I have a Hot Springs Sovereign LE circa 2000. It has a Watkins Heater wavemaster 6000 I think, and a black control panel that sits in the sun all day.

This unit has a quirky problem where it turns on and off all by itself....usually, but not always. within 24 hours of a hot day...which is not uncommon here in Southern California. Sometimes in the middle of the night, and sometimes when I'm on vacation, it just "Turns on". What the heck? My temporary fix is to invoke the "Spa Lock " feature which is a pain. What is the problem with the control panel? Is it a fiber optic issue or a thermal expantion issue? Please let me know if you are familiar with this problem and how best to fix it.

Thanx, Kristin.

Replace the aux control, which may or may not need a new control head.

If it has the 3 or 4 fiber optic cables, a new control is needed. If it has a phone like cord, just the aux.

If you don't have the fibre optic cables, you can just unplug the aux control.

If you have the fiber optic cables, don't disconnect them.

It's a fibre optic issue.- difference in light levels, (or water drops inside the aux unit) will temp. interupt the light signal, energizing a function.

Swine Thanx for all the great help. This is a really useful forum!

something my techs have noticed, is you can loosen the screws, slightly, that hold the control head to the back of the front, black control panel. May just solve your problem.

If the control head PCB is held too tightly, I've noticed it also (intermittantly) makes some functions unavailable at times. IE- can't change temp, or jets won't come on.
If it's purely a ghostng issue- I'm thinking much higher chance of fibre optic issue- Goodness knows we had enough ghosting issues back when they were standard issue