Caldera Martinique Jets Sort Of Working

[tika911]

Hi,

I am looking for some help in diagnosing this issue. I have a 2005 Caldera Martinique hot tub. Kids were playing in it this weekend and the jets1 stopped working. Had the 4 dash lines showing. I cycled power and everything worked again for a while. Jets1 stopped working again. Couple hours after the kids got out I checked and all the jets were working.

Today my son is in it and tells me that Jet1 stopped working. It was running and then shut off. Jets2 is working. I can press the button for Jets one and I get the jets on symbol on the display but the jets are not working. Jet2 works normally. I cycled the power to the hot tub with no change in Jets1. I am thinking that the upper control panel may be going as Jets1 not working seems to occur after the control panels gets a lot of water splashed on it.

Any idea on how to troubleshoot this? I am waiting for the panel to dry out to see if Jets 1 starts working again.

Thanks

G

[SpaSage]

The four dashes probably don't have anything to do with your pump one issue.

It could be the capacitor on the pump. If you can check the voltage to the pump with a multimeter when the pump icon is present, this will confirm that the board and topside control are functioning correctly.

[tika911]

I was able to dig into this on the weekend. The controller is providing 110V to the pump even after the pump shuts off so it would seem the controller is ok. I pulled the back cover off the pump and read the voltage between the 2 leads coming off the capacitor. When the pump is running it reads 79V, when the pump shuts off on its own I have 0V.

Should I replace the capacitor or is them some thermal switch I should be looking at?

If it is the cap, any suggestions on where to buy one online?

[SpaSage]

I missed the part about it stopping once it had already been running. That is not consistent with a capacitor failing. The capacitor failing would keep the pump from starting to work. Once the pump starts working there is a stationary switch that kicks off the power to the capacitor... which is why it would read zero once the pump has started working.

Is the pump louder than normal? The pump probably is shutting off do to the thermal overload, but that doesn't mean that it isn't working correctly. Is the pump getting really hot? Does it seems like it works fine when it hasn't been used in awhile, but fails after it has been running for a bit and then won't start up?

[tika911]

I took both pumps out and had them tested and rebuilt (they are 10 years old). The thermal switch in the problem pump tested ok. I was told that is was a lack of air flow that was causing the thermal switch to stop the pump. A little bit of history. I just move the hot tub to a new location. Previously it was sitting against the edge of a deck and 3 of the 4 sides were exposed. I move the hot tub next to the house and built a deck around it. Now only 1 side is exposed. I am thinking that it is an air flow problem since I know the pump and controller are good.

The vents in the bottom of the hot tub near the motor are open. Tomorrow I am going to take the panel off and put a fan on the motor to see if fixes the problem. If it does I will wire in a 120v 100CFM fan to the air intake vent in the front of the motor.