Temp Reading Problem

[rustytbird]

Depending on the heater model, you can set when it turns on.

Rustybird

the freeflow passport is a good tub we sell them the circuit board you are looking for ff53335 is the correct board for that unit the number is freeflow number , do you have a dealer near you that sells freeflow they can get the board,,,, but i would first check the filtern if it is plugged it may get a overheat code, but the heater either heats or doesn't yuo can check that through the board, make sure the dip switches are also set right, i believe number 2 is up all the others are down, hopefully this helps you out

Bob,

Did you say that you had contacted freeflow and that they had a Freeflow control pack available to dealers that included the motherboard? I would be interested in this if it is available?

Don K.

Don

Freeflows part number for the board is ff53335 suv board, the m7 complete pack ff53307

hope this helps you out

Eric

Eric

Do you have any idea where I can buy the FF53307 and how much it costs?

Don K.

[Recoil Rob]

Just an update on my customers spa that had the same problem. I disconnected the heater and ozone and it ran fine, reconnecting the ozone brought back the problem. Finally, yesterday everything was reconnected, heater & old sensors, but the ozone was left off and the spa is now heating normally.

So it turns out the ozonator was the culprit, backfeeding a signal to the board. A cheap fix that took a lot of trial & error.

[Recoil Rob]

Bob,

The only things that are electrically connected to my board are the two sensors, the heater element, the motor, the spa light, the topside control panel,and of course the main power line. To run the test you suggested, regarding disconnecting the heater elements, just how do you suggest I go about it. Doing something like that with the main power still in the board box does not sound very attractive to me at all. But, if I cut the main power and then disconnect the heater I will be right back to square one with the spa going into it's prime mode but without heating the water back up to the set temp. Hmmmmm.

Don K.

You don't know that you'll be back at square one.

That's the idea behind disconnecting the heater ( and only work on the electrics with the power disconnected), if upon power up the tub is acting normally then the heater is the culprit, if you still have the problem then something else is causing the problem.

This is how trial and error works, takes time but cheaper than than the "shotgun" approach of blindly replacing parts.

[rustytbird]

Just an update on my customers spa that had the same problem. I disconnected the heater and ozone and it ran fine, reconnecting the ozone brought back the problem. Finally, yesterday everything was reconnected, heater & old sensors, but the ozone was left off and the spa is now heating normally.

So it turns out the ozonator was the culprit, backfeeding a signal to the board. A cheap fix that took a lot of trial & error.

Great work Bob. I wish I had you out here to help me solve my problem. I've looked, and I can find no ozonator in my system. It would appear that my model, the Freeflow Passport with the Free20 Pack SUV M7 system didn't come with an ozonator. The ozonator, according to the advertising specs put out by Freeflow, is supposed to be included in my system, but I can find no evidence of it every being installed. Unless, however, that the enlightened folk at Freeflow had somehow installed the ozonator in such a way as to leave no tracks should it ever be removed. FreeFlow Spas ----- what a joke, and what a PITA!

But!!!!, There is a "socket" marked "Ozone" on the motherboard. So my question is: could it be, in my case, that the missing ozonater might be the problem? That sounds rather remote, but until I can find the culprit that is causing my problem, everything will remain fair game.

I will disconnect the heater to see what that does for me and let you know the results.

Thanks much

Don K.

[Recoil Rob]

Just an update on my customers spa that had the same problem. I disconnected the heater and ozone and it ran fine, reconnecting the ozone brought back the problem. Finally, yesterday everything was reconnected, heater & old sensors, but the ozone was left off and the spa is now heating normally.

So it turns out the ozonator was the culprit, backfeeding a signal to the board. A cheap fix that took a lot of trial & error.

