Bad Contactors?

[ledogboy]

First off-

Thanks to those of you who share knowledge on this forum, it has been a huge help getting off the ground with our first spa.

Now for the problem...

We bought a used spa, an older L.A. Spas "Nice" model. The switching is pneumatic. Today, I had my electrician out and we wired everything up. The good news is, the jets, blower, and light all seems to be functioning properly, as are the switches that control them. The bad, is that there is an awful noise that I hear coming from the controller both when I turn off the blower, and when I turn down the themostat. Some poking around has me thinking that it is the contactors "chattering", making a noise kinda like a clothes dryer buzzing at the end of cycle.

My first thought is to replace the contactors. Does that seem like the thing to do?

Beyond that, I am concerned that the high limit switch might be wonky (I don't feel any resistance when I push or pull on it), and the timer looks pretty faded, but may work fine. I haven't wanted to leave the system on long enough to know if I'm getting heat, we live in an urban area and I don't want to bum our *very* nearby neighbors out with the contactor noise.

I'm pretty confident I can replace any bad parts pretty easily. I have rebuilt mixing boards, tube amplifiers and can do some car repair, so what I'm seeing in the tub's guts isn't terribly frightening. Still, I wonder if it would make sense to replace the guts wholesale, and not be stuck with another ongoing project. Any thoughts?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Ryan

[otis_skywalker]

First off-

Thanks to those of you who share knowledge on this forum, it has been a huge help getting off the ground with our first spa.

Now for the problem...

We bought a used spa, an older L.A. Spas "Nice" model. The switching is pneumatic. Today, I had my electrician out and we wired everything up. The good news is, the jets, blower, and light all seems to be functioning properly, as are the switches that control them. The bad, is that there is an awful noise that I hear coming from the controller both when I turn off the blower, and when I turn down the themostat. Some poking around has me thinking that it is the contactors "chattering", making a noise kinda like a clothes dryer buzzing at the end of cycle.

My first thought is to replace the contactors. Does that seem like the thing to do?

Beyond that, I am concerned that the high limit switch might be wonky (I don't feel any resistance when I push or pull on it), and the timer looks pretty faded, but may work fine. I haven't wanted to leave the system on long enough to know if I'm getting heat, we live in an urban area and I don't want to bum our *very* nearby neighbors out with the contactor noise.

I'm pretty confident I can replace any bad parts pretty easily. I have rebuilt mixing boards, tube amplifiers and can do some car repair, so what I'm seeing in the tub's guts isn't terribly frightening. Still, I wonder if it would make sense to replace the guts wholesale, and not be stuck with another ongoing project. Any thoughts?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Ryan

Definetly sounds like bad contactors to me... Easy to replace, just make sure you get the right coil voltage.

[Recoil Rob]

Sometimes you can blow them out and stop the chatter. They get dirt in the points and that causes them to chatter.

Hi limits have no resistence when not tripped. When they trip there is resistance to reset them.

First off-

Thanks to those of you who share knowledge on this forum, it has been a huge help getting off the ground with our first spa.

Now for the problem...

We bought a used spa, an older L.A. Spas "Nice" model. The switching is pneumatic. Today, I had my electrician out and we wired everything up. The good news is, the jets, blower, and light all seems to be functioning properly, as are the switches that control them. The bad, is that there is an awful noise that I hear coming from the controller both when I turn off the blower, and when I turn down the themostat. Some poking around has me thinking that it is the contactors "chattering", making a noise kinda like a clothes dryer buzzing at the end of cycle.

My first thought is to replace the contactors. Does that seem like the thing to do?

Beyond that, I am concerned that the high limit switch might be wonky (I don't feel any resistance when I push or pull on it), and the timer looks pretty faded, but may work fine. I haven't wanted to leave the system on long enough to know if I'm getting heat, we live in an urban area and I don't want to bum our *very* nearby neighbors out with the contactor noise.

I'm pretty confident I can replace any bad parts pretty easily. I have rebuilt mixing boards, tube amplifiers and can do some car repair, so what I'm seeing in the tub's guts isn't terribly frightening. Still, I wonder if it would make sense to replace the guts wholesale, and not be stuck with another ongoing project. Any thoughts?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Ryan

Definetly sounds like bad contactors to me... Easy to replace, just make sure you get the right coil voltage.

[ledogboy]

Hey Gents-

Thanks for the replies. I did try to clean the points, but the noise is unchanged. I will probably just get them replaced, though I still can't decide for sure if I am best off sinking money into parts on an obviously worn controller, or if I should replace the unit wholesale.

In the meanwhile, I'm spending waaayyy to much time researching the archives.

Cheers,

Ryan

ps. Rob- Thanks for the heads up on the high limit. I wondered if it was supposed to be that way, but wasn't sure.

[topmahof]

replacing the parts in a pneumatic controller is relatively cheap. there's more maintenance in pneumatics. but if you put a circuit board system in plan on replacing the board every 4 to 5 years. they don't make the board relays as good as they used to. i myself like the pneumatic controls at least you can work on them. but if a relay goes out on a board, new board. not cheap.