New Arctic Spas Features for 2012

[Water Boy]

I wanted to share with you all of what I think are some exciting new features for Arctic Spas in 2012. I know some of you won't care, but I thought some might, so thought I would pass it along. One new feature for 2012 with the new Eco Paks and the OnSpa feature is the new Power Management System. This is a great feature for all the Canadian customers that have peak rates on their electrical charges. Eventually the peak rate charges will be in the US as well, so this is a good feature to have. This gives the customer the ability to tell their spa exactly when they want it to heat, filter, and run, based on their peak rates. Even if you don't have peak rates, sometimes people don't want the spa to run at night when they sleep if the spa is right by their bedroom. Now you can tell the spa to not run at all while you sleep. Here is a link if you want to read more on it:
http://www.arcticspas.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Power-Management.pdf

Another new feature that I like is a feature that is called ground fault testing. Lets say that the breaker is getting tripped on the spa. In the past, customers would go out and unplug component by component to figure out what is causing the spa to trip. That isn't as easy as it used to be as now all components are hard wired to the packs, instead of using the traditional j&j plugins. Now with the new software, the customer can run a simple ground fault test on the spa topside, and in about a minute or less it will discover what is causing the breaker to trip, and then shut off the relay on the spa pack for that component. That way, if it is cold out, the spa can still run until the spa technician can come out to repair the component that is tripping the breaker.

Again, don't mean to be a infomercial for Arctic, but wanted to share some exciting new features for 2012! Hope you all have a great year in 2012!

[Spatech_tuo]

Maybe I'm missing something but I'm confused on the second item.

If the spa has tripped the breaker, how is a customer going to "run a simple ground fault test on the spa topside" if the spa topside has no power?

[Water Boy]

Maybe I'm missing something but I'm confused on the second item.

If the spa has tripped the breaker, how is a customer going to "run a simple ground fault test on the spa topside" if the spa topside has no power?

Good question. If the spa is tripping the breaker right away, then obviously this feature wouldn't be possible as you need power to do it. But, sometimes the spa can trip randomly, or even take a minute or two after resetting the breaker to trip, which in that case this feature would be available and helpful. As long as you can start the ground fault test before the software starts up its software, this test still should be able to run. If the spa trips while the test is running, it will shut off the relay to the component that was causing the spa to trip. I emailed my tech guy at Arctic, and here was his answer:

"You are right, at that point one will have to troubleshoot the old fashioned way... but at least you know its not a component tripping the breaker (as the software hasn't even taken over the spa yet).  In this case it will be a mis-wired GFCI, a weak breaker, the transformer, a mis-wired spa pack, etc..

[ejf The Spa Guy]

I was also questioning the second one,,, but I see we're you going on that one.