Hi everyone
We recently bought a home with a 99 Sundance Rio, hooked up to 220, Sentry pushbutton controls, which seemed to work fine except occasionally giving us a FLO error.

Recently the power went out and we now have a problem that may or may not be related. (anyway this was the first time the hot tub was off since we moved in)

Basically the breaker trips, but only when the circulation pump is hooked up. If I unhook the circ pump, it powers up and everything works, but the tub won't cycle on to heat itself, i'd have to turn on the jets every 20 min.

When i connect the circ pump again, sometimes the breaker trips immediatley, sometimes not. eventually it does trip, i think when the circ pump trys to start up.

has anyone encountered this? I don't want to start replacing parts until the real problem is uncovered, especially if its just an inexpensive sensor or something.

thanks.

Try disconnecting both legs of the heater element, then reconnect the circ pump and power up.

If that solves the tripping problem, then replace the heater.

I disconnected the heater like you said and turned it on again. The jets kicked on low speed immediatly and it ran for awhile without tripping. I figured I'd reconnect the heater and see if it tripps right away, to confirm a faulty heater, but it started up like normal and is still running, and heating.

I'm fairly certain it will trip the breaker again but how will I know what causes this problem?

99 Times out of a hundred, it's the element inside the heater that's failed - that causes the spa gfci to trip offline -

(rest of the time it's either the ozonator that's got water in it, or the blower motor, and .01% would be every other issue, like a drop of water is bridging the system fuse through a stupid rivet hole in the side of the control box to ground - which will make you so **** mad you'd set fire to the thing when you found it).

Heater Element failures are probably the most normal and most often reason a spa needs service in this biz... They create a failure situation where water has found a way into the element that causes the hot tub's gfci to fault, and trip offline.

Your situation is almost funny and non-sensical, since everything should indicate logically that the diagnosis is totally fubar now, since the heaters been reconnected and it doesn't trip.

Who knows?

I don't.

Me, I'd test the gfci just to be sure it's working now.....

Otherwise, I'd wait for the inevitable trip. Again, who knows, you could end up waiting for a couple of more years for the ground fault condition to return.

it did trip and tripped again when i reset the gfci.

it seems to only trip when it gets up to the set temp, like i'll reset it in the am and it will heat all day, the kids will even get in for a while but then it will trip some time later. if it's still at the set temp when i reset the breaker it trips immediatly.

yes it does seem like the whole diagnosis is fubar and i'd already like to set the thing on fire. I've spent more time looking at diagrams with my head under the thing than I've spent soaking in it.

If you disconnected BOTH heater leads - then replace the circulation pump.

This is really simple, and doesn't require a mega-load of diagnosis. Either the circ pump or the heater or both.

It's about time anyway for them to be replaced.