – it’s just good info that I am happy to share – I’m glad I made the switch to the BBB method.

But that’s more digression – back to the error code issue …

The most likely cause of the error code 91 is a salty looking crusty crud buildup on one or both ends of the electrolytic plates. That buildup changes the resistance between the plates – and the device uses a range of resistance values to determine the salinity of the water. Since the resistance has been changed, the device “thinks” (used very loosely) the water does not have enough salt.

So I recommend you disconnect the unit and look at the electrolytic plates inside – look through the long square chamber where the hoses are attached. If you have that crusty crud buildup on the plates, the steps that follow will solve that issue.

I don’t know (or care really) why the crusty crud builds up on the plates or even what it is – it looks like salt, even kind of like the white crusty stuff that gets on car battery posts sometimes.

The fix is to remove that crusty crud. Don’t use anything metal, or a brush or anything abrasive – the electrolytic plates have a very thin coating of a special metal (titanium I think) that is needed to do the electrolysis.

What we did was to tightly cap one end of the chamber using the cap that came with the SWG – I’m real glad I kept that seemingly useless (at the time) piece of plastic. Then turn the SWG with the capped end down and fill the chamber with an acid.

The owner’s manual says to use vinegar – I did not try that. If I were going to use vinegar, I’d use white vinegar full strength.

Any acid should do the trick – vinegar, Coke, 7 Up, muratic – some will just do it faster. I don’t really recommend using Coke or 7 Up – I just know that is what we used to use on car battery posts that got cruddy.

If you’re a pool owner, then you already (or should) have some muratic acid lying around, and that is what I used. But I didn’t want to use it full strength for fear of eating up something important (like my fingers, lol). I filled the chamber about three quarters full of water and then added the muratic acid to top it off.

SAFETY WARNING: Always add Acid -> Water, NEVER reverse that to Water -> Acid. Adding water to acid will cause a violent reaction causing the acid to erupt in an acidic burning spray. Wear Eye Protection please! Just remember the old A&W root beer you used to get when you were a kid – that’s the correct order – A into W.

Once you add the acid of your choice, you will notice lots of bubbling going on in the chamber. I think the bubbles are hydrogen, but not knowing what the crusty crud is to start with, I have no way to determine what the chemical reaction is so I don’t know that for sure – but you probably shouldn’t smoke around this thing just in case it is.

Let it sit a while, checking it occasionally, we’re waiting on the bubbles to stop. It took ours about 2 hours and during that time I added a bit more acid a few times. After it seemed to be completed, I dumped the water/acid mix and did it again – the second round got a few more bubbles right at first, but it stopped in about 15 minutes.

Visual inspection showed that 99% of the crusty crud was gone – I washed the remaining remnants off with a garden hose sprayer.

That’s all you have to do solve the error code 91 on the Intex 8110 Salt Water Generator if it’s caused by the crusty crud buildup on the plates. We’ve done it once in 2 years, but now that will be a part of our annual pool maintenance.

As a footnote – this particular version of the code 91 problem is caused partially by the lack of battery backup mentioned above – it’s a design flaw. According to some forums posts, one of the items stored in memory is hours of run time – and this device is “smart” enough (again, used loosely) to change the polarity on the electrolytic plates every 20 hours in an effort to “self clean” – but when it loses it’s memory due to it being turned off, or a power loss (without the aforementioned missing battery backup), it has to start remembering again.

If the device never reaches that 20 hour counter, it never reverse polarity. The idea of “self cleaning” is grand, but if it can’t remember, it can’t do it – it reminds me of Ellen DeGeneres’ character in “Finding Nemo”.

I’ve read that you can reverse the polarity manually by removing the wide black plug from the top of the SWG, turn it over and plug it back in. I can’t verify that as I didn’t try it. I wanted to visually inspect the plates and doing it this way let me verify that they were completely cleaned.

MORE DISCLAIMER: Do this at your own risk. I have described the process I used – but that was only yesterday, so I have no idea of any possible long term effects of doing things this way. I will update this post if any arise.

In the end, I pretty much followed the owner’s manual except I used a diluted muratic acid solution instead of vinegar.

All the other information shared is stuff I gleaned from reading the limited info available on the Intex website and on various pool forums on the web and I cannot attest to the validity of any of it.

of course – YMMV – Good Luck!!