OT: Anyone know anything about spa/hot tub repair?

[DrMilhouse]

My friend moved his hot tub and got everything wired up. Everything was working before, but after plugging everything in after the move, it trips the circuit.

I removed all items drawing current from the controller and it didn't trip the breaker.

I started plugging things back in and it turns out that there are two outfeeds of the circuit board which will trip the breaker no matter which pump or other device is plugged into it. All the pumps work on all the other outlets, but on these two outlets, it trips the breaker every time. Even my multi multimeter tripped the circuit sometimes when I was checking for putput on these two out feeds.

Anyone know how to go about fixing this?

Also, one of the pumps (the main pump for heater and ozone and other circulation) stops running after about 3 - 5 minutes. Any clue on why that is? It still has power, but the pump gives out.

Thanks in advance if anyone has any ideas or can point me to the right place.

 

[RicksReefs]

do you have it wired for 110 or 220? sometimes the pump and heater are left at 220 for effeciency, and the rest of the stuff is on a 110 curcuit. if a 220 pump is put on 110, it usually runs, clicks a few times, then stops when the thermal overload is tripped.
it might not be the problem, but it's something to check out.

 

[DrMilhouse]

If something is wired for 220 it should have two different hot leads, then a neutral, then a ground, right?

There isn't any way to wire for 220 with out 4 wires, is there?

 

[RicksReefs]

three wires, two hots and a nuetral. there should be an external #8 ground wire to all metal in the ground loop. most pumps are internally switchable from 110 to 220 and if it's set for 220 but wired for 110 (or vice versa), problems ensue. the heater (if it's a 12KW) will become a 6KW heater on 110.

 

[DrMilhouse]

The heater seems fine, it's kicking on, I can see the relay clicking on to make come on and it's bringing the temp up when there is flow through the heater. the circulation pump for that only has 3 wires on it. There is a Black, White and Green wire. That would be 110, right? There are 4 pumps total, I can plug it in to any of the plugs for any of the other pumps and it will work (depending on which mode is selected for the pump it's plugged into). Two of the pumps have 4 wires, the other pump has only 3.

It would make sense that it's shutting down for thermal reasons because it gets quite toasty hot to the touch when it shuts down. If it's supposed to be 110, how could that be done with only 3 wires (one of which is ground)?

Even so, do you have any idea why the whole thing would blow a breaker when there's ANY draw (I'm talking mA) on the plug that the circ. pump is SUPPOSED to be plugged into or the lights are supposed to be plugged into?

Thanks for your help by the way.

 

[stugray]

Are you tripping the breaker ( too much current ) or the GFCI ( return current coming back on the ground instead of the neutral )?

Newer breakers have both overrcurrent protection & GFCI in the same breaker. I dont know how to tell which one of the two is the problem.

Stu

 

[RicksReefs]

if there's a definate ground wire going to a grounding screw, then it's likely 110. the 4 wire pumps are likely dual speed pumps, and there's one curcuit for low and one for high. if it's a 220 pump, high speed would be 220 and low 110.

if it's blowing the breaker as soon as you plug it in, there's a short somewhere. does it run normal on another outlet? if it does, the problem is in the original outlet, if it blows the second breaker, the pump wires may be loose or wired wrong or the motor may be shot.

 

[DrMilhouse]

You know, I think very well that it could be the GFI that's being tripped. I'd thought of that, but I have no idea on earth of how to check that. The breaker that is tripping is also GFCI and I just can't imagine that we'd trip a dual 50 amp (might be 30 amp) breaker. If it is breaking there, any ideas of why it would break on only one outfeed of the controller? Those controllers are damned expensive and I can't find this specific controller so finding a replacement, might be a huge pain.

The tub is 2 hours away so I can not look to see if that's going to a grounding screw, but I would say with 99.98% surety that the green wire was going to a grounding screw inside the controller where all the other green wires were also going to. The pump does run normally on another outlet, but it does not run for very long. This might be the nature of that pump, it's used to feed the heater, so it wouldn't need to be on all the time (except for when heating a hot tub from 40 degrees to 100 or whatever.

According to the owners of the tub, the pump and everything else was working fine before they moved it to this location. Who knows what may have happened when they moved it.