Great work Bob. I wish I had you out here to help me solve my problem. I've looked, and I can find no ozonator in my system. It would appear that my model, the Freeflow Passport with the Free20 Pack SUV M7 system didn't come with an ozonator. The ozonator, according to the advertising specs put out by Freeflow, is supposed to be included in my system, but I can find no evidence of it every being installed. Unless, however, that the enlightened folk at Freeflow had somehow installed the ozonator in such a way as to leave no tracks should it ever be removed. FreeFlow Spas ----- what a joke, and what a PITA!

But!!!!, There is a "socket" marked "Ozone" on the motherboard. So my question is: could it be, in my case, that the missing ozonater might be the problem? That sounds rather remote, but until I can find the culprit that is causing my problem, everything will remain fair game.

I will disconnect the heater to see what that does for me and let you know the results.

Thanks much

Don K.

Don,

The problem will only occur with a defective ozonator, if there is no ozonator than it's a moot point. MOst Balboa pacs have the ozonator plugged in to a socket on the bottom exterior of the control box. If the socket marked ozonator is empty, nothing plugged in to it, than I would try the heater before buying a board. Turn the power off, disconnect the heater at the elements, make sure the leads are taped off so they cannot contact anything and then power the spa up again. If you still have the problem than I would imagine it's the board.

Rob

[THE SPA GUY]

Don,

you can usually get just the circ board part number FF53335 roughly 448.00 or the spa pack 608.00 you might be able to get it from one of the spa parts companies on line. as long as you tell them the SUV M7 .. but the Freeflows have been a great spa, i have been around them a long time not alot of service calls, yes they were ozone ready, depending on how the dealer that sold it ordered them in. i ordered ours standard with the ozone, so the way it sounds that you do not have anything plugged in there they did not include it. were you originally stated the spa stayed in pr mode and did not come out,i just had that happen a couple of weeks ago with a freeflow accent model, not seen that before, i called Freeflow they did not know , i called balboa directly and they said if the pr does not come off it could be the fuse is bad, on our customers we checked the fuse was good , we had to replace the board and the spa works fine know.....

Eric

[rustytbird]

Just an update on my customers spa that had the same problem. I disconnected the heater and ozone and it ran fine, reconnecting the ozone brought back the problem. Finally, yesterday everything was reconnected, heater & old sensors, but the ozone was left off and the spa is now heating normally.

So it turns out the ozonator was the culprit, backfeeding a signal to the board. A cheap fix that took a lot of trial & error.

Great work Bob. I wish I had you out here to help me solve my problem. I've looked, and I can find no ozonator in my system. It would appear that my model, the Freeflow Passport with the Free20 Pack SUV M7 system didn't come with an ozonator. The ozonator, according to the advertising specs put out by Freeflow, is supposed to be included in my system, but I can find no evidence of it every being installed. Unless, however, that the enlightened folk at Freeflow had somehow installed the ozonator in such a way as to leave no tracks should it ever be removed. FreeFlow Spas ----- what a joke, and what a PITA!

But!!!!, There is a "socket" marked "Ozone" on the motherboard. So my question is: could it be, in my case, that the missing ozonater might be the problem? That sounds rather remote, but until I can find the culprit that is causing my problem, everything will remain fair game.

I will disconnect the heater to see what that does for me and let you know the results.

Thanks much

Don K.

Don,

The problem will only occur with a defective ozonator, if there is no ozonator than it's a moot point. MOst Balboa pacs have the ozonator plugged in to a socket on the bottom exterior of the control box. If the socket marked ozonator is empty, nothing plugged in to it, than I would try the heater before buying a board. Turn the power off, disconnect the heater at the elements, make sure the leads are taped off so they cannot contact anything and then power the spa up again. If you still have the problem than I would imagine it's the board.

Rob

Hi Rob

I've tested the system by disconnecting the heater and have the following results:

With the heater disconnected and the sensors (my system has two) still connected, the spa starts up normally and goes into the pump cycle just fine. However, because the heater has been turned off, and the sensors are still engaged, the spa will not shut itself down. The reason being, I suspect, is that the sensors are telling the system that the heater is still trying to heat the water and therefore the pump must keep running. The heater light on the topside control panel remains on.

