Urgent pump electrical help needed

[chrisexv6]

A couple weeks ago our pump/PoolPilot combo had tripped the GFCI breaker (the Pilot has the relay to turn the pump on/off on timer). Didnt think much of it since we had big storms and driving rain, so I reset the breaker and all was well.

Until now....with the Pilot controlling the pump, the breaker trips as soon as the Pilot relay clicks to turn on the pump. You get maybe 1/2 a second of the pump starting and then the breaker pops.

If I remove the leads at the pump, the pool pilot doesnt trip the breaker by itself. I also told it to turn the pump on and off, and the relay clicked but again it did NOT blow the breaker (presumably since there was no load from the pump)

I wired the pump directly to the breaker, which gave no power to the Pilot. Pump ran fine for at least 10 minutes (I stopped it myself since "the trip" always seems to happen instantaneously, I figure a few minutes of the pump running means it will be OK)

Ive disconnected the cell and sensor wiring from the Pilot to rule out the cell taking power, and again breaker still trips.

Im not sure if its tripping because of GFCI or if its because of high load (pump is older, but runs fine when it is running).

So, what would cause the breaker to trip only with the Pilot controlling the pump?

Could it be an issue with the start/start+run cap?

Thanks in advance.

-Chris

 

[rphpool]

I would try replacing the GFCI first. You mentioned storms, sometimes lightning damage shows it's ugly face latter when we have forgotten about it.

 

[pooldv]

+1 on replacing the breaker, they fail periodically.

 

[chrisexv6]

Would I be better off replacing with a normal breaker and adding a gfci outlet inline before the first device?

Sent from my LG-VS980 using Tapatalk

 

[Agent99]

Outlet or breaker...they do the same thing but the outlet is a lot less money. It just depends on how all your wiring is set up and how much hassle you need to go through to move to the outlet GFCI.

 

[chrisexv6]

Thanks.

I actually just swapped out the GFCI breaker. Learned the hard way how much of a mess the inside of my circuit panel is (previous homeowner proudly signed and dated when he installed it all....)

So far everything is working as expected. The panel was installed in 1985 and it wouldn't surprise me if the GFCI breaker that was there is from the same time, so it was a good first part to replace.