arches2 Posted February 15, 2013 Report Posted February 15, 2013 2009 altmar with two pump system. Circ pump, pump2 and bubbler all fine. Pump 1 will buzz loudly for a few seconds then click off. Tonight i opened the panels (not tooooo cold out right now) and the motor is super hot. hotter than motor 2 that had been running for 40 minutes. I'm guessing the starting cap is bad and that the temp overload breaker is kicking it off. Why it's so hot i don't know when i haven't been running it. Since i can't / don't want to drain the tub in sub zero temps i just unplugged the motor from the board until it warms up. Can anyone a) confirm my suspicion of starting cap? think of anything else it could be. Pump spins freely when i spin the motor by hand. Can not get it to start by giving it a "push" Thanks Quote
arches2 Posted March 4, 2013 Author Report Posted March 4, 2013 Bumping just to see if i'm on the right track. Unfortunately the capacitor is on the inside of the pump where i can't get at it without pulling it completely out and it's too cold to do that right now. Quote
n1oty Posted March 4, 2013 Report Posted March 4, 2013 The caps should be readily accessible. Does your meter have a capacitance function. If so, it is easy to check the caps for capacitance. Be sure to short caps out before working on them in case they still have some residual charge built up. John Quote
Spa_Guru Posted March 4, 2013 Report Posted March 4, 2013 Is pump 1 a single or dual speed? (4 wires or 3)? I have seen cases with two speed pumps where the mother board has one of the two speed relays stick shut, and try to run both speeds at once with similar results. Quote
arches2 Posted March 5, 2013 Author Report Posted March 5, 2013 1 speed. i switched the wires from pump 1 and 2 and pump 2 ran fine on pump 1's circuit so i know it's in the motor itself. When i say the cap is on the inside i mean on the side of the motor to the inside of the tub where i can't reach it becuase there's stuff in the way. i'm doing fine with just one pump right now (the working one is for the captians chair/foot well which is pretty much the only one i use) so i'll just wait until it warms up in april and drain the tub. I'm seriously overdue for a water change anyway. (August). Quote
n1oty Posted March 10, 2013 Report Posted March 10, 2013 1 speed. i switched the wires from pump 1 and 2 and pump 2 ran fine on pump 1's circuit so i know it's in the motor itself. When i say the cap is on the inside i mean on the side of the motor to the inside of the tub where i can't reach it becuase there's stuff in the way. i'm doing fine with just one pump right now (the working one is for the captians chair/foot well which is pretty much the only one i use) so i'll just wait until it warms up in april and drain the tub. I'm seriously overdue for a water change anyway. (August). Not necessarily. I believe pump 2 on that model is a single speed. If so, swapping pump 2 for pump 1 will NOT definitively test for a stuck relay, unless you happen to wire up to the stuck relay and cannot shut pump 2 off now. You must ascertain for sure whether BOTH motors are single speeds. John ETA: Checked the technical docs and that model is shown with single speed pumps, so your test should be valid. Quote
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