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I have a leisure bay hot tub with a balboa S3 controller and was changing the water a week or so ago. I emptied it out and cleaned it and filled it back up. I started it back up once the water got nearly full and it stopped at the PR prompt. The heater works normally as does the low speed filter pump. The jet pump does not work, the jet light on the display lights up, the relay on the board clicks but no pump and no jets. One guy said it needed to be primed, and that air was in the pump. He also said I should refill the water by adding it through the filter hole, not just adding it to the tub. Today, I drained it again, and refilled it like he said but no luck. I have checked all the fuses on the board and none appear to be blown. If I were a gambler, the relay that clicks is the one on the main board, on the top left of the board but that's a guess. It's hard to tell which clicks in such a confined space. Is there a controller reset (CTRL-ALT-DEL of sorts) to reset everything and make it try again? Where does it check for pressure or priming on the main jet pump? I called a very unhelpful person at Balboa who said unless I was an industry professional, he couldn't help me... thanks dude. Mine does not appear to have a blower, and it seems the only electricals behind the controller are the LED lights under the waterfall and on the opposite side. I guess the next step is to get the VOM out and see if there is power at the back of the jet pump, or at least at the jet pump connectors There are two pin sensors in the heater pipe along the bottom of the Balboa box, and (surprise) they squirt water out their holes when you remove them. I assume they are temp sensors feeding the input and output temp to the controller. It does not report a problem any more, but no jet pump. If you touch the jet pump button, it will click the relay, and light the light on the display but not fire up the pump? Has anyone ever seen this? is there a cure? thanks! Stu

I purchased a used 2002 Marquis Spa Coastal Series Euphoria tub. The previous owner got it with his house and mentioned he had replaced the heater sometime in the 7 years he owned it. Everything worked well the first day and the water got up to 104. When trying out the tub for the first time, it appeared to be in a cleaning cycle. The top side panel was not responding to button presses for the jets or light. It appeared I could change settings related to the cleaning cycle times, and being a hot tub newb, I assumed I had just timed things badly and needed to wait until the cycle was over. The pumps started going crazy basically powering on and off for a few seconds at a time. I still thought this was a cleaning cycle, but it was so intense I shut the tub down. The next day after work, I turned it back on. "Pr" (priming) would display on the panel, and I would hear a relay click. It started clicking on and off, timed just like a car signal (I took a video!). I removed the cover of my Balboa SUV1U panel and realized there was some moisture. It turns out the heater tube had a tiny pinhole and water was spraying into the electronics. I used JB marine weld to close up the pin hole (at least for now) and I was told these boards can be fairly resilient even when wet, so I used a blow dryer to dry things out. That did not work. Currently the same thing happens, with the "Pr" message, a single click of a relay, and nothing else. The light still will turn on and off, but pumps don't seem to attempt to engage. I obviously know that water did some damage to the board, but I am trying to find out if anyone can think of the most likely issue on the board itself. If there was a transformer issue, would the panel still work? Would I still be able to use the light? I have checked all the fuses for continuity. They all seem fine (2 pump fuses, and 2 other fuses) It really seems like the panel is trying to prime the pumps, but they haven't engaged at all, so it can't get past that mode. Would there be something on the board that engages the pumps? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have a Balboa controller and I have searched and searched and cannot find a conclusive answer to this, someone PLEASE help me. What the heck does the filter cycles mean? If I set my spa on F2, does that mean in runs 2 filter cycles a day? How long will it run? I'm trying to find the optimal setting for my tub. I currently have it on EC (Economy Mode) and F2. I want the tub to stay fairly close to the set temperature so when I get home from work I don't have to wait hours for it to heat up and get in. Also, when I get out, what do I need to due to set in back into the mode, just turn it to low speed? Thanks, Confused in Tennessee

I'm trying to figure out the wiring hookup for the high and low speeds for the main pump. I am replacing an old Nu-Wave MM-1 spa pack with a new Balboa VS500Z (50-54219-Z). I've identified the high and low speed wires going to the pump. (Inside the old controller box, they were black and red, respectively.) I need to remove the old wiring and install the new wire/plug assembly, but the Balboa manual does not specify which is which on the four pin AMP socket on the circuit board. The manual shows the bottom pin is grd, the second is common, but the 3rd and 4th are not specified. The 4th(top) pin is a D shape hole with the flat on the left. The third is round. The corresponding pin on the "21087" wiring harness plug has the red wire attached to the 4th pin and black is to the 3rd one. So, which are the high and the low speed pins? from bottom to top looking at the connector on the circuit board: 1 - ground 2 - common 3 - ?? 4 - ??

I recently replaced my existing spa pack with a new Balboa 500z series pack, specifics here: http://www.poolsupplyworld.com/Balboa-54217-Z-Bundled-System-VS501Z-Retrofit-Kit-Complete--Lite-Duplex--Retrofit-Bezel-With-Cords-Primary-Pump-Blower-or-Secondary-Pump-Light-Ozone/54217-Z.htm? My spa has 2 pumps, one 2 speed and one 1 speed. The new spa pack is great, with one exception: I can't get the 1 speed pump to run for more than 5 minutes without cutting off for 5 minutes. It cycles on and off 5 min on, 5 min off. My controls list "blower, jets, temp, light" I have the "jets" as the 2 speed pump and "blower" as the one speed pump. Can someone please tell me how to fix this short duration cycle to a 20 or 30 minute on unless you cut it off? Thanks in advance!

