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PROPAK SSPA-A-P121-P211 Control board troubleshooting.


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2001 PDC Spa with PROPAK SSPA-A-P121-P211 controller board troubleshooting.

Story: Came home to find my GFIC breaker “kicked”. Hmm…didn’t see anything wrong so, I unplugged the motor (this is a 2001 & it only has one motor for the entire system). Reset the breaker (220V setup). Topside (TSC-18) looked normal with the pressure alarm (3 decimals). So, turned it off, plugged the motor back in, flipped the breaker and Voila! Everything worked for about 5 seconds and POP!!!

 Looking the provided pictures you will see that the Line#1 on the back of the circuit board popped (circled in Yellow). Also, there appears to be an circuit break within the (red circle) area.

 This is a PROPAK SSPA-A-P121-P211-O1-LS-H4.0-AMP-PPD controller.

2005459576_InkedControlBoardBack.jpg

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Can you post a picture of the other side of the board? I'm thinking those terminals are the AC input.

Test that circled red area with a multimeter to see if it's actually broken. If it is, a piece of wire and some solder will fix that.

You may only need to reflow that terminal. I would actually reflow all of them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@cranbizUPDATE: So, we are seeing eye-to-eye! I reflow and cleaned up my repair and found that 2 of the many film capacitors didn't look right on the meter so "out with the old and in with the new" and BAM! everything is operational. Apparently, the first failure must have been the capacitor then when I reset the breaker and repowered that's when the Line-1 connector popped! Thank goodness that was it. Replacement board or entire controller $500-600 OR 2 pieces from a Amazon 100 pcs Capacitor kit for $15...FIXED!!!

On another note, does anyone have any of these boards that they do not want?

IMG_20220227_160128158.jpg

 

Control Board Front.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

Well....I'm BACK!! The Spa has worked PERFECTLY until now. And as expected since it's a 2001 model I was just waiting for something to happen. It stopped heating.
-> While it was still attached, I tested the temp probe which "appears" to be good. Ohms tested between all 3 pins and the only reading was 8.8 ohms between Green and Black which I am reading is correct'ish. Probe terminals where cleaned. 
-> New heating element from, in the beginning I broke a terminal off (DUH). Testing the right element post to to GRD trips the GFCI breaker (good), and between the left element post to to GRD reads 120V. Testing between both element posts 0.0 BUT...it "should" have been in heating mode but, I can't remember it was or not.
-> No noticeable issues (burnt, broken, damaged) items.
-> Fuses are all good.
-> Shutdown, rebooted, kicked, cussed and still NOTTA.
So...I guess if I wanted to remove all all the "common" culprits and test them, I could BUT...thought I'd send an Hail Marry to see if one of you smart peeps had any good ideas or some free money, say appx $500-600 as a early Christmas present?

And I guess my screen name is ironically PERFECT for this post.  @#$@!!!

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UPDATE: So, I went ahead and replaced the other 3-4 film capacitors like the ones listed earlier and start looking around to "hopefully" find that one burnt component or something but, didn't see anything.
I tested the FT3014 transformer while it was still connected. Just a general test to see if I had any suspious readings. Using my Fluke on Ohms, I tested all terminals and some had a response (obviously not accurate since it's still attached) but there are a couple that look like that "should" be a winding but, did not report any reading/open.  Hmm...Any thoughts?

I will probably remove it and check it correctly to verify.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/15/2022 at 5:43 AM, CanadianSpaTech said:

Either the pump shedding heat is heating the spa or the heater is only getting power to one leg of the heater element so essentially only running on 120V would be my guesses.

Getting power to one leg is the normal "off" position of the heater circuit. You will read voltage to ground from both heater terminals, but 0 volts between, from one terminal to the other. You get no heat from that, as the circuit is open. Only when the thermostat relay closes do you have current flow, and therefore heat. At that point you will read voltage between the heater terminals as well as to ground. That's why it's pointless to test it to ground, it tells you nothing.

If the heater is shorted to ground (corroded) and the breaker is bad or non-gfci it can heat by current flow through the heater and into the water from the one hot leg. Unlikely, but I've seen it happen.

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