Intelliflo VSF tripping breaker immediately

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jfcullen83

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Mar 25, 2021
9
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Hello all,

I have had an intelliflo VSF 3hp for 4 years with no issues, and today I noticed the pump never started. Sure enough the breaker had tripped. Upon resetting, the keypad display turned on, and immediately tripped upon starting the priming phase. It tripped so quickly I never heard it begin to spin up. I revoved the motor from the pump housing and the impeller is clear and spins freely. When I power the unit and visualize the impeller it barely attempts to spin before the breaker is tripped. I switched the breaker with an identical one (20 amp GFCI) that runs my blower and that one tripped as well. The pump is bonded and all wiring is free of moisture and damage. I removed the control unit from the top of the unit and all connections in there look new. Does this indicate a shorted motor? I read somewhere else that it could be a bad capacitor but I dont even see one on the unit. Of course this would happen the right before the 4th :mad:

Thanks in advance
 
83,

I suspect that the control head is bad..

IntelliFlo pumps change the 240 Volts AC into DC pulses to drive the motor. The Control head is where this magic happens.

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
jfcullen83 said:
Hello all,

I have had an intelliflo VSF 3hp for 4 years with no issues, and today I noticed the pump never started. Sure enough the breaker had tripped. Upon resetting, the keypad display turned on, and immediately tripped upon starting the priming phase. It tripped so quickly I never heard it begin to spin up. I revoved the motor from the pump housing and the impeller is clear and spins freely. When I power the unit and visualize the impeller it barely attempts to spin before the breaker is tripped. I switched the breaker with an identical one (20 amp GFCI) that runs my blower and that one tripped as well. The pump is bonded and all wiring is free of moisture and damage. I removed the control unit from the top of the unit and all connections in there look new. Does this indicate a shorted motor? I read somewhere else that it could be a bad capacitor but I dont even see one on the unit. Of course this would happen the right before the 4th :mad:

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Most likely, the problem is in the motor driver (the block that you removed), which generates the AC required to power the motor at a selected speed. There are no equivalents of start/run capacitors. I don't have experience with Intelliflo pumps, but there are people on this forum who know them well.
 
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hexabc said:
Most likely, the problem is in the motor driver (the block that you removed), which generates the AC required to power the motor at a selected speed. There are no equivalents of start/run capacitors. I don't have experience with Intelliflo pumps, but there are people on this forum who know them well.
Click to expand...
I guess, you removed for inspection just the user interface panel from the top of the motor drive, not the motor drive itself.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the replies. I did remove the entire drive unit just to visualize the connection with the motor itself. We have had alot of rain lately so I wanted to make sure there wasnt any water in there. That would suck if the drive is bad, that stupid thing is expensive!
 
So I removed the drive unit from the motor and reset the breaker, I can select a speed and it shows itself in the priming phase. Does this indicate that the problem is with the motor itself and not the drive? The motor is very corroded for only a 4 year old unit I wonder if there has been an issue with it for a while?
 
83,

If the motor is badly corroded, then it could be the motor itself.

No way to know for sure. Generally the control head is bad, when they pop the breaker, but not sure in your case.

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
jfcullen83 said:
So I removed the drive unit from the motor and reset the breaker, I can select a speed and it shows itself in the priming phase. Does this indicate that the problem is with the motor itself and not the drive? The motor is very corroded for only a 4 year old unit I wonder if there has been an issue with it for a while?
Click to expand...
Are you saying that the panel doesn't report any errors when you press the start button while the drive is disconnected from the motor?
 
Update.

I changed out the gfi breaker for a standard one. The pump runs as it should without issue. I dont want to leave it like this but am happy that the pump is functioning. Could I just now be experiencing the issues associated with not having the specific pentair breaker? I have a square d QO panel. Not sure if the pentair will fit or not?
 

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Disconnect all power from the pump and check for continuity from the pump power input terminals to ground and then disconnect the drive and check the motor power input terminals to ground.

You can use a regular ohmmeter or you can use a megohmmeter if the regular ohmmeter does not give a result.

A megohmmeter uses a higher voltage to test for higher resistance than a regular ohmmeter.

 
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