With the heater turned off, and the sensors disconnected, the spa will not turn on. So, the sensors must remain connected for the spa to run.

With the heater connected, and the sensors connected, the spa turns on, the pump activates, and the system runs through its pre programmed 4 hour filtering cycle. then the spa shuts down to its idle mode as it should. But there must be a back feed from somewhere causing the system to read an increase in the water temperature (the physical water temperature does not rise and the heater has not turned on) until the the temperature it reads gets high enough for the entire system to shut it self off.

So, I'm not too sure what this test has indicated to me. But I do suspect, however, that there may well be a back feed in the heater/sensor part of this equation. This being noted, the question has to be: What do I do about it? Having tried just about everything else, I'm about to surrender to the fact that the motherboard ($500 - quoted price ) is the answer. But, on the other hand, the problem may still be resident to the heater/sensor part of the system. It sure would be cheaper to just have to replace the heater ( I've already replaced the sensors). Ooohhhh, the dilemma. The third alternative would be to replace the entire system pack in one swoop (a very expensive choice if I were to stay with a FreeFlow FREE 20 SUV M7 Pack Complete - Part # FF53307). Your thoughts?

Don K.

[Recoil Rob]

With the heater disconnected and the sensors (my system has two) still connected, the spa starts up normally and goes into the pump cycle just fine. However, because the heater has been turned off, and the sensors are still engaged, the spa will not shut itself down. The reason being, I suspect, is that the sensors are telling the system that the heater is still trying to heat the water and therefore the pump must keep running. The heater light on the topside control panel remains on.

Don K.

I'm not sure where you live but if you are in a warm climate can you adjust the temperature set point down below the ambient water temp (say, 60˚) so the sensors will read that and shut the spa down?

Perhaps fill the tub with hot water from the house to get the water temp. high enough to do the same?

I'm not familiar with your spa but on a lot of spas you can even take the temp sensor out of it's socket and put it in a container of warm water.

You just need to get the the temp sensor to read that the water temp has reached the set point and shut the spa down with the heater disconnected. If the problem persists then it's the board.

[rustytbird]

With the heater disconnected and the sensors (my system has two) still connected, the spa starts up normally and goes into the pump cycle just fine. However, because the heater has been turned off, and the sensors are still engaged, the spa will not shut itself down. The reason being, I suspect, is that the sensors are telling the system that the heater is still trying to heat the water and therefore the pump must keep running. The heater light on the topside control panel remains on.

Don K.

I'm not sure where you live but if you are in a warm climate can you adjust the temperature set point down below the ambient water temp (say, 60˚) so the sensors will read that and shut the spa down?

Perhaps fill the tub with hot water from the house to get the water temp. high enough to do the same?

For all who have ben following this thread, I want you to know that I have solved my spa problem. After much checking and analyzing the problem, it occurred to me that the problem was in the heater. But, the heater wa not the problem. Nor were the sensors. And the mother board wasn't the culprit either. It was the pump motor.

Here is what I deduced the problem to be. when the spa was turned on, and then went through its heating and filtering cycle, the spa would go into its normal idle phase. When the water cooled down enough, the spa was supposed to turn on to reheat the pool back to the set water temperature. It did all of that. Now for the problem. The spa would turn the heater on, but the pump motor would not always turn on as well. Some times the pump would turn on and sometimes it wouldn't. It was a sporadic thing. I found this out by patiently sitting by the spa while it did its thing.

The failure of the pump to start, created a situation where the water in the heater would begin to heat up, but without the pump running the water would not circulate through the heater and so the sensors would pick up the problem and shut down the spa. So the sensors were performing as they should. What I found was by watching the top side control readout, as the spa would go through its start up cycle, I noticed that when the cycle left the "pr" time and entered the " = =" time, the pump was supposed to start. If it did, everything was fine. When the pump didn't start, I was able to hear a humming coming from the pump motor. Once I realized what was happening, I gave the pump motor a hit with the heel of my hand and the pump would start. After replaying this scenario several times over, I was convinced that the totality of my problem was with pump motor and pump. I replaced them as a unit and the spa has been working just fine ever since. Case closed.

