STA-RITE Heater

[Reg]

Hi,

Just tried to start up my STA-RITE MAX-E heater which worked last year...this year it doesn't. I had rats chew some wires and fixed those. I looked all over and believe I got all of them repaired.

Here is what happens:

1. At the Jandy controller, I turn on the filter (works fine, as does the sweep, lights, everything else) but when I press the "heater" button, nothing happens. The light does not go on.
If I press the solar heater button, that light goes on. (does this mean the controller is bad?)

2. I did confirm that I have power going to the heater (tested it right as it enters the heating unit).

3. No lights come on on the the pad on top of the heater. Tried resetting that also.

4. There is an LED inside the heater that came on for a second then turned off.

5. I turned off all power at the circuit breaker, turned back on and confirmed that power was coming out of the circuit breaker (given #2, that makes sense, just looking at everything).

6. I ordered a new controller board.

7. The two fuse are okay (one on controller, one in the unit itself)


Questions:
- Are there places to check within the heater to see if the voltage is getting there?
- Even if the heater is dead/wounded, shouldn't the light on the Jandy controller light up? That seems odd that it doesn't.
- Any other things to check?

Thanks!

 

[ps0303]

Do you have a shorted temp sensor error on the Jandy controller? This is the typical issue when you press the heater button and it doesn't come on. Until you resolve this or remove the two wire connector inside the heater and put a jumper in its place, the heater will not come on. When you have the controller wired into the heater, it controls the on/off function so you can't manually operate it from the heaters touch pad. You can also try switching the wires between the solar and water temp sensor on the Jandy and see then if the heater will turn on. If that does work, you have a bad water temp sensor on the Jandy.

Look at page 29 in this manual. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjKn_D2ycfLAhWEqB4KHT2oDk4QFggdMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pentairpool.com%2Fpdfs%2FMaxEThermEngOM.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGTbAK4XgLEKLZgSJPwurWAwbPtng&cad=rja

 

[Pool Clown]

When you turn the heater on, you should get either a green (heater enabled), or a red (heater firing) LED. At least you should get a green LED even if you have a bad sensor. Checking the sensor should be easy enough. When you turn the pump on, what do you get for a water temp? If it reports a reasonable or "close" temp, i think it is ok.

Insure that when you are enabling the POOL heater, that you have set the temp to a setting higher than the current pool water temp.

Make sure that you are enabling the pool heater and not the spa heater, or, make sure that you have enabled both, just to be sure.

Make sure that in the Set temp menu that "maintain temp" setting is set to off.

Make sure that your solar priority is off as well. Note: if the heater comes on as soon as you switch the solar priority off, look for a failed solar temp sensor (on the roof).

 

[Reg]

Thanks for the help!

1. I am pretty sure that the temperature sensor is okay since the reading on the pool is reasonable, and when I turned on the solar heating, I saw that the temperature was slowing rising.

2. Also, the odd thing is that when I tried turning on the heater from the indoor controller, the light on the indoor control panel did go on, although the light on the main control panel (by the pool equipment) still didn't go on. I don't know if that means anything.

3. Thanks for the suggestion about the fireman's switch. I saw on the PDF where that is (thanks!) but am not sure of exactly which wires you mean by "remove the two wire connector inside the heater and put a jumper in its place". Can you clarify that?

4. Also, I should have mentioned that nothing lights up at all on the heater (that top control pad). I am getting a new control board today, so maybe that is the reason for that.


thanks again

 

[Reg]

Resolved!


Ok, that was annoying...

As suggested, I verified the heater was working by disconnecting the controller

I kept pressing the heater button on the controller and nothing happened (e.g. no red light, no clicking sound)

Rather than just turning off the heater circuit breaker, I turned them all of the circuit breakers and disconnect the heater wires from the controller.

Turning the system on again, the heater switched worked as it should. Then connected the wires and everything was okay.

So somehow the Jandy got stuck in the mode where that one button didn't work.

Thanks everyone!

 

[ps0303]

Glad you resolved it. Keep an eye on it as this might be a symptom of something getting ready to permanently break.