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endorfin

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  1. Thanks BB, this sounds great. will follow up with PM.
  2. Ok, I have confirmed resistance on my heater is 10.5 ohms so i had a bad reading earlier. I also confirmed there is a constant approx 15V between terminals even when system is not calling for heat and according to Balboa, any reading between 0 and 25 is in "normal range". When system is calling for heat, i am getting 120V to one terminal to neutral but not the other. I also read 240V to the opposite "hot". I have confirmed the problem is that the bottom of the 2 heater relays is not working. Maybe I’ll send this to Spokane Spas when I have more time - but their website says to return the full entire spa pack and top side unit and I don’t want to take out the water circulation until there is no longer a freeze potential. So as a temporary solution or just hypothetically, could an electrician install a hot feed (fused) to the unpowered terminal using the good relay as the voltage trigger (the second relay is slaved off of the first anyway)? Assume this terminal is isolated from the circuit board. Seems like this would accomplish exactly the same thing as having a new relay soldered into the circuit board.
  3. John, oops, no i did not specifically isolate the leads before testing the resistance. I didn't expect there to be a complete circuit in the other direction and thought that it wouldn't matter. I assume the relay being bad would be consistent with the heat light being on but no voltage at the terminals, right? I'll retest with isolation. Assuming this is it, can the relay be replaced without replacing the whole board? Seems like i would save a lot of money. Thanks
  4. My spa water heater stopped working this week. It uses a Balboa vs520sz spapack / controller that is original with the tub and in service for 3 years. It is wired for 240V. There was no refill or noticeable events before it failed. I think it is either the heating element or a relay on the board and looking for help figuring out. I have confirmed there is no issue with incoming power and water flow. Both pumps are working fine at full pressure. There are no error codes on the topside unit and i have reset the spapack. The heat light is coming on. I assume this means the board is not recognizing any problems / faults. What i don't know is if this light is wired to the heater terminal or somewhere earlier (before the power relay). When the controller was calling for heat, i used a voltmeter on both terminals of the heating element which read 0. Shouldn't this have read 240? Does this mean there is a problem between wherever the heat light connects in and the connection to the element? Resistance terminal to terminal is 6 ohms which is about half what it is in the element for my 240v hot water heater. Any thoughts? Thanks.
  5. I have recently switched to a new billing method for electricity. It is a consumer trial for "smart grid" by NSTAR. Essentially i get about a 40% discount on electricity used during off-peak and a 20% surcharge for peak usage (i.e. my peak rate is double my off peak rate). The idea is to get consumers to be more aware when they are using electricity and "reward" them for changing usage behavior where reasonable. This service includes tools to monitor daily / weekly / monthly usage (zigbee based). Peak in our area for Sept - April is 4 p.m. - 9 p.m., then switches to the afternoons in the hot summer months when AC demand is the highest. We tend to keep our hot tub set to 100 degrees and it gets used 3-5 times per week (it is outside). I think it usually heats up to 104 in about an hour - 400 gals. The controller is from Balboa and has three modes - standard, econ and sleep. In Standard, it samples water temp once an hour and heats if necessary. Econ samples water temp and heats only during filtration cycle. Filtration runs every 12 hours based on last system reset and can run something like 2, 4, 6 or continuous. I don't have a continuous filtration pump and use the 2 setting - so it runs twice a day for 2 hours. I have been satisfied with this setting as far as water quality. So I have different possible approaches to managing power usage of the spa if i want to keep peak usage to a minimum, while also not taking away from mostly spontaneous usage: Of course the most obvious is to not use the spa during peak hours which we are generally ok with except for special circumstances. This approach would not move temperature maintenance to off peak, but would avoid usage based load during peak periods. The next approach is to simply set the mode to Econ and reset timing so it will run at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. which will heat the spa for 2 hours during those times. I think Econ is not generally recommended for winter months in cold climates, but i think this ignores a variable cost for electricity. Econ will run filtration and heat for 2 hours twice per day (unless it is being used / manual override). The third option would be some type of timer, either a Balboa provided, electronic timer or an external 220v timer box like I already use for our household electric hot water heater (I am comfortable with doing the electric work myself so don't really have electrician expense). My concern with the first is cost and my concern with the second is that this would subject the spa to a daily power spike when the power is toggled off / on. The second approach would also start up each time using the default settings (which may be ok). But it seems like asking for trouble with the power cycling of the circuit board and long term reliability. Anyone have suggestions and experiences in this type of peak / off peak environment? Are there reasonably priced options for the Balboa controller that make sense? Thanks.
  6. Waterbear, when you use MPS to reduce CC, do you also need sunlight? Or just aeration?
  7. Hydrotherapy is often presented as a major advantage for one tub over another. Yet there does not seem to be a lot of specific information regarding hydrotherapy. At the simplest level, there are therapeutic advantages of just floating in water and relieving pressure on joints. There are also therapeutic advantages with hot water on the body – it increase blood circulation good for healing in some situations (while ice is better in others). There are therapeutic benefits from jets that can direct pressure into specific areas - hydro massage therapy. And some people find specific jet configurations to be more therapeutically beneficial than others. So how about it? What are the most important benefits you get from hydrotherapy? Also, are there some places where hot tub should not be used - people with MS and sports injuries with before tissue swelling are some examples.
  8. [sorry webmaster, wasn't sure where to post this] I've been having a frequent navigation problem with the forum. The issue is that the system jumps into beta mode and loses login information. Then to make a posting, i need to delete the word "beta" from the URL and login again. Seems to happen in Firefox, IE and Chrome. Looks like maybe a DNS or URL rewrite rule? If I just type http://www.poolspaforum.com/index.php it loads as http://www.poolspaforum.com/beta/index.php. If I directly go here: http://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.php?showforum=7, then it seems to work ok in most cases. But sometimes it reverts to the beta site. I can reproduce it by clicking the navigation buttons at the top but sometimes it seems more random. You can see it if you just mouse over - portable hot tubs, swim spas, swimming pools, etc. Any ideas?