I want to thank all who participated in this thread with suggestion and advice. You're a great bunch.

Don K.

I'm not familiar with your spa but on a lot of spas you can even take the temp sensor out of it's socket and put it in a container of warm water.

You just need to get the the temp sensor to read that the water temp has reached the set point and shut the spa down with the heater disconnected. If the problem persists then it's the board.

[rustytbird]

For all who have been following this thread, I want you to know that I have solved my spa problem. After much checking and analyzing the problem, it occurred to me that the problem was in the heater. But, the heater wa not the problem. Nor were the sensors. And the mother board wasn't the culprit either. It was the pump motor.

Here is what I deduced the problem to be. when the spa was turned on, and then went through its heating and filtering cycle, the spa would go into its normal idle phase. When the water cooled down enough, the spa was supposed to turn on to reheat the pool back to the set water temperature. It did all of that. Now for the problem. The spa would turn the heater on, but the pump motor would not always turn on as well. Some times the pump would turn on and sometimes it wouldn't. It was a sporadic thing. I found this out by patiently sitting by the spa while it did its thing.

The failure of the pump to start, created a situation where the water in the heater would begin to heat up, but without the pump running the water would not circulate through the heater and so the sensors would pick up the problem and shut down the spa. So the sensors were performing as they should. What I found was by watching the top side control readout, as the spa would go through its start up cycle, I noticed that when the cycle left the "pr" time and entered the " = =" time, the pump was supposed to start. If it did, everything was fine. When the pump didn't start, I was able to hear a humming coming from the pump motor. Once I realized what was happening, I gave the pump motor a hit with the heel of my hand and the pump would start. After replaying this scenario several times over, I was convinced that the totality of my problem was with pump motor and pump. I replaced them as a unit and the spa has been working just fine ever since. Case closed.

I want to thank all who participated in this thread with suggestion and advice. You're a great bunch.

Don K.

[Recoil Rob]

Dead spot in the windings, that will do it. Intermittent problems are tough to diagnose. Glad you got it worked out, sometimes it takes the extra time.

For all who have been following this thread, I want you to know that I have solved my spa problem. After much checking and analyzing the problem, it occurred to me that the problem was in the heater. But, the heater wa not the problem. Nor were the sensors. And the mother board wasn't the culprit either. It was the pump motor.

Here is what I deduced the problem to be. when the spa was turned on, and then went through its heating and filtering cycle, the spa would go into its normal idle phase. When the water cooled down enough, the spa was supposed to turn on to reheat the pool back to the set water temperature. It did all of that. Now for the problem. The spa would turn the heater on, but the pump motor would not always turn on as well. Some times the pump would turn on and sometimes it wouldn't. It was a sporadic thing. I found this out by patiently sitting by the spa while it did its thing.

The failure of the pump to start, created a situation where the water in the heater would begin to heat up, but without the pump running the water would not circulate through the heater and so the sensors would pick up the problem and shut down the spa. So the sensors were performing as they should. What I found was by watching the top side control readout, as the spa would go through its start up cycle, I noticed that when the cycle left the "pr" time and entered the " = =" time, the pump was supposed to start. If it did, everything was fine. When the pump didn't start, I was able to hear a humming coming from the pump motor. Once I realized what was happening, I gave the pump motor a hit with the heel of my hand and the pump would start. After replaying this scenario several times over, I was convinced that the totality of my problem was with pump motor and pump. I replaced them as a unit and the spa has been working just fine ever since. Case closed.

I want to thank all who participated in this thread with suggestion and advice. You're a great bunch.

Don K.