Hi everyone, I apologize if this is the wrong forum but didn't see one for new owners. If anyone can help me out I would really appreciate it.
Ok - Big newbie Spa owner here -
Bought a house with a 1998 Advanced spa on the back deck. When I set the toggle switch to auto and adjust the dial next to the dial labled "Max" on one side and " IN" on the other it cycles the water, and then shuts off at different time intervals.
I can not figure out how to work the timer for the life of me. The timer is a circular dial with pins. What does the "Hi Limit" Red button do? I would like to set it so that it will come on and filter the water during the day while I am at work. There is also no thermostat that I can find on the tub, but it is heating the water up to around 98 degrees. Any help appreciated.

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The toggle switch you're talking about should control wether the spa starts up automatically based upon either the timer or the thermostat. I don't know what auto means on your spa, but the idea is that you can have the system automatically start the spa based upon the timer or you can set the desired temperature with the thermostat and the spa will turn on when required to keep that temperature.

The circular dial with pins, is the timer itself. That circular dial represents a whole day. You should be able to pull up at the edges of the dial and cause part of it to pop up. It is similar to setting an analog timer for christmas lights, if you've ever done that. Be aware that they may already all be pulled up, so try pushing them down. What you want to do, is pull up a notch and when the timer rolls around to that notch, it will turn on, when it goes past that notch, it will turn off. On my spa there are 12 notches on the circular dial, so I can only have my spa turn on or off in 2 hour increments (since there are only 12 notches and the dial has to reflect the entire day). Setting the timer will only work if your toggle switch is set to whatever setting causes it to respect the timer. You may have your toggle switch set on the setting that ignores the timer and respects the thermostat.

I'm guessing the dial labeled "max" is your thermostat. Again, the toggle switch will control if the spa turns on based upon the thermostat. You'll have to play with the toggle switch and see which setting is which. If it was me, I would crank the thermostat to max and try the toggle switch on both settings. One setting (the one respecting the heater) should start the spa up. The other setting (the one respecting the timer) should keep the spa off. That way you'll know which is which.

Also, I am assuming you already looked on the top of the spa to make sure there wasn't a thermostat control there.

The Hi Limit button is a reset switch, you shouldn't need to use it. There is a thermostat in your spa that will detect an extremely high temp (like over 105 degrees usually) and trip this switch. If your spa got hot enough to trip this switch, you would have to hit the high limit button to reset it. That's not a problem for you right now though since your system is running. If your high limit switch was tripped, your spa wouldn't start at all, ever.

Hopefully this answers some of your questions. I am pretty new to this myself, so I hope someone will correct me if I have given any wrong information.

Ok, I wrote something wrong in my post above. The toggle switch should have no effect on the timer turning on the spa. The timer should always turn on the spa.

The toggle switch should have two possible settings:

1) Only turn on and heat the spa when the timer says to or you manually turn it on (I'm guessing that's what AUTO is on your spa)

or

2) Turn on the spa and heat the water whenever the water temperature drops below your thermostat setting.

The basic idea is, do you want the timer or water temperature to control the cycling of your spa. I personally like my spa to stay at least 85 degrees, so I keep it on the thermostat setting.

Also, be aware, if you're not already, that the spa has two pump settings. A low speed setting, which is activated whenever the timer turns the spa on and a high speed setting which is activated whenever the jets are turned on (by you). I just want you to be aware in case the spa is turned on, but on the low speed setting which you may not notice if you're expecting a huge amount of water flowing from the jets.