I have a balboa el8000 mach 2 circuit board that has sparked and semi melted the board around 1 of the 2 contacts for the heating element. Can it be repaired or do I need to replace? And what would have caused this. Everything is still intact but you can see where it fried a little

So we have a Catalina Santa Cruz spa from 2005 and I was thinking about switching out the spa light with one of the new color changing LED bulbs. Seems like an easy project that will add some nice aesthetics. Anyway, the instructions for most of the appropriate bulbs note that they should not be used with dimmer circuits. This makes sense if only because the LED bulbs use the on/off cycle to switch modes (and I know some methods of dimming a light don't work well with LEDs). Anyway, the spa light presently dims in four steps (high, med, low, off) HOWEVER in some documention I found about the GL8000 Mach 2 version of the SpaPack (which as far as I can tell, we have), it seems that there is a dipswitch (B7) that controls whether the spa light dims or is purely off/on. "Great!" I thought but changing the switch didn't seem to have any effect. Futher, all the switches in Bank B were OFF so I am wondering if the bank itself needs to be enabled somehow. Or am I missing something else? Any guidance would be much appreciated!!

Hi, hoping for some help with a "FL" flow switch error. Are fairly new owners of used 10 year old Catalina Bel Air Limited Edition spa. It has the Balboa CAT 100 spa pack and 3-button topside controls, single pump system, ozone, but no circulation pump. Had been working perfectly until we changed the filters yesterday, which were pretty dirty after 2 1/2 months and came with the spa so I don't know how old they were. We did clean the used filters 3 months ago when we installed the spa, but again, I don't know how old they were. The system uses (2) screw-in cartridge filters, which I purchased from Spa Depot online. After replacing the filters while the spa was full as normal, I circulated the water with the pump on high to clean out the debris that fell into the water after removing the old filters. Worked fine until I turned the pump down to low and noticed shortly afterward that there was no water flow and the topside panel said "FL", solid on, not flashing. I turned off the breaker, turned it back on and it worked fine, until later after the pump came out of high speed, should have been on low to heat and circulate. We were able to use the spa, but same thing after turning it on low, it wouldn't come back on without cycling the breaker. Water temperature was good at 100 degrees, jets work normally, and water flow into the filter seemed a little better since changing the filter. We did notice that there is less suction on the lower suction fitting, which we assumed was due to better water flow through the new, clean filters. This morning, the spa was 94 degrees, and the solid FL code was back, even though the pump was only on low speed overnight during the 4 hour circulation and heating cycles. Could this be due to better water flow through the filters and perhaps the computer is detecting this new condition, causing the error code? Can the flow sensor be adjusted? Could there be air in the system after changing the filter, even though I changed it while the spa was full? Could there be debris in one of the pipes near the sensor, and if so, can it be flushed out other than normal operation? Should I put the old filters back in? Does this have anything to do with changing the filters? Any help would be appreciated. BTW, my husband is an Electrician and can troubleshoot any wiring issues, though he has not worked on spas before. Just trying to help him out since he's a busy guy right now, and we have some cold weather in the forecast, so looking to avoid freezing problems. Thanks!

Hello. I'm a newbie and would appreciate help with my spa. I've recently refilled the spa and replaced the circ pump and heater after last winter. The spa is now running but occasionally switches off displaying an FL fault. I've checked for leaks (none) and tried running it without the filter all without success. It runs for a while and then I get the FL fault. I've also noticed that when it reached the preset temperature it does nothing. the circ pump doesn't activate, althought it used to run all the time except when the blowers were on. Can anyone shed any light on these issues please? many thanks Scott

The Story behind the tub. i purchased a balboa hot tub from a spa company in my city and this tub is a 1998. when i first set everything up they forgot to send me the pump so when i called them they couldnt find it and gave me a brand new ultra jet pump. when i wired everything up the lite leader board wasnt putting out the right voltage so i had to get it replaced. once i finally had everything said and done the problem im having is the following When i wired the pump up the diagram on the lite leader showed brn blu and blk going to pump as high low and common. and the wires that i have for my pump are black red and white. so finally i found a diagram on the internet for lite leader that had those 3 colors and i wired it up. the problem im having is when i first boot up the hot tub it begins heating with the pump on low speed. which is my understanding thats how it should be but unfortunately it wont heat up the tub past 80 degrees. but when i switch the high and low wire so that it heats with the pump on high it heats the tub to 104. the issue im having is that this will use much much more electricity. Anyone have any ideas on what could be going on? Any help is appreciated it!

I have acquired a Jacuzzi spa, and I am experiencing some problems. It is a z145/345, 240000. It has a Balboa board R574 with a 4kw heating element. It was wired for 115v, and I field converted it to 230v system, following instructions labeled on the inside cover of the control unit. I installed it using a 50w GFCI dedicated circuit breaker, with a 60 amp rated disconnect outside. All things are wired correctly. Pump works correctly, topside controls work correctly, and I heat very well. The problem I have is overheating of the water. The high limit sensor worked, because when it hit 112 degrees, power was shut off to the whole unit. I have tested the power output to the heater, and it is always on, even after reaching set point. When the water reaches the set point, the LED light on the topside controller shuts off, I can hear a contactor release, but 240 stays going to the heating element. I tried a new temp sensor, and had no success. I followed recommendations online, disconnected the topside controller after reaching set point, and still no success. I can manually release one contactor, and 240w is eliminated from the heater, but 120w remains. Something is not telling the heater to turn off, and I am wondering what else I can look for. I would appreciate any feedback in this matter.