Jump to content

ratchett

Members
  • Posts

    524
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    48

Everything posted by ratchett

  1. Dang, that's rough to hear about your Jetsetter - totally not common. I'm down here on the Space Coast and only have a temp issue in the summer when the sun is shining on the tub all day long raising the temperature beyond set temp. The wireless remote is a display panel - it simply displays data from the control board. When you set temperature, it sends the command down to the control board to maintain that temperature That's really strange. I have a 2019 and my remote does not "restart" itself. Do you have a wireless phone charging pad in your house? Try putting your remote on that wireless charging dock and see if the problem persists Nope, won't do anything to change temperature. If I were in your shoes, I would not mess with your hot tub much - this is a manufacturing issue. Let the dealer and Hotspring figure this out. Hotspring is one of the few brands known to replace an entire hot tub if it's deemed to be a lemon. Just keep calling up the dealer until they fix the issue, and if they can't, then get hotspring corporate involved. The squeaky wheel gets the grease - just keep pushing them and don't try fiddling with things yourself or you'll do more damage which could void the warranty in the process. Random question - how is your tub wired? Are you wired up for 220v configuration or 110v? If you're on 220V is your spa wired two two breakers in the subpanel or a single 50-amp breaker? I ask because people often hire electricians who claim they know what they're doing without ever reading the wiring diagram and assume Hotspring tubs can be wired like traditional hot tubs to a single breaker which could be causing issues (although usually not an overheating issue like this...)
  2. Hot tub engineers are not dumb. They know most poured concrete slabs are not level due to drainage. As mentioned, flat is important because that's what distributes the weight evenly. Pay attention to the jets in your spa - are they higher on one side of the spa than the other side? You want the side with the highest underwater jets on the LOWEST side of the pad. That way you can fill your spa adequately without the need to over-fill.
  3. Not quite sure what you mean "breaks down electrically" - do you mean it trips the breaker? Did this start happening after a change to the tub such as wiring changes? Try removing the three filters, does the problem persist?
  4. Ah yeah my mistake - my Jetsetter jets are different in shape/design. Didn't realize yours was a metal plate with tabs. There are places that will re-chrome parts for automobile shops. The chemicals used in the process are quite toxic so I would advise against any sort of DIY electroplating kits, HOWEVER I would search around for any Automotive Electroplating shops and ask them if they do chrome. For the price however, you're still dealing with a part which has already begun oxidizing. You can chemically treat to inhibit the oxidization, but I don't know if it fully ceases the chemical reaction (maybe someone knows better than myself). Might be spending a lot of money on something which might not last very long. I still you're better off grabbing some spare old stock parts from ebay or buying direct from your local Hotspring dealer. Know that all Hotspring Highlife spas from the same year use the same jets (envoy, grandee, aria, vanguard, etc) - sometimes I see people in my local classifieds selling spare jets (heck my dealer even tossed in a spare jet for me to try since my Jetsetter didn't come with one of them, and I bought an extra jet I like more so now I have two spares for my 2019 haha)
  5. They don't sell just the "faceplate" for jets as far as I'm aware - you need to buy an entire replacement jet off ebay or elsewhere and simply screw it into the tub. My 2019 has a slightly different design, so you might need to buy an older stock model. If you can't find online, you may need to contact a local hotspring dealer to see if they have any old stock inventory. The metal surface is essentially electroplated onto the plastic. A rust inhibitor will slow it down, but that would contaminate the water. Rust will spread on the surface, so the only thing you could do is sand down to eliminate all signs of rust and deal with the imperfections since there is essentially no easy affordable way to vapor-electroplate a plastic part again (there are industrial methods natch, but not easily available to the average consumer).
  6. Ouch, that's rough. Long story short, back when your spa was built, Watkins/Hotsprings used a third party to make the control board and topside control panel - then around 2012 (ish?) that electronics manufacturer went bankrupt with no warning to Watkins. This royally screwed Hotspring and their customers. Watkins raced to make a new replacement control board and topside controller (so they could keep making new spas to sell). HOWEVER the two new parts are not backwards compatible with the old system. As such, if your spa has the older control board ("Orca" model I think? Or was it the "Eagle" model? I forget right now) it is not compatible with a new replacement topside controller. By this point, all "old stock" inventory has been sold to people in your shoes, scouring the internet looking for any available spare parts to avoid a big repair bill. From what I can tell you have a few limited options: Order replacement topside controller..... and replacement main control board, your dealer can replace both but it's around $1500 so it's an expensive investment on an older tub. Dig around locally to find an old dead hotspring highlife spa in a spa junk yard (or find someone selling/trashing an old spa in the classifieds and offer $100 to salvage a replacement topside controller and pray that it works with your spa) Remove topside controller and find an electronics repair shop that would be willing to replace the LCD screen. If memory serves me, someone did this a while back (and posted about it on this forum) - they pulled out the old defective screen and found that it was an old HP PDA device screen based on the part numbers. A professional electronics repair shop could remove the old screen, and replace with a new one - but they would likely not warranty their work so it would be a complete gamble if it would work. This all assumes your spa has the original control board installed. If you paid $1500+ recently to replace the electronics within the past five years, ignore my $0.02 advice haha. Good luck! Hopefully you can get that spa back up and running again!
