Starite sr400na heater problems

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Sanger440

0
May 20, 2011
64
Sacramento, Ca
My Starite SR400NA heater is 10 years old. I bought the house 2 years ago and it has worked flawlessly until just recently. The heater is controlled from my Jandy Cabinet by an Aqualink RS-6.

The heater did act up a couple of times before it completely quit responding. On New Years, it was about 30 degrees outside, I turned on the spa and heater and the heater started up then I noticed it stopped. I turned off the heater from the RS6 control in the house, then turned it back on, heater fired up and worked normal.

A week later I turned on the spa and heater again. It was 30 degrees out again. It fired up for about 10 minutes and shut off. I cycled the on off heater button in the house. The heater did not re-fire. I looked at the unit and I believe it had a service system LED on. I may very well have been the Service Heater LED, not sure.

But now when I turn on the spa and heater, I get no LED at all other than r3 (firmware No.)on the digital temp display on the heater. I have put the system in service mode at the Jandy Panel near the pumps and heater, and turned on the spa, then the heater and I get the same thing, just an r3 on the led, so service system or service heater leds.

The green SPA light is on in the Jandy cabinet and the heater light in the Jandy cabinet comes on when I manually turn on the heater. But I do not ever recall a green SPA light on the control board on the heater coming on, but I never much looked at it because the auto controls always work. Following the troubleshooting guide in the manual basically says "replace control board" if Spa green light is on and no service heater or service system lights come on. I get no green Spa light on the control board.

The heater sits out in the weather, and after 10 years the membrane keyboard looks bad. The plastic covering has completely de-laminated and come off. I had a service guy check the pool when I bought the house, he said my days were numbered on the controll board LOL!

Question 1: Should the green Spa led be lit up on the control board when the spa is started from the RS6 or from the Jandy Cabinet?

Question 2: Should I try a new membrane keyboard first before replacing the control board or is there something else I can check.?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Charlie
 
Update: I spent the day working through the troubleshooting diagrams. Assuming there was a reason my green spa light was not on, the trouble shooting chart led me to check the 24 volt transformer that provides voltage to the control board. I found 120v into the transformer no voltage (should be 24v) out. The transformer did not have any pentair numbers on it so it may have been replaced before or it may just be a generic transformer. I found one online for 32 bux so I ordered it. Fingers crossed it fixes the heater.

As a side note, I took the transformer to my local pool supply company, showed it to him, he looked up some numbers in the book and said he had one for $299 ouch! When he checked in the back he did not have one. What the heck did he look up LOL!

Charlie.
 
Update Feb 11,2013

So I got the new transformer and when I bench tested it, it turns out I checked the voltage for DC not for 24vac. So my old transformer was not bad. OOPS!

So I continued through the troubleshooting guide. It said to jumper the firemans switch and then press either the POOL button or the SPA button on the heater keyboard. Nothing happen when I pushed the SPA button, but when I pushed the POOL button the heater fired up. So I turned off the unit, replaced all the wiring, and the heater runs again off the Jandy RS6 unit. I heated up the spa and the heater cycled on and off as it hit the temperature setting.

So I am not sure why the heater did not work and now it does, something must of gotten reset along the way. I have no codes and the greed LED's are working too.
BUT, as I watched the heater cycle on and off for an hour or two, I realized the blower was not running. Never started or even tried to start. Probably has not run for years (I have owned the house for 2 years). I am pretty sure the blower should be running all the time the heater is on.

So how can the blower not run and the heater still run and appear to run well? No codes of any kind?

The heater fires and runs great it seems when the temperature outside is above, say 45 degrees, which is most of the time in Northern California. It would not fire properly on New Years Even when it was 30 degrees outside at night.

So next step is using the troubleshooting guide to see what is up with the blower unit. Probably has a bad electric motor and will need the entire blower unit replaced. Will not know until I check voltages at the electric motor when the heater is on.

Charlie.
 
So how can the blower not run and the heater still run and appear to run well?
Click to expand...
The blower is mainly to prevent the buildup of CO when an exhaust stack is used indoors. The unit may not have any sort of sensor that would disable the heater should the blower go out and would most likely rely on a separate CO sensor for indoor installs.

Also, one possibility is that the controller is preventing the heater from turning on when temps drop below freezing. It would make sense if they did given the possibility of a frozen heat ex-changer.
 
