Oops, i guess i screwed up!

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skeeter_ca

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Mar 15, 2013
91
Yucaipa CA
I noticed my Pentair IntelliFlo VS3050 pump leaking a little the other day and checked it out more closely. Looks to me like it overheated. The pump motor where it mounts to the seal plate is all melted and crumbling. Did this happen because the pump ran dry at one point or another? I am going to have to replace the motor assembly but what else goes bad on these when that happens? The Seal Plate?




skeeter
 
That does not look like a simple overheating to me. Looks like the metal has corroded away and not something that should occur in a short period of time.

I had a motor overheat itself to death and it did not show anywhere near that level of damage.

Makes me wonder if electricity somehow was involved in the damage.
 
That does look more like a chemical reaction problem than an overheating. Any chemicals spilled on the pump or other possible causes? Is the pump properly wired? I would have an electrician have a look at it when you replace the motor, before you put it back into service.
 
The motor housing should not be plastic. That looks to be aluminum galvanic corrosion. One of the issues with a VS motor is that the voltage applied to the motor is a PCM waveform with very high frequency components. This can cause arcing within the motor across metal boundaries. With proper grounding and components, this can be mitigated but the picture looks like that may be what has happened. You might check the grounding and bonding of the motor just to make sure those are still intact. How old is the pump and is it still under warranty?
 
The pumps about 6-7 years old so i doubt it is under any warranty anymore? Interesting you should say arcing or a ground problem. When cleaning around the pump i did find three wires coming out of the ground i assumed they were old wiring for previous equipment. I will have to look at it closer when i get home tonight. However i remember wiring the pump up myself when replacing the old one and it has three wires going to it. I will check it against the wiring diagram for the pump.

skeeter
 
A VS is more prone to stray currents because of voltage waveform so it makes bonding that much more important. It is quite possible that you lost the bonding wire which then caused this problem.
 
Ok checking last night i believe i found what the three wires coming out of the ground were. Two of the wires were actually just one wire that was not attached to anything. It was just half buried in the dirt. I threw it away. The other is a 10 gauge white wire that appears to be some kind of ground wire going underground and maybe attached to the pool plumbing under the ground. I guess the pump is supposed to be grounded to the pool somehow. The end sticking out looks like it had gone around a ground lug somewhere possible on the old motor before i got to it. The old pump had been worked on several times by pool "techs". I never noticed the extra ground wire when i installed the new pump. There are three wires going to the pump itself from the timer box.

I am amazed that this could cause this problem.

Thanks for all your help. I will be ordering a new motor today.

skeeter
 
Normally a bonding wire is a bare copper wire but it sounds like they used a white wire instead. You could verify that it is a bonding wire with an ohm meter. It should have continuity with anything metal in the pool (e.g. Light or railing) and also the water.
 

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I'll make sure and check that.

I'm looking at ordering the motor but i'm wondering if i have to order the entire seal plate kit also. $150. It is leaking water between the motor and strainer bucket. I can't seem to find just a seal kit, only the whole plate with the seal.

skeeter
 
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