Pool Light not working

[Gilrock]

Our pool light went out months ago and a few days ago my wife decided to try fixing it herself. She got it out and went to the store got a new gasket and bulb. She had trouble getting the screw back in because she kept floating up so that when I got called outside and had to freeze my butt off in the water till I got it in. So of course the light still isn't working.

Below are a couple photos of my electrical box with the cover removed. We never knew what that box mounted to the wall on the side was and nobody that has serviced the pool could tell us what it is. All I know is last time the light wasn't working was because I had unplugged the cord from that box thinking it wasn't doing anything. Plugging it back in got the light working. I thought we used to push the white button on the lower right to get the light to come on but that button doesn't feel like it moves when you push it now. I really don't know what the two different white boxes on the right side of the panel are there for. We also have had big trouble with our timer going out. It got replaced twice in a year under home warranty and then went out again after we didn't renew the warranty. A repair guy replaced it both times. After the third failure we just turned it on manually and then magically a couple weeks ago the timer started working again after being out 3 months. Where the input wires are coming up into the box I can see exposed copper on the white wire but I thought white was ground so maybe it doesn't matter.

If anyone can tell me what any of these items in the box do and what might be a cause for the light not working after replaced a burned out bulb I'd appreciate it. I'm not an electrician but I do have a EE degree which I never used much as a SW engineer so I think I know enough to not kill myself.

 

[jblizzle]

That Aquadyne thing looks like it may be some kind of home automation thing allowing remote turn on of the light maybe?

 

[JasonLion]

The Aquadyne boxes are about some kind of remote control. If they are turned off, the light isn't going to come on.

The outlet under the cover on the side of the electrical box is a GFCI outlet that helps keep the light safe.

One good test that can help narrow down where the problem is to get a standard table lamp and plug it into the outlet on the side. If the table lamp works the problem is either in the external Aquadyne box or the light it's self. If the table lamp doesn't work the problem is in the electrical box somewhere.

 

[Gilrock]

The lower right front facing box that says "Incandescent Lamps Only" is the one I was talking about. On the outside cover it had a label that said "Light". I thought we used to press and hold to make it come on but it doesn't seem to press in anymore like it's locked in place. Just under the white button it reads "Remote Switch"...you can only see the word "Switch" in the picture. I'd be happy to just wire the light directly to the breaker. Whatever used to work remotely obviously doesn't work anymore. There was something at the top of that side Teledyne box that looked broken off.

 

[JasonLion]

The standard way to wire a pool light is from the breaker to a switch, to the GFCI outlet, and from there to the light. All the rest can be removed.

 

[tim5055]

The button you pushed and the box above it are X10 home automation products.

You can read about X10 HERE

 

[Gilrock]

Ok I started looking into my pool light not working again. I found this thread: http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/36007-Pool-light-won-t-turn-on-HELP!! and it sounds like the exact same issues I've had with mine although he never came back and said how he fixed it. His pool electrical box looks just like mine and he was also from AZ. I've re-wired mine by replacing the GFCI outlet and removing the X-10 switch and the GFCI trips immediately if the light is in the circuit. I then noticed I had a GFCI breaker that wasn't being used so I connected the light to that and it did the same thing. I've removed the light housing from the pool and it was still dry inside. We had tried replacing the bulb a month ago because it was blown. I removed the bulb and did a continuity test on the black and white wires inside the box leading to the light. It is reading about 100K with no light attached and the reading seemed to be slowly increasing the longer I held the meter on it. So I'm convinced my entire housing with cable needs to be changed. The problem is the cable doesn't seem to budge at all from either end when I try to pull on it. There doesn't appear to be any other junction boxes involved. It's only 20 feet away so I'm guessing the conduit went straight to the box. Inside the light niche the cable just disappears into the conduit hole. I can't see anything that is securing it from the inside.

I feel like I'm just lacking a few tidbits of knowledge to tackle this job if anyone has any insight on how to remove the old cable. If it seemed to move I was going to tie a rope on the end of the wires as I pulled them out from the pool niche side so that I could pull the new cable back in.

 

[Gilrock]

Update. I went outside this morning and looked around and found the light junction box I'd never noticed before. It's actually tucked in underneath the piping near the pool motor. So I opened it up and disconnected all the wiring and the ohm-meter is still not reading good between the pool electrical box and the junction box. The two boxes are only about 5 feet apart so I tried pulling on the wiring with vice grips and the wires wouldn't budge. So I figured I might be stuck having to dig up the conduit. I started digging down near the pool electrical box just to see how deep I was going to need to go and Pandora's box was opened. I now see why I've had intermittent problems with the pool timer not working that seemed to be related to rain. Now I'm just trying to decide if I'm going to dig the trenches and replace the conduit myself or relax and hire someone. When I started trying to fix the light because the family asked for it I never expected it to turn into this mess.

The pipe on the left is the pool light wiring and the right pipe is the feed from the house about 40 feet away:

 

[tim5055]

Now I'm just trying to decide if I'm going to dig the trenches and replace the conduit myself or relax and hire someone.

I've found as I get older there is a lot less stress involved if I pour myself a glass of wine and let someone else do the nasty work.

 

[Gilrock]

Well I gave my son $10 and the conduit between the junction box and the pool box is already uncovered and removed.

 

[JasonLion]

 

[Gilrock]

Success!!! The pool light is working after replacing the conduit and wiring to the junction box. Next task will be to replace the main power feed coming from the house. A couple pics of the work I finished today.

 

[tim5055]

Good job! Probably the best $10 you ever spent.