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okay did more testing.. the spa is on now and working. Weird this is this however...on the wires that come OUT of the spa.... there are 2 blacks (power), 1 green (neutral), and then a bare copper wire (ground). Well I hook the 2 blacks and green up to the circuit breaker that is in the spa disconnect box. Then the bare copper wire I hook to the GROUND terminal in the spa disconnect box. When the bare cooper wire is hooked up, the circuit blows. When the bare copper wire is DISCONNECTED from the spa box, the spa turns on and everything works just fine.Problem is... now it seems the spa IS NOT grounded?? The spa is currently ONLY hooked up with 3 wires..... 2 black and 1 green into the spa disconnect panel. The bare copper wire from the spa is just sitting on the floor NOT hooked up to anything...why is this? is it dangerous to run the spa WITHOUT the copper wire hooked up?
When you say it is a 3-wire setup (and it also says this on the cover of the sentry control box inside the tub) does that mean you only need to hook up a total of 3 wires coming OUT of the hot tub into your GFCI spa disconnect box? I always thought that you needed to hook up 4 wires, 2 power, 1 neutral (green), and then a bare copper (ground) wire.But when I did this the tub kept throwing the breaker. If I DO NOT hook up the bare copper ground wire at all then the tub works fine. Instead I put the Green wire coming out of the hottub to the Ground bar located inside my spa disconnect panel.So that means I now ONLY have 3 wires coming out of my hottub connected.
I am not qualified to answer that question. That is why I suggested posting at the Doc's forum. They answer these type questions regularly. Be prepared, though, as you may get a remark such as...if you have to ask this question you should get a licensed electrician to install.