  9. I actually appreciate Spa Guru calling out the hose connection. If the hose is not seated inside the female elbow, I will definitely add some clamps to be on the safe side. $5 and 5 minutes. Now on to the other points. Insulation. I am in New England / zone 5 and I find the insulation to be just fine. Also, with a perimeter insulated spa effectiveness is not just measured by wall insulation thickness - there is also heat generated by the mechanical components. In a full foam system, this is irrelevant. In a perimeter insulated tub, this heat contributes to a higher ambient temperature inside the cabinet. A perimeter insulated tub will take much longer before freezing of water in components will be an issue. It also provides complete accessibility to all jets, lights and components. Access. I also don't agree with Guru's assessment of accessibility. This is an absolute advantage for Strong. Saying it is a a weakness because the corners come off seems bit of a stretch. And actually... they do come off by removing lag screws but why would you ever do that? But if you need to remove or replace a corner, you can do this and take advantage of the lifetime cabinet warranty. Anyone who has actually seen the tub up close would realize that every component is easily reachable from the 8 side panels that come off in seconds. The corners do not obstruct access to anything. They do provide structural integrity. And you don’t need to remove screws and worry about finish as you will with most full foam spas. Same goes for the bottom. The Strong bottom is about 4 inches thick with insulation. Why would you ever need to take the bottom off? One example I saw on these boards is to replace a burned out LED in a full foam spa. In that case, the owner had an LED burn out during the warranty period. After getting advice from service reps on these boards saying the way to fix would drain the tub, put it on its end, take off the bottom, chisel out the foam covering the faulty LED (and full wiring harness by the way). Then replace the LED, replace the foam (maybe), replace the bottom, replace the tub on the pad and refill. What did the owner do? Nothing. He figured it wasn’t worth the hassle. What good is this warranty if you decide to live with the problem? Turns out I also had an LED failure with my Strong Spa around the same time. Strong sent me a replacement strand of LEDs. It took me about 10 minutes to complete the job by myself. No draining and refilling. No service tech. Easy repair. By the way, they offered to dispatch a technician but I said i would give it a shot first. No problem. What if this happened outside of warranty? It was under a $30 part so that would have been it as far as cost. Bullet jets – first thing you need to know is that these do not carry water in the Evo tub. These are for an air only in the Strong tub. Some people think this provides therapeutic benefit. Others say it is beneficial in providing a cooling effect in the tub when it is too hot, it can make summer evenings more refreshing. I agree with this second point. But since these are not water jets, they do not dilute water jet pump pressure. So the percentage of bullet jets is irrelevant. Jet Pressure. As far as jet pressure… I purchased the Magnum model over the CXI because I wanted 2 water pumps. There is not a pressure issue in the Magnum model. First you can open the Venturi vents to increase pressure substantially. Then you could close other jets if they are not in the right place or you want more pressure. After a year, we just leave all the jets open and open the air intakes when we want powerful jet action. Warranty. Strong has a 2 year parts and labor warranty on all spas over 70 jets (lifetime on cabinet, 5 on shell) strong warranty I can’t find any exclusion regarding pumps and I have never seen a posting that Strong or Evo customers were ever denied warranty support on a pump. Cabinet. While I don't personally care for the stone cabinet, I really like Mahoganny Crestwood. How happy are Evo / Strong spa owners with their purchase compared to other owners - maybe Hotsprings for example? Check out these buyer reviews on Hotsprings Grandee. While some are happy, about 30% (12 of 42) give it just 1 star on a 5 star scale.
  10. Roger, why should anyone trust your judgement regarding the Strong tub? About a year ago you said, "I saw one once". Now you are the expert. Maybe you can point us to a single posting you have made regarding direct experience repairing defects or failures with the Strong? That would help. On another note, why not just take some pictures the next time and humor us? Maybe start with a picture that would show how easy it would be to change a burned out LED on a full foam tub?
  11. Whatever... - I haven't seen one complaint of a Strong joint leak - I have read lots of complaints about other tub leaks and terrible access through the foam - Spatech has seen, "rash of people in lately with flex over pvc type fittings" - I'm sure these weren't Strong - Where are the pictures of the internals of so called "premium spas" so we can compare? Visitors to this board should realize that the techs who keep complaining about Strong never reveal first hand experience with Strong spas. Blah, blah, blah...
  12. Waterbear, I think you solved a mystery for me. I use MPS shock - a little bit after each soak and more for once a week shocking. Never could eliminate CC down to 0. Tried using more MPS thinking it must be needed to oxidize the CC but never succeeded. So ok, MPS causes false CC reading. Questions: How high can CC read if using MPS (3.6 reading by OP still seems high)? How long would i need to stop using MPS to eliminate any residual effect? Thanks
  13. It is the same, just make sure there is no dye in the product. There was a thread earlier this year where the spa owner ended up with a blue dye ring after adding roach killer.
  14. Kind of a confusing description. What exactly was replaced, how long ago and by whom? The full pack? What does "worked fine after that" mean (since it is not). How much later was the problem discovered? Could it be when the weather got colder? Is the issue that the set temp that is changing or the actual temp? How many degrees do you lose in water temp in 12 hours? Is it possible that you somehow have economy mode programmed? manual Here is a debug flowchart Good luck.
  15. I have a TED that gives me instantaneous and accrued electrical usage. My version is pretty old, the newer versions are integrated with Google power monitor and other PC software. I think you can attach this to your subpanel feeds to track your spa electric usage only. Not sure though.
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