January 10th, 2009 at 4:58 am
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This is an example of a burned copper conductor strip that carries 230V
to the heater element in a Balboa Spa Control system. In this
case, the nut attaching the strip to the heater element was loose,
which generated a tremendous amount of heat at the loose
connection. There was nothing wrong with the circuit board or
the heater. However, because of the intense, long-term heat
generated by the loose connector, the heater element failed 2 weeks
later after the repair was made. You'll also notice that the laminated
copper foil on the circuit board was also damaged, but still
serviceable.
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This is a close-up view of the strip, after it was removed and cleaned
up a bit.
Beware!
Do NOT USE
a component like this that has
experienced this much oxidation! It has built up internal
resistance, will continue to consume power on its own, and it
will totally fail in short order, possibly causing more damage to the
connected components.
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In this case, I created an 8-gauge jumper capable of carrying the 23
amps that the heater requires. I also bypassed the top screw
on the terminal block, and connected the jumper directly to the pc
board screw because of the heat damage to the pc board foil strip and
the terminal block.
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The ones that will drive any tech nuts!
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This GFCI was connected to a Jacuzzi-brand spa that was less than 3
months old. For some odd reason, the GFCI kept tripping after
a few minutes of operation. I could find absolutely nothing
wrong with the spa; everything checked out completely.
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Well, if I had paid attention in the first place to the fact that the
circuit breaker wasn't 100 percent seated in its mount, (after
resetting it about 6 times!), then it wouldn't have taken me so long to
figure it out. Square-D circuit breakers always need a little
extra push to get them seated properly. It turns out this one
was just barely making a proper connection, and over the three-month
period that it was in operation, it burned up the terminal strip and
the lug coming out from the GFCI. In the end, to have an
electrician repair this cost over $250.
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Another classic
example of what happens to a circuit breaker when the wire connections
aren't tight enough. The heat in this one transferred through
the entire breaker and eventually smoked it. Here again,
nothing was wrong with the spa AND it was only receiving half of the
230 Volt power it required. That is, part of the circuitry in
the spa control was working, but the heater, pump, etc. did
nothing.
Rule of thumb:
Always be sure that you're getting
both L1 and L2 power at the spa control when the breaker is turned
on. Never assume that the spa is getting the power just
because the breaker is turned on!
Lastly, ALWAYS be
wary of a circuit breaker that feels warm or hot to the
touch! In most cases, it's not the spa! It's the
connections at the breaker! Make 'em tight folks!
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Another Classic Disconnect Melt-down!
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Tags:
burned wires,
circuit breaker,
electrical problem,
gfci
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