  7. Have you tested using a different testing method? Do the numbers match? Know that test strips are not always the most reliable/accurate method of testing. pH and Alkalinity go hand in hand. Boosting one usually boosts the other. Alkalinity is a buffer to the pH. If Alkalinity is in range, pH will not drift much. If Alkalinity is way off, it'll pull pH out of wack faster. But this is a spa hardware section, this topic probably belongs over in water chemistry section 😉
  8. Are you referring to the logo lights? I think It's possible that a wire was disconnected when the access panel was removed and never re-connected I know this is an issue on newer hotspring hot tubs where a novice user will remove the front access panel and accidentally rip off the wires connecting the logo display lights to the control board. Or sometimes people remember to disconnect, but never re-connect the wires when reinstalling the access panel. That's where I'd start looking before assuming you need a replacement board - especially these days when you'll have trouble finding a replacement control board for that old spa
  9. Dunno, I wouldn't mess with that drain - especially if you only need to drain it once to get rid of the tub. Put a sump pump in there. Or use a long hose to make a siphon using gravity to pump it out. This video is for pools, but same concept can be used for a hot tub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3QhnDQjI08
  10. Try removing the filters, does the problem persist? Can you get a video of the cycling? This doesn't sound common for Hotspring, I haven't heard of this one before in the forums lol.
  11. Thanks! I really designed this for my own personal needs to speed up the cleaning process. The TriX filter in that photo is three years old, but still looks in great condition because I use my filter spinner monthly. My hope is to eventually wholesale these because it'd be an easy up-sell for pretty much any hottub dealer or spa tech. But for now I'm still gathering data on what sizes work best for what filters.
  12. Check the foam behind the motomassager units, I bet it is saturated. Long story short, there is a drain line nipple at the bottom of each motomassager unit. The older Hotspring highlife spas are known to develop a leak on that cracked nipple for those drain lines. I believe there is a hotspring replacement nipple if you can get access to the back of the motomassager unit and remove the old broken nipple. Not guaranteed to be there, but that is the *most* common point of failure and source of leaks in these hotspring highlife spas.
  13. Howdy all! As everyone knows, cleaning your filters is essential for maintaining a healthy spa, but I've always been dissatisfied with traditional option using a hose to spray down the filter which seems to push dirt deeper into the filter pleats! After countless hours of research and prototyping various designs, I had an "ah-hah" moment: using centrifugal force with a power drill to flush clean the filters in a bucket of water (or water mixed with filter cleaning solution) and then use high speed in an empty bucket to pull the water and dirt out. At first, I designed a massive contraption that pinched the filter from both sides, but it turned out to be overly complicated and expensive. Listening to feedback from industry experts, I took another year to tinker and came up with an ingenious single-sided version using a rubber plug to grip the filter. I'm proud to present my creation: the Spa Filter Spinner Cleaning Tool! 🌀 Not only is it effective and constructed with American-made parts, but it's also easy to use and saves you time and money by extending the life of your filters. Plus, it's completely safe and requires no harsh chemicals (although you can turbocharge the cleaning process by pre-soaking filters in a filter cleaning solution before flushing them clean in a fresh bucket of water). Now, here's where I need your help! Since I have very few friends with spas nearby, I'm reaching out to find beta testers to collect valuable data. If you're interested in seeing the remarkable difference it can make in your spa maintenance routine and want to be one of the first to try the Spa Filter Spinner Cleaning Tool, it's available now on eBay for beta-testers - https://www.ebay.com/itm/175572212950 Now available: Size lookup guide Your feedback and support mean the world to me. Let's work together to revolutionize hot tub filter cleaning!
  14. Awesome to hear. A big % of the price paid for a new Hotspring Highlife spa is that dealer's warranty. Don't be afraid to call and ask if anything is covered under warranty for the first five years - it just might be.