Hi Charlie,

If when you say blower, you are talking about the blower/fan within the heater? Or do you have a blower connected to the plumbing that comes on when the spa is turned on? The heater cannot fire without it's blower running. The blower is what delivers the air/gas mixture to the combustion chamber. So you can see why it needs to run.

I must be missing something here.

When the "heater is running" is it making any noise? Are you getting warm water? When the blower comes on, it sounds like... a blower (duh), but about 15 seconds later, when the heater actually fires, there is an additional sound like a low rumbling. That sound is the actual combustion happening. Is it possible you are hearing just the blower running without combustion occurring, and thinking the low rumbling should be the blower? You must know these sounds after 2 years, unless you never noticed it.

Perhaps you can post a video of the heaters antics? I'd like to believe i know these heaters well, but what you describe isn't making sense, hence my remark,
"I must be missing something here".
 
If when you say blower, you are talking about the blower/fan within the heater?
Click to expand...
I am talking about the combustion blower/fan with the heater. It has the gas line plumbed on one side of it for blowing gas into the unit. Everything I read in the manual or here says it should be running and it is not.
When the "heater is running" is it making any noise? Are you getting warm water?
Click to expand...
The heater fires right up (no fan) and sounds like a normal furnace running. Hot air pours out and the exhaust and heats the spa water right up to temperature and cycles on and off to whatever the thermostat is set to.
This is very odd and unless someone bypassed the air switch, the unit shouldn't fire without the blower running.
Click to expand...
Here is what the manual says: The air flow switch, (see Figure 30), is a safety device used to insure that the combustion air blower (fan) is operating and has been designed to monitor the vacuum (negative) pressure within the blower housing. The air flow switch is factory set and is connected upstream of the ignition module. The ignition module does not operate unless the air pressure switch and all safety switches are closed.
I did check to see if the Air Flow Switch(AFS) was not jumpered or bypassed. It was not. Again, no codes and I have not checked whether the Blower electric motor has voltage which would mean it should start, but then again the AFS should keep the unit from firing if the blower is not running, which it is not.

Thanks for the help.
Charlie.
 
I think you need to post a video of the heater, if possible, from heater off, to it firing and running, if anyone here is to help you. Otherwise, you may need to call for onsite help. It would almost be worth the trip to see this heater, if it really is functioning the way you say it is.
 
Pool Clown said:
I think you need to post a video of the heater, if possible, from heater off, to it firing and running, if anyone here is to help you. Otherwise, you may need to call for onsite help. It would almost be worth the trip to see this heater, if it really is functioning the way you say it is.
Click to expand...

OK, I did take a video on my phone, I will post it on youtube tonight after work. I did not start the video until just after it fired. But here is what I did. Using my in house RS6 control, I started the SPA. Waited a minute, then from in the house started the SPA Heater from the RS6. I walked from in the house over to the heater (about 30 second walk) and about the time I walked up to the heater, I heard the burner fire. Sounded like a gas barbeque flaming on. Seemed normal. Then I video'd the unit showing the AFS and then zoomed in on the electric motor on the blower, which was not spinning, then zoomed in on the keyboard/led panel showing green POOL ON, and HEATER ON LED and POOL Temp showing on the panel also. Been working like this for 2 years (I assume the blower has not been starting) until it failed to start a couple of times this winter.

As a side note, I did talk about this with my buddy who has owned a heating/AC business for 40 years. He has worked on every kind of furnace (old and new) for decades in both commercial and residential installs (no pool heaters though). He said that he never saw a gas furnace with a combustion fan/blower that would fire when the blower failed to start, the AFS should prevent it. He said the blower should be fixed (obviously). He said that without the combustion blower, the temps in the exhaust flume get too high (not a good burn) and that high temps in the exhaust flume should shut the unit down too. He was purplexed LOL!

Charlie.
 

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Pool Clown said:
If you don't believe me, look at the end of the motor. You can see the motor shaft. Ifs about 7/16 in diameter. Look at it while you turn the heater on, and you will be able to see it spin up.
Click to expand...

I totally believe you. I could hear what sounded like a blower come on, but did not see the windings spinning. Thank you so much. And you are right about the touchpad, the plastic protective coating just fell off as I was pushing buttons on the touchpad. Not sure if they make a new stick on plastic cover for the touchpad or not. If not, I'll buy the whole touchpad unit.

So I guess this unit just has trouble firing at night when it is like 30 degrees out. First year it has done that, although most of the time it is closer to 40 degrees at night in the winter when I use the spa. And it has always fired right up in the two summers I have used it.

Thanks again Pool Clown.

Charlie.
 
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