GFCI overheating

You have to give them the cheap $5.00 meter the first few times so that when they do something to cause it to explode, at least it's not your $300.00 Fluke.

Hopefully, the apprentice survives and learns a valuable lesson.
 
You have to give them the cheap $5.00 meter the first few times so that when they do something to cause it to explode, at least it's not your $300.00 Fluke.

Hopefully, the apprentice survives and learns a valuable lesson.

They're like your journeyman electricians, machine tests the board and spits out a printed ticket. Company hopes they know how to read, and if not I'd teach them what an ohmmeter does.

Sorry, really was trying to help support your point, some of the suggestions you made really do require a tech thats at least half as knowledgeable as you. Not too many of those around.

Anyway, the guys I gave the meters to never worked on live circuits, and no, can't say they all "survived" --- I didn't stay there very long.
 
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Maybe the manufacturer will just replace the whole spa equipment package if they can't get someone who can do the necessary tests.

It might be easier and faster.

Send the old equipment back to the manufacturer and let them figure it out.

However, the manufacturer would be right to point out that the installation is not compliant with the manuals, which say to use a 60 amp breaker.

Hopefully, the new electrician can replace the wiring and breaker and figure out if there are any other problems.
 
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The electrician came today and he couldn't get a good read. He said they were "wonky readings". He went to pull the breaker out and it broke. One side looks like it had melted and was most likely arcing. He said is was probably just a bad breaker.
Wow that's great. I hope that was it and will not be surprised if it was. We've had three electrical failures in our pool and accessory equipment in 2.5 years of ownership that all traced to arcing of connections not torqued properly when installed. (Another problem was inside the house; sense a pattern?) I finally powered everything down and carefully tightened all I could find to spec. There were many loose connections. Since then (only 8 months , but still...), no issues. Knock wood.
 
Sorry I haven't been back to update y'all but I was hoping to a have a resolution before posting again. Our electrician came out at the beginning of February and got us switched out to 60 amp. One week later it killed the breaker, we couldn't get it to reset. Called Viking, the dealer they assigned to us and the electrician again. The electricians came out a few days later (they had to order another 60 amp breaker) and they dove into the electrical side of the spa. The electrician that was checking the spa has worked on them before and he said everything was reading correctly. There was a lot of research and math involved that I didn't understand. I didn't get all the questions answered that I said I was going to because it was freezing cold and I was trying not to bother them while herding the neighbor's cats back across the street.

Two weeks later we had to go move my son home (he got out of the Army) so we were gone from Thursday to Sunday night. I checked the hot tub Monday morning and once again no power. I was able to reset the breaker. Called Viking and the dealer again because we still hadn't heard back from either one. The dealer tried to act like we hadn't spoken to them even though they asked for serial number and we sent it to them. Still no answer from Viking so my husband left a message on the voicemail of one of the board members (Linkedin has a lot of information on it). That got a response within an hour. lol After explaining the last year and a half of problems they agreed that it was probably the spa pack and not our electric, but they needed to find a dealer because the one they assigned us is no longer a dealer for them. My husband called the Viking rep again today to see what was going on and he has now assigned us to a new dealer that he made contact with, he is sending us a new spa pack and once we receive it we need to call the service guy at the dealer to set up an appointment.

I hoping beyond all hope that we might finally get this thing up and running consistently.
 
I will cross my fingers for you, but gotta say I hate blind stabs in the dark troubleshooting. They should hook up the modern equivalent of chart recorders to watch input, heater, and circulation pump amps to get a picture of what tripped it. Just my $.02 worth, but no matter what happens I think it sounds like they got you covered.


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