So we have an old leisure bay spa, circa ~1990. It was here when we moved in and has been working fine for months until, we drained it to repair a leak. It sat empty for 3 weeks while parts were ordered and returned as they kept sending me the wrong one. Got the right part yesterday, threw it in, refilled it and went to fire it up. Pump works fine on high and low speeds, blower works normally too. But when its in heating mode with nothing but the pump running on low speed and the heater on the GFCI in the spa pack trips. It trips whenever the thermostat sends the signal to the spa pack to turn on the heater. If I start out with the thermostat below water temperature and begin raising it, as soon as it hits the mark to trip the heater, the GFCI trips at that moment. At first I thought the heater element went bad or something, so I disconnected it from power. Even with it not connected, as soon as the spa pack goes to send power to it, it trips. I have tested the relays inside the spa pack and they all seem to be just fine. I thought maybe the GFCI wasn't able to take the load of the heater but it still trips even when the heater isnt wired up. Please help with any ideas you could possibly have. Thanks
John

Sounds like the GFI in the spa pack/box "might be" faulty. or the power being sent to it is to much. I would take it that if this is original equipment that your running 230-240v system?

You should be able to pick up a new one at a pool shop for very little. Just make sure they match it up right.

Although its hard telling whats going on sometimes it a underlying problem from something else.
what is this new part you put in your spa?

anyone else?

oh sorry i forgot to mention. its just a 120V system. The new part was just a new thermowell housing. The rubber on the other one was shot so it leaked. I might try a new GFCI but its going to be a pain to change it out as its part of the spa pack and the wiring looks like a rats nest in there... can't believe that it came from the factory looking that crazy.

You bought this tub new back when you got it?
cause if its used then someone else might have been in the spa pack.

Well, can you put a meter on the lines going to the gfci and check to see what your getting for volts going to it?
cause if its normal voltage then it sounds like to me the gfci is at fault.

Did you get water some how on your gfci or in it?

Can you post some photos of the inside of your box?


Ok well if you remove it to change it out and you bring it to have it matched up, take plenty of photos befor you remove it and tag your wires with zip ties and lable them and draw up a diagram of how they go back on.

well i dont mean rats nest like some dumbass screwed it all up. I mean its a confusing maze of wires in there with no real looming order of anything. But no, like I said it was here when we moved into this house. It was working fine until we drained it and refilled it. There wasnt any water in it and I dont see how water would have got up there either. I would be all for replacing the GFCI except I can't grasp how its at fault if it is able to run the jets and the blower at the same time, but can only run the pump on low until the heater is requested, but if the heater isn't even connected and it still pops it. So I just can't see how that would cause any different higher load on the GFCI to indicate it being bad.

Ok I missed the part that it runs everything else fine till it needs the heater to come on, sorry.

The first and second pictures are of what I think it might be. It appears to be some kind of relay. The reason I think this has something to do with it is because, it seems to be only triggered when it gets signal from the thermostat signal wire. I dont know though because I can't say for sure what would be wrong with it.
The only thing the topside seems to do is send power down from a wire when the thermostat calls for it and closes that circuit. Its really just a very basic switch up there and it tested out normally. I have been putting the meter on everything

Do you see any physical damage to the relay? burn marks/bubbled/smell funny/ is it opening and closing properly? sometimes they get stuck closed and need a good little hard tapping with the power off to un stick them. "If you think it is the relay"

I still dont know it sounds kinda fishy that it worked before you drained the tub. are you sure water did not get inside a chaffed wire or into some component or fitting to a wire? I would look at everything very closely.

I would say the relay to switch on your heater, could be a very good possibility to be the culprit after what you discribed.

you could take the relay out and put your meter on it and see if it is any good.

yeah i did take the relays out and test them actually. There are two for this particular one but they both operate the heater. One seems to be important only if we were running it off 240 V. So I acutally just bypassed that one and wired it up so it could only do the 120 that we have it hooked up to, and got the same results. So I put them both back the way they were. They both had the same resistances across the coils and seem to be in great working order. I can see them both move but when the heater is requested and they go to move, they switch and then the gfci trips their coils lose power and they immediately move back to open. But yes I did assume that one of them was bad at one point too.

I would say some place from the topside to the heater lines you have an issue obviously.
did you leave the cover off it while it was empty? did it rain out? I wonder if you have water in yout topside control?

I would start from the top and work your way to the lines that connect to the heater and trace EVERYTHING again. and test everything.

make sure all connections are secure and not damaged.

I still feel like it might be a relay or gfci prob or something is wet "might be in topside controller".

mabye swine or pageup could help you better cause I am not seeing anything in those photos that jumps out at me. Its so hard helping over the internet sometimes cause you just want to be there to do what you know to do and to trouble shoot each step.

If I think of something "I will be thinking about it" ill post back.

But re-look everything over again and think if there is something that happend your not thinking about right now check all connections twice.