Original > Hot Tub Forum
GFI Tripping
Botswana:
Ok so it sounds like your suggesting to unscrew the heater ground going to the board and disconnect both power leads, which means the heater is literally not connected to anything via wire....and the same thing with the pumps, disconnect the ground cables from the grounding bar when testing. Got it
Your second paragraph is a little confusing to me. You mean disconnect the wires from the spa gfi breaker and the spa board just to test the integrity of those wires running through the PVC underground?
bud16415:
Correct.
Botswana:
Okay, so got the first trip on camera this morning, though I'm not sure how much it tells us. Here is what happened:
at 7:32:30AM both status LEDs were green. The tub attempted to kick on the jets to start what I believe to be a heat cycle and it tripped instantly (about 1 second from when the PUMP LED came on). The RED LED for heat never came on, because when it starts a heat cycle, it gets the jets going for 15 seconds before (confirmed from other videos I have) the RED LED comes on. Now, that doesn't mean the heater isn't necessarily on in those 15 seconds and getting "warmed up" or anything, that's just purely when the red LED comes on. I know it was NOT a filter session because it had filtered for 1.5hrs between 1:48am-3:20am and it only filters every 12 hrs.
So...it was either the pump (pump 1 is used to heat and that was replaced a few months ago, and I have had pump 2 disconnected and it still trip even though its not used in filtering/heating), or, was it the heater clicking on and getting ramped up even though it typically takes a few seconds after the pump turns on to get the red LED going. For what its worth, the tub had heated and filtered just fine over the past few days (on camera with the jets on and RED LED for heat). In fact, it heated from 5:54am-6:05am this same morning just fine (so about an hour and half before it tripped).
or...could it be something else? Seems unlikely since it did it specifically when the tub attempted to start up for a cycle. I will try to post videos of it happening tonight when I get home. I cant do it all from my work phone and my work PC is to locked down to access the stuff.
bud16415:
If you can find out for a fact the heat relay doesn’t come on for 15 seconds that would be good information. To me most programmers would just turn it on together unless they didn’t want the inrush on the motor to hit the same instant the heater hits. I assume there is a flow sensor that wont run the heater unless water is moving.
That’s the trouble with all this computer control of equipment it is great if you know what they are doing. They can add timers and delays wherever they want. If the heater gets directly triggered by the flow sensor then one second sounds about right. But why would they delay the LED for 15 seconds? who knows.
My gut feeling is there is nothing in the controller sometimes shorting and sometimes not. Most of the time that stuff works or it doesn’t.
Sounds like it is one of two things and logic says you have already changed one of them without changing the result.
One thing for sure when you get it fixed you will be the expert here on such problems.
Botswana:
Yea, just like being "voluntold" to do something at work.
I can't imagine it being pump 1 since it was replaced, and I kind of confirmed it was replaced (not rebuilt) with the sticker on the pump and the fact that it had a 2017 dated capacitor in it when its a 2016 hot tub.
When I get home I am going to try to reposition the camera (not sure if I can), because there is one more LED in the area that is on a smaller, what I believe to be, heater relay board, which is screwed into the main board. The light is always green as long as the tub is on and doesn't turn red when heating, but its just another data point. If I could get all LEDs in frame that would be great, there is just not a lot of real estate under there.
I think I am going to wait for another trip or two to make sure it is only happening when it attempts to heat, and not occasionally when it tries to filter.
The other thought I had was to open the cabinet and put a multimeter on the heater wires and force the tub to manually heat. That way I could gauge by the amp reading whether it immediately tries to power up even if the red LED doesn't come on. Does that make sense? If it does try to immediately do that, then I think it would mean my problem is the heater (also assuming it only ever trips on a heat cycle)...which would be the most ideal solution given the price and ease of swapping.
Does seem so odd that its so random of a trip and hasn't gotten any more frequent in the last year if its a heater problem, but at this stage...who the heck knows. I do know the previous owners did not do a great job with the chemicals...it apparently sat a few months with no chemicals at all in it. Suppose that could have caused corrosion, but it was still only a year.
Ill post back when there is more. Thanks for the help, Bud
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