Is my Jacuzzi not getting enough juice or is my heater bad?

[cm123]

Hello.

I recently acquired a j-315 Jacuzzi that has not been turned on in about a year.

According to the website, and the manual it should require 15a. I have it temporary plugged into a 20a outlet that is inside my house with a 12AWG 20Amp extension cord.

When the Jacuzzi starts - it runs fine for about 10-15 seconds. The jets are running and everything sounds good - but there are 2 error codes displaying (COL and FL1) however I do not think that is related to this issue.

After about 10-15 seconds the spa suddenly turns off. It appears to trip the GFCI that is on the electrical cord - I am assume that is the case because I can wait about 20 seconds and hit the reset switch on the GFCI and the spa will turn back on.

If I unplug the heater from the main board the spa will turn on fine (and will display just a COL error) and stay on for as long as I want it to be on (and I can have the jets on full blast during that time period without the spa shutting off).

My question is - do you think that is some sort of ground fault or short in the heater that is tripping the GFCI - or do you think that when the heater is plugged in and the jets are on that is is drawing too much juice and trips the GFCI?

A new heater is around $200 so it wouldn't be too big of a deal....I just want to make sure it is the correct thing to be fixing.

 

[ajw22]

Welcome to TFP.

I think your heater has a problem and is tripping the GFCI.

Let's see what @RDspaguy says.

 

[RDspaguy]

On a 120v 20 amp hookup you cannot run the heater and jets at the same time. There should be a jumper or dipswitch on the circuit board to change its operation. It should run fine with the jets off (with circulation pump) or on low (uses low speed jets for heating).
Do you have a multimeter?
Post a pic of the circuit board and wiring diagram.