My friend gave me a 1992 Supra Electric Spa (Cal Spas). I was told it was best to buy a 240 GFCI for protection of electrical shorts. After the GFCI was put into the house electrical panel and the spa was turned on, the GFCI was tripped and would not come on, however, it is hooked up to a 30 (non GFCI) circuit and it works just fine. I heard that some of the older models have GFCI's in them already. Can you tell me where I might find the built in GFCI, if there is one? If not maybe you have an idea of what's wrong. I understand that if it has a built in GFCI it won't work if you have another GFCI.

Also the control panel is gone and the person hooked up some kind of switches that were done originally by the control panel. Can you tell me where I can find old control panels??

Thanks for your help...

There are a few things that could be wrong here.

First issue, where would a built in GFI be located? It would be at the control box, most of the time accessable from the outside, and it would look like an outlet GFI, without the holes for the plugs.

A GFI will work down the line from another GFI if it is wired properly.

If you have the neutral and the ground tied together anywhere in the contorl cabinet of the spa, that will cause your GFI to trip. Anything after a GFI must use separate neutral and a separate ground. A quick way to determine this would be to disconnect the wires from the GFI in the main house panel, and do a resistance check between the neutral and ground wire. If you show virtually no (or very little) resistance between the two, you must correct this at the spa. Please note, if your spa has the two bonded together anywhere, your home GFI may be damaged and need replacing.

As for the switches, are they air operated? If you have one or two air buttons on the tub that activate these switches, you can find a general diagram for this here:

http://spasupport.com/diagrams/spacontrol1.html

If all that checks out, you might want to disconnect the wires from the heater element, tape them up, and try powering on the spa with the GFI installed. Most non-wiring issues that cause the GFI to trip is a defective heating element.

Hope this helps ya out a little

Jer

OOPS! I wasn't very clear on a couple points on this paragraph:

If you have the neutral and the ground tied together anywhere in the contorl cabinet of the spa, that will cause your GFI to trip. Anything after a GFI must use separate neutral and a separate ground. A quick way to determine this would be to disconnect the wires from the GFI in the main house panel, and do a resistance check between the neutral and ground wire. If you show virtually no (or very little) resistance between the two, you must correct this at the spa. Please note, if your spa has the two bonded together anywhere, your home GFI may be damaged and need replacing.

To clarify, you need to check the neutral and ground wires going TO the tub. I didn't specify that, and if you checked them for the inside home breaker box, they will be bonded.

Another way to check if the tub uses bonded neutral and grounds is to disconnect the line wires (from the house box) in the tub panel, and check the terminals for the ground and neutral there.

Sorry for the confusion and good luck!

Jeremy

Charger:

here is my case:

The previous owner had the tub installed approx 5 yrs ago. The problem is over the summer the breaker GFCI would trip maybe once a month. Then recently, every week, the the last two days it wont stay on it keeps tripping.

Here is what I did:

Replaced with a standard 50 amp double breaker and measure current on each leg, with lights, pumps and heater running I get 12.5 amps on each leg.

I opened the control box under the spa, 6 awg wire run directly from house panel to spa panel which is approx. 12 feet. Checked connection inside, spray WD-40 on connection. Same problem.

In my panel box the main untility line incomming consist of the 2 hot and a bare heay guage wire, neutral I assume, and then a separate ground is ran from outsde to the panel. Ground and neutral from untility are connected together in the house panel.

At the spa panel end the neutral is connected to the ground bar and a ground spike is then connected to the spa ground as well.

This setup has been working for 5 yrs untill recently. I even replaced the 50 AMP GFCI breaker and same problem. The pig tail from the GFCI is connected to the ground/neutral bar currently.

Please help, cant figure what may be the problem.
Should I disconnect the ground from the SPA wire (comming from the house)?

Neil

I still bet the heater element has gone out.

How would one test for the heater element? and it heats the tub up just fine.
Could your explain a bit more for me please?

Neil

"and it heats the tub up just fine"
how can it be heating the tub if the GFCI wont reset???

the heater element is most commonly the first thing to go out in a spa. They corrode and short out into the water causing the GFCI to trip.

Unplug or completely disconnect the heater and see if everything else works to test.

If it still trips, unplug the ozonator. Does it work then? If so, you got a bad ozonator.

Still tripping? Got a blower? Unplug it and see if things work then.

It's highly unlikely the problem has anything to do with the breaker or any of thew wiring running to the spa. Something in the SPA is broke, and the GFCI is simply doing it's job. Initially the problem was either intermittent, or so small it took some time for the GFCI to react. As time went by the problem degraded further and the GFCI tripped more and more frequently.

Dr Spa:

Thanks for the recommendations, will try them.

What I meant about heater working fine is with the regular 50 Amp breaker in place, the tub will heat up to 102 etc.

Can I unplug the relays as a form of disable the different parts?

ozonator: how does that work in the spa setup? I see I have one.

Also somewhere on this forum someone wrote that the neutral and gnd should not be bonded at the spa end?

Neil

"What I meant about heater working fine is with the regular 50 Amp breaker in place, the tub will heat up to 102 etc."


YUP! Your element is shot. The short is so small that it takes the sensitivity of a GFCI to detect it.


"Can I unplug the relays as a form of disable the different parts?"

NO, any and ALL wires have to be disconnect from the suspet part to properly test it

"ozonator: how does that work in the spa setup? I see I have one."

This is a whole nother topic to get into after you get the thing running

"Also somewhere on this forum someone wrote that the neutral and gnd should not be bonded at the spa end?"

If you made no wiring changes, and it worked for 5 years previously, this shouldn't be an issue at this point.

I am all new to the spa world, but I have a solid electro/mech background, so I am comfortable working with the unit.

The heater, I looked at my spa yesterday and saw a metal tube connected to a pump and two bolts came off this to the control panel (measure 240v here)

Am I correct when I say the heater is housed in that tube? and I need to drain the tub to remove the heater?

After removal, is it a self contain part or I can disassemble and try to clean/fix? What is the avg cost of a heater assy?

Thanks for your time and patience,
Neil