  15. When you press and hold on the top right corner of the display panel for 10+ seconds (where the battery icon would be located) does the control panel reboot at all and display anything? Do you have a wireless QI phone charging pad? Your envoy wireless remote should charge from that pad and eventually turn on (then hunt for the RF from the dock to sync). If it doesn't, your device could be toast, or the battery could be done but I am still having my doubts. Whenever I purge and drain/refill my tub, I sometimes have that issue with my 2019 Jetsetter remote where it will drain the battery completely and need a little while to charge and turn on if it's been off for a while. I don't think these batteries hold a charge for very long - it is essentially a mini PDA tablet running off a rechargeable battery. If you cannot get it turned back on, call your dealer. It *might* be covered under warranty (even though the battery is technically only covered for one year, the remote itself has a longer warranty).
  16. Have you checked the flow sensor to confirm continuity? Your tub sounds to be in a "protection mode". This is a failsafe mode to protect the tub from damage until it can be serviced. The same thing happened on my 2019 Jetsetter last year. In my case it was one of the (two?) temperature sensors which had failed. It was an easy cheap repair for the dealer (covered under warranty for me). But same thing happened to me - blinking logo light, circulation pump would run, heater would not work, nor would the jets turn on when pressed. But my tub has the newer RF wireless display controller and it told me the tub was in protect mode, call the dealer for service.
  17. Ugh, why do people insist it's still the 80's and want to put a spa flush with the floor? This is exactly what happens. My good friend's father built a custom house 40 years ago and submerged a jacuzzi in a "vault" then built the room around it. Go figure the shell cracked a decade later and they couldn't fix it. There was no space to remove the jacuzzi and install a new one without tearing out a whole wall, so they simply boarded it up with hardwood flooring. Rumor is the jacuzzi is still in there to this day! What a pain, that really stinks Is the circulation pump still running to keep water flowing? Maybe you see bubbles from the bottom heater vent (coming from an ozonator which is long since dead, but the mazzei injector is still sucking air into the system lol) It sounds like your spa could be in a protect-mode. This happens when a temperature-sensor has failed. Basically the spa's temperature sensor is too far out of expected range, and as such the spa has disabled the heater to protect the unit from damage because it doesn't know what temperature the water is (too cold, or too hot) - so it runs the circulation pump to keep things from freezing up. Normally this is easy to test and fix - you can use a multimeter to test the resistance of the temp sensor - compare it to a Watkins Temperature resistor chart to see if it's reading approximately the correct temperature for the water. If the reading is too far off, then it's cheap/easy to replace the temp sensor. HOWEVER in your situation, you need to figure out how to jack the tub up and out of the vault so you can reach the front access panel (which should be located below the main control panel). But I'm not a professional - just a Hotspring Highlife spa nerd who spends too much time in the discussion groups. I could be completely wrong, so ignore my advice over pros lol
  18. There is also a drain line at the bottom of the motomassager unit. There is a nipple which connects the motomassager to the drain line hose. It is a well known source of failure for them to crack and start to leak. Yeah, unfortunately Highlife spas are Hotspring/Watkins top-tier product. They don't want to share proprietary intellectual property with their competitors. Things like technical service documents, diagrams, parts lists etc are not shared with customers. Hotspring/Watkins wants you to work with their authorized repair techs for most things. It stinks, but it's understandable to protect their IP in this cutthroat industry.
  19. So the ozonator generates ozone gas via corona discharge (high voltage static shock). The ozonator module is connected (via a clear tube) to something called a "Mazzei injector" - this is the device which sucks the ozone gas into the water as it passes through the injector. This injector is known to start leaking over time and thus a replacement mazzei injector is included with the ozonator replacement kit. I'm not certain which drain line you're talking about nor do I think the injector has a drain line connection - but just wanted to let you know that the ozonator unit itself is not connected to the water - it's the mazzei injector that's interfacing with the water
  20. Real talk - most manuals are garbage and contain no real useful information aside from a bunch of legal BS warnings and such. Instead of hunting for the manual, just fire away your questions here and I'm sure someone can help answer them
  21. Ooo, I was torn between the two spas when buying my first luxury spa. Hotspring highlife's biggest claim to fame is the motomassager jet which oscillates up and down your spine. This jet is unlike any other jet in the industry. Marquis Vector is a slightly more affordable spa which uses more common balboa components (industry standard parts). Both would be great spas. But your local dealer does play a HUGE role in your experience owning a spa - be sure to research the local dealer thoroughly - what do customers online say. Ask about the warranty and most important - warranty callout dispatch fees for servicing the spa (these are appliances after all). I ultimately opted to buy the Jetsetter which I'd say is the best three seater in the industry built with better insulation and materials to have a longer lifespan (with proper care/maintenance) which was crucial for me since I plan to use this spa for decades lol. But the reality is you need to wet-test the spas for yourself to figure out which you like more. Jet comfort and seat comfort is a very subjective thing. You don't need to wet test the exact models. Just any Hotspring Highlife spa and any Marquis Vector class spa will give you an idea what to expect. Animated GIF of the Motomassager jet (found in the Lounger seat on the Jetsetter LX) for your attention
  22. So the thing about Hotsprings is that while they do have technical service documents for lots of things (and I bet they have one for this) - they do not share them with customers. Hotspring really wants you to work with their authorized service technicians. I don't believe there are any Hotspring techs on this forum who have lots of experience with the NXT collection (renamed Highlife for the 2019-2022 models). My advice with this beautiful spa would be to not try and service the spa yourself, especially for something major like this. Wait for the dealer to come out and fix it
  23. Sounds like the new switch could be defective Are you certain that you don't have an air-lock (bubble) in the plumbing?
