We have a new gunite pool and inground spa with all Pentair equipment, including lights, gas heater, pump, and easy touch control system. Any time that we use the heated spa (spa mode) and turn on the pool lights, the entire system will shut down in 10 to 30 minutes... the lights turn off, the heater turns off, and the pump turns off. I can turn it back on, however, it will shut down again in 10 to 30 minutes. This never seems to happen when in pool mode, or if using the spa without lights. The PB seems mystified. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Any suggestions are appreciated.
System shutting down
- Thread starter jnthurm
- Start date
... is a breaker being tripped (and are your pool lights doing it)? Tell us what exactly do you need to do to turn everything back on?
No, the breaker is not tripping. I just go to my ScreenLogic phone app and press Pool or Spa and the pump starts back up.
Ohhh ok, so the pool panel is still running... it's just that everything that it's controlling is getting shut off? (and just to clarify, this happens when you use the spa with the POOL lights on, not the spa lights?)
That's right... the pump, heater, and lights shut off. This happens when in spa mode with heater turned up to around 100 degrees and the lights on. The lights include 2 low voltage IntelliBrite pool lights, and LED bubbler on the Baja shelf, and a GloBrite spa light.
just talking out loud here... there are no breakers tripping so there's no overload on the breaker, and there's no gfci tripping so there's no ground fault either... but your problem could be related to some overload since you said you've got to have all the lights/spa pump/heater going for it to happen.
this is just wild conjecture but it's possible the board is experiencing a "brownout", which occurs when the supply voltage to the micro-controller dips low enough (below 5vdc) that it actually shuts off for a second and restarts. It could occur for a variety of reasons... could be the ac voltage to the system transformer itself dips, or the load on the transformer is abnormally high - possibly from bad relay drivers - pulling down it's output). But if it is a brownout that's happening, when the micro shuts down the relays would also shut off - which would in turn clear the load on the system and allow it to come back online.
unfortunately these things can be a pain to diagnose... I'd start by watching the outdoor panel for any indication that the board is getting reset when the fault occurs... see if the display cycles off/on (or the backlight) when the fault happens. Or, before the fault occurs, get into some menu setting... if you get kicked back to the main screen you'll know the board was reset.
If those tests don't tell you anything you'll probably want to measure the current draw of the electronics (10vac supply) and relays (18vac supply) to see if there's anything abnormal. Then try to reproduce the fault and monitor the supply voltages to the board when the fault occurs. I'd probably also monitor the output voltage of the onboard 5v regulator to see if it drops below 5 - but to do this kind of monitoring you'd need a multimeter that can either do min/max or data logging.
this is just wild conjecture but it's possible the board is experiencing a "brownout", which occurs when the supply voltage to the micro-controller dips low enough (below 5vdc) that it actually shuts off for a second and restarts. It could occur for a variety of reasons... could be the ac voltage to the system transformer itself dips, or the load on the transformer is abnormally high - possibly from bad relay drivers - pulling down it's output). But if it is a brownout that's happening, when the micro shuts down the relays would also shut off - which would in turn clear the load on the system and allow it to come back online.
unfortunately these things can be a pain to diagnose... I'd start by watching the outdoor panel for any indication that the board is getting reset when the fault occurs... see if the display cycles off/on (or the backlight) when the fault happens. Or, before the fault occurs, get into some menu setting... if you get kicked back to the main screen you'll know the board was reset.
If those tests don't tell you anything you'll probably want to measure the current draw of the electronics (10vac supply) and relays (18vac supply) to see if there's anything abnormal. Then try to reproduce the fault and monitor the supply voltages to the board when the fault occurs. I'd probably also monitor the output voltage of the onboard 5v regulator to see if it drops below 5 - but to do this kind of monitoring you'd need a multimeter that can either do min/max or data logging.
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J,
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I suspect the heater shuts off because the pump shuts off.. But I can't tie the lights into anything???
Thanks,
Jim R.
Show us screenshots of the following pages
View media item 1964
I suspect the heater shuts off because the pump shuts off.. But I can't tie the lights into anything???
Thanks,
Jim R.
Ok, Im going to try to determine if the board is resetting and will let you know the results. It may be a couple of days before I can test it out. Thanks
Hey, do Jim R's suggestion first... I went with the rare elusive difficult to diagnose problem first, instead of the simplest 
J,
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I suspect the heater shuts off because the pump shuts off.. But I can't tie the lights into anything???
Thanks,
Jim R.
J
I don't see anything obvious yet..
Tell me exactly how you switch between the Pool mode and the Spa mode.. What button/icons do you push?
Logically, it has to be a main board issue or a wring issue.. Only because I can't see where a programming error could cause the problem.
Please let me see a couple of pics of the inside of your EasyTouch, so I can see how it is wired.. And also tell me what each relay controls.
Thanks,
Jim R.
I don't see anything obvious yet..
Tell me exactly how you switch between the Pool mode and the Spa mode.. What button/icons do you push?
Logically, it has to be a main board issue or a wring issue.. Only because I can't see where a programming error could cause the problem.
Please let me see a couple of pics of the inside of your EasyTouch, so I can see how it is wired.. And also tell me what each relay controls.
Thanks,
Jim R.
Still troubleshooting. Doesn’t seem to be a programming issue. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the lights as we’ve been able to replicate the behavior with no lights. It takes 30-60 Minutes when you first turn on the spa before shutting down. After restarting, it takes less time to shutdown. Seems to be related to the gas heater running for an extended period of time. I will try your suggestion next to try to determine if board is resetting.
Is it shutting down when the spa reaches your set temperature? I had this happen when I didn't have a pump speed set for spa mode but did have a pump speed for heater. The pump would run fine as long as there was demand for heat but would shut down once the heater turned off.
I’m not positive but It does seem to happen only after the heater has been running awhile and is probably near the set point. After I turn it back on it will usually run for a short time (10-15 minutes) before shutting off again.
If the lights are on, they will also shut off when the pump shuts down. Does this sound like the same issue that you had?
