Jump to content

Sun Guy

Members
  • Posts

    3
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Sun Guy's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/5)

0

Reputation

  1. Thanks for the advice! Yes, the 20A is heater; 30A everything else. I did as suggested, and found that the Blower is the culprit! With the blower plugged in, it's an immediate trip of the GFCI. Now what? Is this a problem with the blower itself, or the control board? And how can I tell? At least at this point I can have a hot tub; no air, though. The jets do work. Since we never really use the air, does it matter? Pushing the Air button gets a click of the relay kicking in - obviously no blower - but no tripped breakers, either. So... I'll have to pull another panel to see if I can locate the blower itself and see if there is anything obvious. Do these motors just go bad like that? Thanks again for the tip! OK, so I pulled out the old VOM, put a new battery in it, and checked the resistance on the blower leads. Hot -> Neutral (black -> white) is around 0, as expected. Hot -> Ground is not infinite - something like 200K. So I would think this indicates the blower motor itself is bad. I don't have a very good VOM, but I think it is accurate enough to make this call. I checked the Jet circuit just for grins, and the Hot -> ground did not move the needle at all (i.e.- infinite). I'm busy the next couple weeks, so can't spend any more time with the blower - now that at least the tub is usable again! Thanks again!
  2. There's no guarantee that the local dealer will remain a dealer for that spa at the time you need them. The spa we inherited with the house was bought by previous owners at a reputable and respected spa dealer about 30 miles from here, and three years prior to our purchase of the house. When I needed service and called, they were no longer authorized to work on the Caldera spa that they installed three years previously. The closest Caldera dealer is now 150 miles from here. Since my spa is long out of warranty, going to an official Caldera rep might not be necessary, although I don't know about the availability of parts. I had to order the part from the Caldera dealer - who then shipped it to me.
  3. We have owned our Caldera Utopia Geneva for two years, and the previous owners put the spa in three years before - in 2004. The spa has been working fine until recently. In the past couple months, I would find the 30A GFCI breaker tripped. Thinking we might have had power outages (common here) or some other glitch, I was able to reset both 20A and 30A breakers and resume operation. That was then. A couple weeks ago, the 30A circuit started immediately tripping upon reset. In all my messing around, I figured I fried that breaker, so I bought and installed a new one. That seemed to work OK; power came on, the temperature was coming up. When I hit the CLEAN button, it tripped the 30A breaker. Again, I did a reset - this time leaving things alone. Temperature came up to 98; but next morning the 30A breaker again is tripped. Now, the new breaker is exhibiting the same behavior as the first one - immediate trip on re-set. I've looked at the sub-panel, and it is wired per Caldera's specifications. (I wonder about the usefulness of a 20A GFI that does not use either neutral or ground to the load... but that's not the breaker in question.) We do live in a humid area, near the ocean. The spa is protected in a solarium room with no water leaks. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to troubleshoot this? I've taken a look inside the spa control box, and don't see anything obvious, nor do I smell any toasted electronics. The closest dealer is 150 miles away. I've done a lot of DIY in the past, so am willing to roll up my sleeves on this if anyone has any suggestions... Thanks in advance!
×
×
  • Create New...