  24. Many hot tubs can be placed on their side and installed using a dolly. Measure the width of the doorway or openings, this is the max height of the spa without the cover. In extreme scenarios, they do sell 3-seater spas which are 5 feet by 7 feet and 29 inches tall to fit through narrow door ways on their side. 120V spas have their pros and cons. First know that the heater and the jet pump do not run concurrently - in warmer climates this isn't a problem. In colder climates you might lose heat rapidly with the cover off and jets running (losing several degrees per 30 minutes). Some 120v spas can be wired to a 220v setup, this allows you to run the heater concurrently with the jets, it does NOT make the jet pump run at a higher horsepower. MOST 120v spas are actually built to work on 110v at lower wattage so they can plug into the average loaded homeowner's 15-amp circuit in someone's house and *maybe* not blow out the breaker when it's running. They are also often poorly insulated (reduce manufacturing costs and reduce shipping costs) so they are not very energy efficient. (You can often add more insulation to a tub after delivery to increase energy efficiency on budget grade tubs, but buyer beware - not all tubs are equally energy efficient). This unfortunately gives all 120v spas a bad reputation. I have a luxury 115V Hotspring Jetsetter which retails for around $10k these days (varies depending on dealer) - in my warmer climate I only really need the heater for 2-3 months out of the year and the jets are strong enough for my needs (plus since I soak alone most of the time, I didn't need more than three seats). It has a lot of features not usually found on most other 110v spas (things like low-power circulation pump, saltwater capabilities, etc) Just know that there are limitations to 120v spas. They will all get water hot, but not all of them can keep the water hot for long enough. And not all have the strongest jets. That said, if I were on a budget, Nordic makes a few good bang-for-buck 110v versions of their spas. They're not the cheapest plug-n-play spas, but they build a quality spa for the overall price. Most all spas include an insulated cover. Some brands have better covers than others. Some brands include the cover for free, other shady dealers try to nickle and dime and charge for the cover. Not all dealers are created equal - I can't stress that enough. Note - covers won't last long if you don't clean/condition them regularly. Covers can be expensive so the more you protect your cover (from the weather and sunlight) the longer it'll last. Go back to 2010 and maybe that would have been a reasonable budget. These days for what you've described, you're looking at $6000 to $10,000 and upwards to 20k for a large luxury spa. You're paying a lot for the local dealer's warranty. There will be service issues and you will want a local expert to help sort out manufacturing defects over the first few years. Industry average lifespan is 7-14 years depending on care/maintenance. A budget spa might not last a decade while a top tier luxury spa MIGHT last 20+ years with proper care. If that's too far out of budget, my advice is to consider researching the used market. The best deals flip fast, but if you ONLY look at fully working spas (filled with water, running, etc) recently listed, you can often find a good luxury spa in your budget of $3k. But you need to look daily because they pop up and disappear fast.. The secret is to never buy a drained/empty spa even if it's free hahaha.
  25. Can modern Hotspring highlife tubs get air locks? Pretty sure there is a recirculation line exiting into the filter compartment specifically designed to eliminate air locks from happening. @hyperman - does the tub display any other error messages besides a blinking green light? You mention high limit thermostat has tripped - do you know how old your hotspring tub is? It sounds to me like your tub is in protection mode - this means the water continues flowing through the tub, but the tub will not turn on the heater because it's in fail-safe mode (the moving water keeps the tub from freezing as fast, but it's not turning on the heater out of safety). I know this can be caused by a failed temperature sensor - if the tub's temperature probe is too far out of range or if it's getting no reading, the tub will go into fail-safe protection mode because it doesn't know if the tub is too hot or too cold. If you're comfortable with a multimeter, you can look up the Watkins temperature resistance chart and measure the resistance of the resistor with the multimeter (turn off spa, unplug temperature sensor probe from control board, measure resistance) - at 54F degrees, you should be around 18,000 ohms resistance, I think if I'm reading this chart correctly:
×
×
  • Create New...