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Integration guide / Water and irrigation

Pentek IntelliDrive

My read-only integration for a Pentek IntelliDrive PID50 well-pump drive, used as a second source of pressure, power and operating-state information.

Install and connectProject and setup guide
Installation
In the Marketplace catalog
Connection
Modbus TCP through an RS-485 gateway
In this setup
Read-only pump monitoring for irrigation alerts

Updated . Documentation checked .

What it is

Pentek IntelliDrive is my Home Assistant integration for the Pentek IntelliDrive PID50 variable-frequency pump controller. It reads the drive's holding registers through a Modbus TCP-to-RS-485 gateway and exposes live pressure, setpoint, frequency, power, current, voltage, temperature, operating state, run mode and fault code, plus diagnostic settings.

Version 0.1.x is monitoring only. It contains no Modbus write commands, switches, numbers or services that can change pump behavior. It is community software, not affiliated with Pentair or Pentek.

My Setup

The drive runs the well pump that supplies both the house and the irrigation. The integration only reads from it; every alert built on its values lives in separate Home Assistant automations.

  • A second opinion on irrigation runs

    The irrigation controller reports what it asked for; the pump drive shows what the pump actually did. I use pump power after a zone starts as a flow indicator, calibrated against known runs. It is an estimate, not a flow measurement.

    My pump-monitoring test note

  • Overnight and hourly start counts

    A derived Running sensor feeds counts of pump starts when nothing should be using water, which is how I look for leaks and short-cycling.

  • Pressure and fault alerts

    Separate automations watch the pressure and the operating state, including the drive's Fault Recovery state, and send phone notifications.

Why I use it this way

Pump behavior is independent evidence about water. It does not depend on the irrigation controller's cloud, and it shows problems the controller cannot see, such as a valve that never opened or a pump that keeps restarting with nothing watering.

What it can do

  • Live pump values

    Pressure, setpoint, frequency, power, current, voltage, temperature, operating state, run mode and fault code, polled every 15 seconds by default.

  • Derived states

    Running, Sleeping and Fault active binary sensors. Fault active covers an active fault or fault recovery; a nonzero fault code alone can be historical.

  • Diagnostics on demand

    PID tuning, dry-run protection, sleep and boost behavior, pipe-break settings, I/O functions and motor configuration, disabled by default until enabled on the device page.

  • Careful polling

    Strict validation of every Modbus response, bounded reads and serialized requests for gateways that do not handle concurrent clients well.

Install and connect

Monitoring only, never a safety control

Home Assistant must never be the only protection for over-pressure, dry-run, electrical or motor faults. Keep every independent protection in place, and use qualified electrical and pump professionals for any wiring. Physical validation covered one installation with one drive and one gateway.

Before you start

  • A Pentek IntelliDrive PID50. Other IntelliDrive models and register-map revisions are not confirmed.
  • A Modbus TCP-to-RS-485 gateway wired to the drive. The project was validated with a Waveshare RS485 to WiFi/Ethernet serial server.
  • Home Assistant 2026.10.2 or newer.
  • Only one client polling the gateway. Some serial gateways deliver a response to the wrong client when two poll at once.

  1. Install from the Marketplace

    In Settings > Marketplace, search for Pentek IntelliDrive and select Install. If the integration can load right away, its setup opens; otherwise a repair asks you to restart Home Assistant. Before Home Assistant 2026.11, search for it in HACS, download it and restart.

  2. Add the integration

    In Settings > Devices & services, add Pentek IntelliDrive and enter the gateway host, port, Modbus unit ID and polling interval.

  3. Retire any old poller first

    If the drive was polled by Home Assistant's Modbus YAML or another tool, stop that before switching. The project's migration guide covers backup, cutover, entity mapping and rollback; old entity history does not transfer automatically.

  4. Enable the diagnostics you need

    Most diagnostic sensors start disabled. Enable only the ones a dashboard or automation uses.

  5. Compare with the drive's display

    Check pressure, frequency and state against the drive itself while idle, sleeping and running before relying on any value.

Limits and caveats

  • Read-only: it cannot change setpoints or any other drive setting.
  • Polling can miss short events. On my installation the default 15-second polling missed restart attempts that lasted only a few seconds.
  • Any flow figure derived from power is an estimate from one installation's calibration, not a measurement.
  • Validated on one PID50 and one gateway model. Other drives, firmware, gateways and wiring may behave differently.

Sources and next steps